Kate Chopin’s The Storm: A Guide to Modern Love

Sometimes the rules and morals dictated to us by society are not in line with our own feelings and desires, especially when those feelings and desires are related to sex, romance or love. Throughout history, cultures have decided that some behaviors are encouraged, others are allowed and still others are considered wrong or transgressive. However, these expectations have been determined by a moral compass, which by definition shifts and changes, pushed and pulled by the magnetism of new ideas, philosophical ideals and religious concepts as they are introduced. The Storm is Chopin’s pull on this compass, an attempt to open the eyes of the public to a new conception of love, where romance and passion are not necessarily tied to marriage and its assumed fidelity. In it, she attempts to persuade the reader that there are different forms that love can take, and she admonishes the reader to accept that the Western notion of romantic love is just that; a notion. Through her characters Calixta and Alcee, she presents adultery as a powerful, cleansing event, much like ‘the storm’ of the story’s title; one that is able to strengthen the emotional bonds of a family, rather than dissolve them.

Chopin’s objective in this tale is most evident in the final sentence: “So the storm passed, and everyone was happy.” The storm, if taken to symbolize the adulterous act, has come and gone, and the house is still standing, a testament to the strong relationship that Calixta and Bobinot share. The house, a long standing metaphor for the family in Western literature, and the fact that it is still standing, gives us a glimpse into the strong emotional bonds that tie Calixta and Bobinot together, a fact cemented in the first scene, where Bobinot and Bibi discuss the coming storm, thinking of Calixta. As they watch the storm come, Bibi lays “his little hand on his father’s knee and [is] not afraid.” His parents are happily married, their house is strong, and there is no reason for Bibi to worry about the coming storm. After the storm, in the third passage, Bibi and Bobinot are welcomed home in a sentimental scene of familial love, Bobinot’s “explanations and apologies” dying on his lips as he sees Calixta, who is simply happy that they are home.

However, there is something missing in Calixta and Bobinot’s marriage. Passion. Relationship experts nowadays say that after two years of marriage, it becomes harder to keep the romance alive, and oftentimes the daily grind of raising a child or providing for a household can take a serious toll on a couple’s love life. This toll is shown through the descriptions of Bobinot and Calixta prior to the storm, before the intense renewal experience of adultery. Bobinot is described as sitting “stolidly” upon the keg, while holding a can of shrimps that he has purchased for Calixta. According to Webster’s, the word stolid means “having or expressing little or no sensibility; unemotional”. This description of Bobinot would seem out of place, with his seemingly happy family life, however, we can deduce through Chopin’s diction that the romance has gone from Bobinot and Calixta’s relationship. Bobinot is still the happy provider, symbolized in his buying of the shrimp, a loving gesture, but he and Calixta no longer share the romantic love that Calixta still craves. Accordingly, in the next passage, Calixta is furiously sewing during the onset of the storm, which she hardly notices until it gets too dark for her to see her work. She is burying her emotional needs in her work, taking care of her family, and in a sense, her emotional pot boils over. She must loosen her sacque at the throat, a symbolic gesture by Chopin indicating her openness to the attentions of another. This movement would not be significant in our day and age where it is appropriate to wear a sportsbra and shorts to work out, however, in Chopin’s time, women were expected to be covered from neck to ankle at all times, therefore making her choice to have Calixta loosen her blouse a significant one which would not have gone unnoticed by her readers. Later, during the encounter with Alcee, her “white neck, and a glimpse of her full, firm bosom [disturb] him powerfully”. The lovers then commence with a kiss and fall into the throes of unbridled passion, the adulterous conjugation giving Calixta a much needed reprieve from the stresses and pressures of motherhood and married life, thus showing adultery to be a positive act allowing a partner in a marriage a place to re-experience the romance and passion that so often dwindles as other priorities such as children take their place.

However, Calixta and her family are not the only ones who benefit from the storm. Alcee and Clarisse, a couple who are revealed to have been experiencing some tension, are able to find release after Alcee’s infidelity. It is inferred during the fourth passage that Clarisse is away on vacation due to some sort of marital issue, which is revealed during the fifth passage to be their “intimate conjugal life”, something which Clarisse is “more than willing to forego for a while”. For reasons assumed to be related to Alcee’s eagerness, Clarisse is happy to not be sleeping with her horny husband for the time being, and she is even more pleased that he is willing to let her stay at Biloxi for another month, something that he would likely have not done if he had not gotten his rocks off with Calixta. in this way, adultery is shown in a physical light, relieving the tensions of monogamy that result when partners are sexually mismatched, allowing one or the other to fulfill their sexual needs without straining the marriage, as Alcee and Clarisse have.

Alcee and Calixta, our adulterers are united in this story in their quest for self-completion. Calixta yearns for the romantic encounters of her yesteryears, her carefree times when she was not concerned with raising a child and taking care of a home. Alcee is particularly randy, and possibly forceful at home because of it. The storm brings them together and gives them both release from these desires, enabling them to go on with their previous lives without so much as a second-thought to any moral consequence of their actions. As a matter of fact, they both make positive changes in their marriages because of it; Calixta not sweating the small stuff like dirty boots in the house, and Alcee lovingly telling his wife to vacation for a month more. Based on our understandings of the characters, neither of them would have chosen these fore-mentioned courses of action had the adultery not taken place. Would the world be a better place if extramarital relationships of a sexual nature were considered normal and commonplace? Chopin thought so. Do you?