Analysis of Chopin's The Storm

In Kate Chopin's short story The Storm the major character Calixta commits adultery, but instead of feeling guilty over an act considered a sin in her time, she feels liberated. In effect, Chopin is saying that in this case, the female following through on her sexual feelings is good, a radical notion for her time. Chopin's main point, however, is not that adultery is good, but that a woman's self-fulfillment is. "The Storm" contains the basic theme that informs Chopin's work: the needs and desires of women are not met by the traditional roles prescribed to them in the late 19th Century. The theme of escape from tradition and authority was dominant in the work of Chopin, "a woman who lived before her time, whose stories might be seen as a vindication of the rights of women�."(Gilbert 12).

Chopin's fiction deals with the notion that marriage is repressive and confining for women. In "The Storm," Calixta is able to break her chains of confinement, if only temporarily. At a time when women were expected to behave "properly" that is to have limited sexual desire and to act passively Calixta goes against her society's standard of virtue. She chooses to give in to her emotions. Like the real storm of the story, Calixta becomes a force of nature.

"The Storm" is a follow up story to "At the 'Cadian Ball," in which Calixta, a woman from a lower-class, rural background is in love with the upper class, handsome Alcee who is sexually attracted to her but wants to marry into his o

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