Short Story The Storm

The devastated Calixta settles for marriage with the good-natured, boring husbandman Bobinet realizing that marriage will give her the safety and security demanded by her society. In "The Storm" Calixta is portrayed as a womanhood carrying out her wifely duties as ordained by her society. magical spell her husband and young son are away from home, her married, mysterious neighbor Alcee drops by to get out of the storm. Their sexual estrus is rekindled, and fulfilled, leaving all the characters better off. "So the storm passed and everyone was blessed" (Chopin 158) is the final (perhaps ironic) line of the account. The real shocking element of the tommyrot in the 1890s, however, is not the adultery as much as Calixta's lack of remorse and regret. Chopin chose not to have this story print during her lifetime, aware of how shocking her theme of female sexual freedom would be to her 1890s society. Today such stories are published all the time. What was shocking in 1890 is not shocking in 2003, but if the story is looked at from a feminist literary criticism view, a connection exists between the interpretation of the story in both time periods since the main theme if the burdensomeness of women.

In Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, a case is presented arguing that ultramodern women is still oppressed.

De Beauvoir argues from the point of view of gender, contending that the human body takes on a gendered form. One may be born a biological female, but one becomes a woman by acquiring a given set

Applying de Beauvoir's feminist philosophy to the character of Calixta, it is clear that Calixta is not glad in her marriage although on the surface she seems to enjoy the fooling rituals of sewing, laundry and other housework. But her marriage represents the death of her avowedly sexual nature. Through marriage, woman's erotic life is suppressed; she becomes zero point but her husband's "Other" half.

And Stephen R. Mandell. 4th Ed. Orlando:

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