The Storm Essay, Research Paper

Analysis of ?The Storm?

In McKnight Malmar?s frightening story ?The Storm? she

weaves a violent storm and murder together to heighten the

horrific fear that engulfs Janet Willsom. The storm is a

combination of mother nature, Janet?s emotions and her

heartbreaking dilemmas.

The story begins with Janet Willsom coming home from a

vacation seeing her sister who is very ill. She has come back

a week early hoping her husband, Ben, would be home so

she could surprise him but he?s not. There is a very strong

storm unfolding outside and Janet gets concerned with

Ben?s whereabouts. She wonders if he is still in the city

working late. There is a letter addressed to Ben on the table

but she destroys it because she knows that this letter is

probably no different from the others that have been sent to

him in the past.

Throughout this suspenseful tale she is lonely in the isolated

home far away from the busy urban city. As the storm got

worse, she started to hear footsteps and she thought she

saw a face at the window in the living room. Was this

ghostly face in the window her husband? Realizing that

maybe it was her imagination, she went to the basement to

get wood to make a fire.

The basement was damp and dark and there was a chill in

the air because the basement door was wide open. Janet

wondered if the wind was so strong that it blew it open or if

there was an intruder. She grabbed the doorknob and closed

it as hard as she could because the wind was so strong.

The fire wood was in the corner so she walked towards it.

All of a sudden she noticed that her old trunk was opened

just a crack, she walked to over to it and threw it open.

Lying in there was a body of a woman in a red dress with a

man?s diamond ring on her finger. In terror Janet ran up the

basement stairs, locked the door and reinforced it with a

heavy wooden chair. Simutainously she heard glass

shattering from the cellar window and ran into the living

room to calm her fears.

Soon after, Janet?s husband Ben walked in the front door

soaking wet, dirty and pale. She started to tell her husband

the events that had happened that night. He found it hard to

believe that there was a prowler lurking around outside and

that there was a dead body in the trunk. Janet took him to

the basement, they looked in the trunk but there was

nothing in it. She wondered if she was seeing things until

she saw the same diamond ring on her husband?s finger that

had been on the woman?s finger. She realizes that her

husband killed the woman. With all of the fear and strength

in her body she runs up the basement stairs, ignoring Ben

screaming her name she runs out of the house and never

looks back.

The story gave me a feeling that I was there out

of sight from her but watching her every move. It was

also from a very suspenseful third-person point of

view. Throughout the story she thinks about all the

good qualities her husband has and at the same time

is missing him. The letters that are addressed to him

says New York City on the envelope; he is always

angry about those letters but Janet never sees the

contents of those letters. My theory is that these

letters are from his mistress; she was

blackmailing him to leave his wife. There was a lot

of emphasis on the storm itself , She starts to

become apprehensive about the storm because of

its increasing power ?The wind hammered at the

door and the windows, and the air was full of the

sound of water, racing in the gutters, pouring from

the leaders, thudding on the roof.? (244) I feel that

there is a storm outside but there also a storm going

on from within Janet because she has doubt about

her husband?s fidelity.

As for the ghostly face in the window and the dead

woman in the trunk; her husband killed his mistress,

heard his wife walking in the front door, put the

dead body in the trunk and ran out the basement

door to the outside. He was the face Janet saw in the

window. Once she went to the basement to get fire

wood and left, he couldn?t open the basement door,

so he broke the window, took the dead body and

disposed of it. Janet yearns for her husband to

protect her from the storm and in the end she takes

comfort from the storm.