Kate Chopin

Is Bad Weather an Excuse for Deceit? In the story "The Storm", Kate Chopin plots a situation in which two people surrender to their physical desires. Chopin wrote fiction stories in the late 19th century. She was condemned due to the immorality presented in her work. At her times, woman was considered to be very innocent, and always faithful to her husband. In Chopin's work one sees a totally different view of a woman's behavior. She is not a popular writer of her era because of her crude works; the audience of her period could not justify her stories. In the story "the storm", Kate Chopin 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 (the female character) was a victim of her fear of the bad storm. Kate uses phrases such as "exclaimed", "put her hands to her eyes, and with a cry" etc. to gather sympathy from her readers for Calixta. Right before the act of betrayal comes in the plot, the heroine is worried about her child and that instead of being one of the pathos makes her look guiltier. As Calixta remembers that she is a mother of a child still it does not stop her from having sex with Alcee. Kate describes in detail the destruction the storm causes, "The rain was coming down . . . the very boards they stood upon" presenting a frightful atmosphere, but she is not able to justify Calixta's cheating on her husband or Alcee with his wife. Kate is being ironic in many instances during the plot of the story. For example, the four-year-old child of Calixta, Bibi is presented to be brave and not scared of the storm "Bibi laid his little hand on his father's knee and was not afraid" compared to Calixta, a grown up who looses her self-esteem due to her inner fear. Another example is when the writer describes the emotions in Calixta's eyes during the act of betrayal, "As she glanced up at him the fear in her liquid blue eyes had given place to a drowsy glean that unconsciously betrayed a sensuous desire". It is ironic in this case because as the writer builds up the plot, she constantly reminds her audience that 'the storm' is very destructive and scary, but later the reader finds that the fear is gone and is replaced by desire. It makes one think that the storm does not only destroy the characters' belongings; it destroys the trust and faith on which their marriages were based on. Kate makes her audience go off the track by describing the act of deception. She makes her readers forget that Calixta and Alcee are doing something wrong by getting in to details of their sexual experience. However, if one reads closely they would find that she is being sarcastic again when she makes the remark "without guile or trickery". It makes the reader realize that at the 'Assumption' Alcee does not have Calixta because she was a maiden, but now that both of them are married (to different people), does that allow him to have her and is it not still 'guile'? Later in the story, Kate makes the guilty characters look resolute and which made her audience exclaim in