“The Storm” details a passionate encounter between former lovers Calixta and Alcée. Set long after the pair share a kiss in a different Chopin short story, “The Storm” tells the story of two people with unrequited sexual chemistry. At this point in their lives, Calixta has a husband, Bobinôt, and Alcée has a wife, Clarisse. Both are also parents to young children. When Alcée seeks shelter at Calixta’s home during a thunderstorm, the pair rekindle their romance. Thrown together by a chance encounter, Calixta and Alcée revisit the passion they both felt as younger people. The experience leaves both Calixta and Alcée with increased tenderness towards their families which, in turn, leaves "everyone was happy." "Everyone" here refers to both married couples: Alcée and Clarisse, as well as Calixta and Bobinôt.
When readers first met Calixta, she prioritizes her home and family over her own well-being. Leading up to her sexual encounter with Alcée, Calixta is working hard to maintain the family home, sweating profusely over a sewing machine. She responds to the storm not by seeking safety for herself, but rather by attempting to gather laundry left outside. When lightning strikes violently nearby, shaking the “very boards” Calixta and Alcée stand on and splitting a nearby tree, Calixta responds by fretting about her son, Bibi, who happens to be safer than herself. As such, it’s clear that Calixta is completely preoccupied with maintaining the home at the risk of her own safety. The storm triggers an outburst from Calixta, who’s initially unable to handle the stress of it. She is so distraught, she begins to cry, unable to “compose herself.” Without Alcée’s assistance, it’s unclear if Calixta could face the storm at all. Taken together, these details reveal that Calixta is clearly stressed out. Fixated on keeping up her home, Calixta is quickly thrown into a frenzy over the developing storm. Because she’s so single-minded in this regard, she’s unable to handle the thunderstorm without Alcee’s help. As a result, she places herself in a dangerous situation. Without taking care of herself first Calixta is unable take care of anyone.
Readers get the sense that Calixta’s level of stress is generally high, leading her to snap at her family over minor infractions. As they trek back through wet fields, both Bobinôt and Bibi are preoccupied with Calixta’s reaction to tracking mud into the house, “expecting the worst.” The stress causes Bibi to carry a sense of “pathetic resignation,” while Bobinôt is the “embodiment of serious solicitude.” The pair expect Calixta—as an “over-scrupulous housewife—to respond with anger when they return home. Due to Bobinôt’s fear of Calixta’s anger, he stops to periodically scrape mud from their clothes, even though they are tired and soggy. Bobinôt and Bibi’s general displeasure to return to Calixta indicates a high level of tension within the home, with Calixta ready to snap at any disruption in the cleanliness of her domain.
As they have sex, Calixta and Alcée focus on their own happiness rather than the service of their families. Afterwards, they are kinder to their spouses. The moment of intimacy allows Alcée and Calixta to escape the daily grind as the two take a moment to “swoon together at the very borderland of life’s mystery.” With Calixta, Alcée accesses new “depths of his own sensuous nature.” Afterwards, the once-stressed Calixta is left in a much better mood, “beaming” and “laughing.” As a happier woman, Calixta is kinder to her family; when Bobinôt and Bibi return, Calixta appears renewed, with “nothing but satisfaction at their safe return.” Alcée also appears driven by consideration keep his family healthy and happy. This motivation inspires Alcée to send a “loving letter, full of tender solicitude” to his wife, Clarisse, encouraging to take a longer vacation if she’d like, and reminding her that her happiness and well-being is a priority for him. Attending to their own sexual desires appears to spark an expression of love and care from Alcée and Calixta towards their families.
At the end of the story, both Clarisse and Alcée and their respective families are happy. At the center of Clarissa and Alcée’s good moods is the fact that the both took the time to tend to their own personal desires. Through its happy ending, Chopin’s story of an extramarital affair makes the radical claim that sex outside of marriage isn’t as sinful or shameful as readers may think. Instead, both Calixta and Alcée appear devoted as ever to their respective spouses and exhibit a clear sense of generosity of spirit following their sexual encounter. Thus, rather than destroying relationships, love breeds more love.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Marriage and Infidelity ThemeTracker
Marriage and Infidelity Quotes in The Storm
“My! what a rain! It’s good two years sence it rain’ like that,” exclaimed Calixta as she rolled up a piece of bagging and Alcée helped her to thrust it beneath the crack.
Bibi was the picture of pathetic resignation. Bobinôt was the embodiment of serious solicitude as he strove to remove from his own person and his son’s the signs of their tramp over heavy roads and through wet fields. He scraped the mud off Bibi’s bare legs and feet with a stick and carefully removed all traces from his heavy brogans. Then, prepared for the worst—the meeting with an over-scrupulous housewife, they entered cautiously at the back door.
“Oh, Bobinôt! You back! My! but I was uneasy. W’ere you been during the rain? An’ Bibi? he ain’t wet? he ain’t hurt?” She had clasped Bibi and was kissing him effusively.
Bobinôt’s explanations and apologies which he had been composing all along the way, died on his lips as Calixta felt him to see if he were dry, and seemed to express nothing but satisfaction at their safe return.
“I brought you some shrimps, Calixta,” offered Bobinôt, hauling the can from his ample side pocket and laying it on the table.
“Shrimps! Oh, Bobinôt! you too good fo’ anything!” and she gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek that resounded. “J ’vous reponds, we’ll have a feas’ to-night! umph-umph!”
Alcée Laballiere wrote to his wife, Clarisse, that night. It was a loving letter, full of tender solicitude. He told her not to hurry back, but if she and the babies liked it at Biloxi, to stay a month longer. He was getting on nicely; and though he missed them, he was willing to bear the separation a while longer—realizing that their health and pleasure were the first things to be considered.
And 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. So the storm passed and every one was happy.
