THE STORM.
In the story "The Storm", Kate Chopin plots a situation in which two people surrender to their physical desires. It deals with a housewife who has an affair with her love from the past. This short story issues with moral values, infidelity, and how society would judge such behavior. While it has traditionally been men who have attached the ball and chain literally to marriage, Chopin gives the reader a woman's view of how repressive and confining marriage can be for a woman. Both spiritually and sexually, and how pleasure can be experienced in a tempestuous and stormy way. I think that in the story the author by hiding the immoral behavior of her characters behind the fear of bad weather is being ironic. The writer tries really hard to convince her readers that Calixta was a victim of her fear of the bad storm. This story is also written based on a time when women were expected to behave properly and the though of sexual desire was something experienced only by men. .
Hence, is bad weather an excuse for deceit? In a time where society is considered to be closed minded and women were only house wives dedicated to their families and children, in which they were to be conservative and well mannered into the rule of their husbands. In this case, Calixta was unable to fulfill society's standards of virtue, despite her purity by her love Alcee. We are always likely to criticize others instead of trying to understand the reason of the problem. For example in this case the storm is what causes Calixta and Alcee to have sexual relations, stating the fact that the storm is very destructive and scary, but later the fear is gone and is replaced by desire and therefore she looses her self-esteem due to her inner fear. In Calixta's case, she knew this was never going to happen again for they had already chosen their own separate ways. Her husband was a great life partner and father to her son.
