Kate Chopin 2 Essay, Research Paper

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In all of Kate Chopin s writings she placed a great deal of importance on the rights and

freedom of the women of her time. Chopin believed that women should have emotional, sexual,

and intelluctual freedom and this belief was presented within the lines of all of her short stories,

novels, and poems.(Gilbert, Gubar 1012)

The Awakening by Kate Chopin was considered very shocking when it was first published

because of it s sexual awakening of the main character, Edna Pontellier, and her unconventional

behavior.(Nickerson,www.assumpution.edu) The Awakening begins at Grande Isle, a vacation

spot of wealthy Creoles from New Orleans. Edna is there with her two sons and her husband

Leonce who comes and goes because of business. Edna has always done what is expected of a

woman including marrying a man she didn t love. He regard her as a possession rather than a

person. While on vacation Edna meets and falls in love with Robert Lebrun and they begin an

whorl wind affair. Edna is distraught when she finds out that Robert has left her because he loves

her: I love you. Good-bye, because I love you. (Chopin The Awakening) Edna is so distressed

that she returns to Grand Isle where she goes swimming in the cold sea. Purposely she swims out

too far and drowns herself.

Even though it was written in the Victorian era, Kate Chopin s The Awakening has

several romantic qualities which are present in a number of her short stories. This storys

romanticism deals prominently with the main character, as she struggles between society s

obligations and her own desires. Chopin writes about a woman who continues to reject the

society around her, a notion too radical for Chopin s peers. Edna Pontellier has the traditional role

of both mother and wife, but deep down she wants something. It never satisfied Edna, who

always seemed out of place when with other women to be just a Victorian Woman. She was a

wife and mother, but not a typical Victorian wife and mother. With regards to her children, Their

absence was sort of relief…… It seemed to free her of a responsibility which she blindly assumed

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and for which Fate had not fitted her (Chopin The Awakening) Already she is revealing ideas

uncommon in the Victorian era. She tries to maintain her roles, but it is very difficult for her.

Victorian society was not ready for a novel whose main character disregards the norm for

her own happiness. The rejection Chopin received was mainly due to Edna s rejection of the

traditions and the adultery aspect of the story. In revealing her love for Robert, her romantic

passion is expressed. I love you, she whispered only you; no one but you. It was you who

awoke me last summer out of a life- long stupid dream…. Oh! I have suffered, suffered! Now you

are here we shall love each other, my Robert. (Chopin The Awakening) Romanticism is evident

as the novel ends and Edna completely rejects the Victorian ways. With Chopin s ending, she

creates an idea that her society cannot accept. Edna tried to maintain her role as long as she

could, but it became too much for her life, and she needed to do the best thing. In her mind, that

meant killing herself in the water which had no boundaries and no restrictions.

In Kate Chopin s short story The Storm , the narrative surrounds the brief extramarital

affair of two individuals, Calixta and Alcee. Many critics do not see the story as a condemnation

of infidelity, but rather as an affirmation of human sexuality. If you are going to interpret The

Storm , it becomes necessary to examine the conditions surrounding the story s beginning. The

story was written shortly after Chopin completed The Awakening, the boldest treatment so far in

American literature of the sensous, independent woman (Seyersted164). The Storm was not

published until well after Chopin s death, probably because of the sensuousness of the story for

that time period. In his critical biography Kate Chopin, Per Seyersted argues that The Storm is

objective in its portrayal of human sexuality and that Chopin is not consciously speaking as a

woman, but as an individual (Seyersted 169)

The title of The Storm , with its obvious implications of sexual energy and passion, is of

course critical to any interpretation of the narrative.(Wilson 23) Chopin s title refers to nature,

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which is a symbol for feminism. The storm can be seen as a symbolic meaning for feminine

sexuality and passion, and the image of the storm will be returned to again and again throughout

the story. At the beginning of the story, which is divided into five parts, Bobinot and his young

son Bibi decide to wait out a rapidly approaching storm at the store. Bonbinot s wife, Calixta, is

home alone, tending to the household chores. The second part begins with Calixta being unaware

that a storm is approaching. She sat at a side window sewing furiously on a sewing machine. She

was greatly occupied and did not notice the approaching storm. But she felt very warm and often

stopped to mop her face on which the perspiration gathered in beads. She unfastened her white

sacque at the throat. It began to grow dark, and suddenly realizing the situation she got up

hurriedly and went about closing windows and doors. Out on the small front gallery she had hung

Bobinot s Sunday clothes to air and she hastened out to gather them before the rain fell. (Chopin

The Storm)

Calixta s unbuttoning of her jacket foreshadows the sexual encounter to come with Alcee,

but her actions suggest something greater. She is unaware of the storm s approach; although she

is married and has a child she is unaware of the sexuality and passion within her. He sexuality is

repressed by the constraints of her marriage and society s view of women. The passage about

housework and her husband s Sunday clothers alludes to the church s importance to

soceity.(Pickering 210)

As Calixta is gathering up the laundry, Alc+ e Laballi+ re enters the yard, seeking shelter

from the coming storm. The reader’s immediate impression of Alc+ e is that he is a man of the

world; this contrasts sharply with the author’s presentation of Bobin++t in the first section. He is

seen as a simple man, an intellectual equal to his four-year old son: “Bobin++t… was accustomed to

converse on terms of perfect equality with his little son” (Chopin The Storm) There is a mutual

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attraction between Calixta and Alc+ e, and this attraction is not new: (Pickering 211) “She had not

seen him very often since her marriage, and never alone” (Chopin The Storm). Their acquaintance

with each other is explained in another Chopin story, “At the ‘Cadian Ball” (1892), but in this

earlier story the attraction between Calixta and Alc+ e is only briefly explored.

With Alc+ e’s arrival comes the beginning of the rain, and he asks to wait out the storm on

the front gallery: “May I come and wait on your gallery till the storm is over, Calixta?” he asked.

Come ‘long in, M’sieur Alc+ e. “His voice and her own startled her as if from a trance, and she

seized Bobin++t’s vest. Alc+ e, mounting to the porch, grabbed the trousers and snatched Bibi’s

braided jacket that was about to be carried away by a sudden gust of wind (Chopin The Storm).

The apparent difference in formality with which they address each other is important;

Alc+ e addresses Calixta informally, as befits a man addressing a woman, but her response is

almost somewhere between formality and informality. The “trance” that Calixta is startled from is

her sudden awareness that she is still sexually attracted to Alc+ e, even though both are

constrained by their respective marriage vows. Alc+ e grabs Bobin++t’s pants, symbollically

uprooting the social and marital constraints that control Calixta. The strength of the

ever-increasing storm quickly drives Alc+ e inside, and it even becomes necessary to put something

underneath the door to keep the storm out: “Calixta … rolled up a piece of bagging and Alc+ e

helped her to thrust it beneath the crack” (Chopin The Storm). The imagery here is obviously

sexual, but it is important to note that it is Calixta who is the initiator of the ‘thrusting’; Alc+ e only

helps her to keep the storm out, and therefore the storm of sexual passion in.

Chopin next creates a paragraph that details Calixta’s appearance: She was a little fuller

of figure than five years before when she married; but she had lost nothing of her vivacity. Her

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blue eyes still retained their melting quality; and her yellow hair, dishevelled by the wind and rain,

kinked more stubbornly than ever about her ears and temples. (Chopin The Storm). Nowhere

does Chopin suggest that this is Alc+ e’s vision of Calixta. The author’s purpose in describing

Calixta, then, is to clearly link the protagonist to sensuality and passion, to the very elements of

the symbolism of the storm.(Wilson 24)

The storm outside continues to increase, reflecting the sexual tension inside. Calixta and

Alc+ e move through the rooms of the house until they are adjoining Calixta’s bedroom, and we

see the lack of passion in marriage represented by the separate beds that Calixta and Bobin++t

have. The room’s description also hints at the mystery of passion: “The door stood open, and the

room with its white, monumental bed, its closed shutters, looked dim and mysterious” (Chopin

The Storm) The images in the bedroom seem to contrast one another, the white purity of

innocence versus the dark mystery of sin, but there is also irony in the images: neither Calixta nor

Alc+ e are pure, but the forbidden knowledge of sin would be seen by their society as being more

the province of men than of women (Evans htttp://falcon.jmu.edu)

Calixta begins to gather up a cotton sheet that she has been sewing, in effect putting away

a symbol of society’s constraints. She is becoming as unsettled as the elements outside, the passion

of the storm echoing her inner emotions. Calixta and Alc+ e move to a window to watch the

storm, and when lightning strikes nearby, Calixta staggers backward into Alc+ e’s arms, and for a

moment he draws her “close and spasmodically to him” (Chopin The Storm). Alc+ e has apparently

not, until this point, sensed the passion that Calixta feels: “The contact of her warm, palpitating

body when he had unthinkingly drawn her into his arms had aroused all the old-time infatuation

and desire for her flesh” (Chopin The Storm). Chopin presents both Alc+ e and Calixta as sexual

beings, but she is clearly focusing on the sexuality of her feminine protagonist: Her lips were as

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red and moist as pomegranate seed. Her white neck and a glimpse of her full, firm bosom

disturbed him powerfully. As she glanced up at him the fear in her liquid blue eyes had given place

to a drowsy gleam that unconsciously betrayed a sensuous desire. He looked down into her eyes

and there was nothing for him to do but to gather her lips in a kiss. ( Chopin The Storm)

Calixta and Alc+ e embrace, giving in to the storm of passion that is now present in both

of them. It is Calixta’s sexuality, her passion, her sensuality that threatens to deluge Alc+ e. Chopin

again alludes to the characters’ previous attraction, providing further commentary on society’s

views of feminine sexuality: “Do you remember — in Assumption, Calixta?” he asked in a low

voice broken by passion. Oh! she remembered; for in Assumption he had kissed her and kissed

and kissed her; until his senses would well nigh fail, and to save her he would resort to a desperate

flight. If she was not an immaculate dove in those days, she was still inviolate; a passionate

creature whose very defenselessness had made her defense, against which his honor forbade him

to prevail. Now — well, now — her lips seemed in a manner free to be tasted, as well as her

round, white throat and her whiter breasts. (Chopin The Storm)

Calixta’s passion, held back before marriage by society’s views on premarital sex and

virginity, is now free to be experienced by both Calixta and Alc+ e. They cast aside the constraints

of society and the boundaries of their respective marriages, and Chopin says that Calixta “is

knowing for the first time [her] birthright” (Chopin The Storm), the birthright of feminine

sexuality and passion. Calixta’s “generous abundance of… passion” is now “without guile or

trickery” and it finds “response in depths of his own sensuous nature that had never yet been

reached” (Chopin The Storm). Even though neither has found passion of this depth in their

respective marriages, Chopin presents the incident as arising from Calixta’s passion and

sexuality:(Pickering 202) When he touched her breasts they gave themselves up in quivering

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ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth was a fountain of delight. And when he possessed her, they

seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life’s mystery. (Chopin The Storm)

Chopin contrasts the very real existence of feminine sexuality with society’s unwillingness

to admit that it exists by describing their lovemaking with an unreserved sensuousness that would

have been far too direct for the society of Chopin’s time. The storm outside gives way to a soft

rain, and the torrential downpour that was symbolic of passion and sexuality now becomes

symbolic of a cleansing purification. The author implies that female sexuality is pure and without

sin. Indeed, as Alc+ e leaves, he turns and smiles, and Calixta laughs out loud; her passion is seen

to be natural, experienced without guilt or shame (Evans http://falcon.jmu.edu).

In the third part of the story, Bobin++t and Bibi return home after walking through the mud

left behind by the storm. Here Bobin++t is presented as a good and kind man, who has been

thoughtful enough to try and tidy himself and his son up and to have bought his wife a can of

shrimps. They enter the house “prepared for the worst — the meeting with an over-scrupulous

housewife” (Chopin The Storm); this is somewhat ironic, as Calixta had foresaken all of her

marital duties in submitting to her passion. Calixta does not reproach them for their appearance,

but instead greets them with nothing but happiness and satisfaction at their safe return. After she

finishes preparing supper, the family sits down to dinner and “they laughed much and so loud that

anyone might have heard them as far away as Laballi+ re’s” (Chopin The Storm). For Calixta, the

story ends with her renewal of her marital duties; she is now aware, however, of the true extent of

her natural, passionate, sexual nature.

The last two parts of the story serve to further emphasize the author’s views concerning

passion and marriage. Alc+ e writes a “loving letter, full of tender solicitude” to his wife; although

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he misses her, he is willing to bear their separation another month if she desires to remain at Biloxi

with the babies a while longer, “realizing that their health and pleasure were the first things to be

considered” (Chopin The Storm). His wife is perfectly happy to remain at Biloxi: “… the first free

breath since her marriage seemed to restore the pleasant liberty of her maiden days. Devoted as

she was to her husband, their intimate conjugal life was something which she was more than

willing to forego for a while” (Wilson 34). Alc+ e, like Calixta, is newly aware of the depths of the

passion within himself, and this passion is not satisfied within the boundaries of his marriage.

The final line of “The Storm” is important in its relationship to the work as a whole. The

line seems to be inserted by chance into the story: “So the storm passed and everyone was happy”

(Chopin The Storm). There is a purpose in the ambiguity of the ending, however; it allows Chopin

to create an ending that unifies her central theme(Pickering 212). Throughout the narrative, she

presents feminine sexuality through the imagery of the storm. Her protagonist is unaware of the

sexuality within herself, and it is only by casting aside the constraints of society and marriage that

she is able to know her true birthright, feminine sexuality. Chopin is not arguing that one can only

acheive this knowledge outside of marriage, but rather that it can only be acheived in the absence

of societal constraints; her unreserved portrayal of feminine sexuality would have been seen as a

radical affront to the society of her time. The ending is therefore purposefully vague: one may see

the storm’s passage as implying a happy ending, or one may see it as implying that the storm will

eventually return, perhaps with the intent to destroy. Kate Chopin, however, sees feminine

sexuality as something that is pure, natural, and very real in its existence; one cannot assume that

a brief and limited awakening that passes like a storm will be enough to make one happy.

Unlike Awakenings and The Storm , A Pair of Silk Stockings is a tame writing of

Kate Chopins. There aren t any sexual innuendoes present in this story. A Pair of Silk Stockings

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is a fun little piece that one can imagine didn t cause one critic to blink. Although the story isn t

sexually charged, there is a common theme in all of her writings, a female as the main character.

In this story the main character is Little Mrs. Sommers and she is a mother of an unspecified

number of children.

Mrs. Sommers has just come into a large amount of money ,well what seemed to her as a

large amount of money. Mrs. Sommers has found herself with fifteen dollars. The question of

what to do with the money was something that she takes into great consideration. While laying in

bed she thinks off all the things she could buy her children. Mrs.Sommers and her family aren t

very wealthy so the story implyed, but never actually said. This woman is a mystery because not

much is known about her background. Chopin gives a superfical view of this woman and her

family. A husband is mentioned once, but readers aren t given an in depth view at who he is and

what role he plays in the life of Mrs.Sommers and her children. The children themselves are also a

mystery. The are mentioned once as a passing thought and then put into the background.

Although Mrs.Sommers intends to buy things for her children the longing to have finer

things for herself takes over and those thoughts are quickly forgotten as she is possessed by the

things she see in the stores. She indulges in all the finers things that she has seen on her way to the

bargain racks, and the tempation becomes to strong and she goes on a shopping spree.

As in Chopin s previous stories this female character also goes against the grain of

conventional society, by buying what was wanted and not what was needed. She expressing a

sense of independence and selfishness unconcerned with others in her life, but only seeing her

needs or in this case her wants. She forgets about the outstanding needs of her children which in

the beginning of the story were so poignantly pointed out. In the end Mrs.Sommers realizes that

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her fantasy day is over as she boards the trolley. A man on the trolley notices her not because of

an attraction, but because her can see on her face a longing for the trolley to take her

anywhere,but backfrom where she came.

In conlusion, Chopin s stories whether centers of controversy or short quiet little pieces

have a feministic point of view. The needs and wants of the female lead character are paramount

to all coinciding details presented within the storys plot. A reader can conclude from Chopin s

stories that she believed in women s liberation, even before the movement begun. Her stories may

have been an escape for all women in her time that could relate to the oppressed Edna Pontellier,

the unaware Calixta and the dreaming Mrs.Sommers.

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