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Author Kate Chopin has expressed feminine freedom in two of her short stories: "The Storm" and "Story of an Hour". She was the breakthrough author for female independence and human sexuality. Through these two short stories, Chopin describes the lives of two women who discover their freedom in times where society does not accept women as equal to men. "The Storm" relates love and marriage as a prevention for free full blown passion. "Story of an Hour" relates love and marriage to unhappiness and repression.
"The Storm" holds a very symbolic meaning for passion.
It affirms feminine sexuality through Calixta and Alcee's relationship. Despite Calixta's marriage to Bobinot, she proceeds with her unacceptable behavior in society with Alcee and commits adultery. Her newfound passion determines the importance of passion in 1890s where many women felt they were bound. Many parts in the story foreshadow Calixta and Alcee's sexual encounter. The storm itself was describing their progressing passion with the encounter of a lightening bolt and thunder: "Calixta put her hands to her eyes, and with a cry, staggered backward.
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Alcee's arm encircled her, and for an instance he drew her close and spasmodically to him." The increasing power of the storm represents the increasing passion between the two lovers.
This short story puts aside the constraints of society and marriage, and opens a door for feminine sexuality.
The same sense of freedom that Chopin expressed in "The Storm" applies to "Story of an Hour". Main character Louise Mallard is an elderly woman who has lost her husband.
She is in a state of thought when she realizes her newfound freedom. She discovers that her marriage was a bondage and hopes for a long life to enjoy this new freedom. Her marriage seemed to have cast shadows on her happiness. In this time of thought, she focuses on her own feelings and indifference to her husband Brently Mallard. Even more so Louise is affected with her heart condition.
Her heart condition foreshadowed Louise's demise. It's purpose was to describe her as weak of heart and weak of character. She could not accept her misery and lacked honor even so to be aware of her own unhappiness. This again expressed the oppression of women in the 1890s mentally and physically.
The two stories share a sense of contradiction. Calixta is left happy and renewed after her experience. She welcomes her husband Bobinot and her son Bibi happily when they arrive home after the storm. This is where Chopin describes the first step into freedom of marriage and sexuality. "Story of an Hour" on the other hand expresses demise of a woman who was on the verge of freedom. Louise is happy too when she realizes that her marriage was preventing her from happiness. She chanted the word free to her self in realization. She is so overwhelmed with her freedom that she dies when her surviving husband appears to her. She dies of knowing that she does not have her freedom after all.
Chopin expressed love as a way of freedom and oppression in her short stories. She described Calixta's adultery a passion while Louis's marriage an oppression. Either way, it lead to some sort of resolution into freedom. The discovery of passion in "The Storm" was so great that Alcee himself did not want to commit to his wife. In "Story of an Hour" Louise Mallard considered her marriage and love unreal and unworthy of her. She does not want to be under the will of another person Women of Chopin's time felt these fictionous stories, but were undermined of society.
Love, passion, and marriage work together in "The Storm" and "Story of an Hour" to bring an idea to the reader of how relationships were in the 1890s. Love and marriage fall to passion in Chopin's stories.
The theme in the story is freedom. As the story starts when finds out that her husband has died in train wreck and she was surprised when she received the news. She reacted to this horrifying news like anyone else would. She rushed off to her room to be away from everyone that wanted to see her. Yes, she is upset that her husband is dead but she becomes happy about it as the story goes on. “When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over underneath her breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body“ (Chopin 15). When it talks about her pulse beating fast some people may think that means when people has a crush on each other. For example, if someone sees a person they like all the time, their heart and pulse can beat faster when they are around them.
Once she has “abandoned” herself, the reader realizes that her love is to be “free, free, free.“ Her recognition is evident in the “coursing blood that warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.“ We learn that, although Mr. Mallard was a loving husband, Mrs. Mallard felt trapped in her marriage. As a result of society's expectations for married women: she whispers the word "Free!" over and over, in disbelief that she has been set free of these expectations by her husband's passing. She acknowledges that he loved her but that she had to "bend her will" in their relationship.
At this point Mrs. Mallard is being reborn. She isn’t in the shadow following her husband all the time. As she walked up to her window she saw that spring has finally arrived. Winter has died and spring is being born. The same applies for Mrs. Mallard; winter being her husband that has died and spring being her newfound freedom has been born. “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves” (Chopin 5). This creates an “open” atmosphere that leads to the “delicious” outside where there are inviting sounds. There’s a definite tension between the inside and outside worlds.
Instead of dwelling on death and sadness, Mrs. Mallard seems to notice only signs of "new spring life": the scent of rain that has just ended is "delicious" and she hears the little birds "twittering" all around. Further, she notices someone singing as well as a peddler calling out the names of the things he has for sale. Moreover, spring is often associated with new life as a result of trees and flowers blooming again and new animals being born after winter: Mrs. Mallard came alive after learning her husband's death rather than being brought low because of it. Her response, as seen during this quotation, is quite the opposite of what one would anticipate. The new spring life that she notices outside -- the uncaged birds and so forth -- seems to suggest that she can now conceive of herself as "free" when she could not before.
Mrs. Mallard knows now that she only has herself. She does no longer have to make everyone happy but herself. She does no longer have to answer to anyone but herself.
Kate Chopin's Story Of An Hour And The Storm. (2016, Jul 13). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/kate-chopins-story-of-an-hour-and-the-storm-essay
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