Sex, Gender, and Liberation Theme Analysis

Kate Chopin’s “The Storm” tells of a brief, passionate encounter between Calixta and Alcée, two former lovers who reunite as a thunderstorm rages outside Calixta’s home. Alcée stops at Calixta’s house seeking shelter from the rain, which has also momentarily prevented Calixta’s husband, Bobinôt, and young son, Bibi, from returning home. The separation from her family grants Calixta and Alcée time to be alone. Calixta and Alcée subsequently have sex, allowing Calixta the opportunity to reignite the passionate side of her personality that she’s repressed as part of her role as a wife and mother. At the time Chopin wrote “The Storm” in 1898, women (like Calixta) were expected to lead one-dimensional lives as wives and nothing more. For the most part, Calixta embodies this ideal, rigid expectation of womanhood; indeed, if one were to subtract the adulterous sex scene from the story, Calixta is a delicate and wholly self-sacrificing character. But through her encounter with Alcée, Calixta transcends conventional notions of womanhood, tapping into a sensual side to her personality. As such, the sex at the center of “The Storm” is transgressive not just because of the extramarital affair; the sex is transgressive because it allows Calixta to act outside of the boundaries of acceptable female behavior.

In many ways, Calixta embodies the ideal of loving wife and mother. When Calixta first appears, she’s so immersed in her wifely duties—sewing clothes for her husband and son—that she barely notices an epic storm on the horizon. Even then, Calixta’s first response to the darkening sky is to think of her family’s laundry hanging outside to dry. Calixta's behavior falls in line with the gender expectations of the era, during which women were seen mainly as an extension of their husbands rather than people in their own right. Further, the fact that Calixta’s husband and young son are out at the time of the storm while she is at home also reflects genders roles of the time, as men were expected to provide for their families, while women tended to the domestic sphere. Taken together, each of these elements demonstrates traditionally material elements of Calixta’s personality. Thus, although the story ultimately climaxes with a betrayal of the marital agreement when Calixta and Alcée have sex, Calixta is nonetheless portrayed as a good wife and mother.

Yet Chopin takes care to show that, even though she is now a wife and mother, Calixta maintains the passion of a young woman. Calixta is notably introduced unbuttoning the “white sacque at the throat.” Chopin immediately establishes her protagonist as a passionate woman who cannot be contained by her restrictive, feminine dress. That this clothing is white—traditionally the color of purity—further suggests that Calixta bristles against the pressure to maintain a sense of propriety. The appearance of Alcée reminds Calixta of her life before she was a wife and mother. He asks her if she remembers a town called Assumption, where “he had kissed her and kissed and kissed her,” revealing that the two have a romantic history. This story is, in fact, a sequel to an earlier story by Chopin, “The ’Cadian Ball,” which detailed more of the relationship between Alcée and Calixta. Knowledge of that earlier tale is nevertheless unnecessary to recognize that the relationship with Alcée reflects that Calixta has had an entire life filled with experiences beyond the confines of her marriage.

Sex with Alcée allows Calixta to libertate her sensual self and merge her younger, passionate self with her more mature, dutiful self. When Alcée first encounters Calixta, she’s described as “a little fuller of figure than five years before when she married; but she had lost nothing of her vivacity.” In other words, Calixta’s former self is still present under the surface of an older body. Sex with Alcée further provides Calixta an opportunity to reengage her sensual self that, as a wife and mother, she is expected to have lost. When Alcée and Calixta first begin their physical encounter, Alcée reminisces about the person Calixta once was, remembering her as a “passionate” young woman. But, as they continue to embrace, Calixta reveals she still contains a “generous abundance of passion.” It’s important to note that the presence of the sensual part of Calixta’s personality does not erase her sense of self as a wife and mother; after the encounter with Alcée ends and Calixta’s family returns home, Calixta meets her family with an open heart, having “nothing but satisfaction at their safe return.” As a character, she thus contains multitudes: sensuality, generosity, passion, and capacity for maternal love.

However, just as Calixta is renewed by sex with Alcée, Alcée’s wife, Clarisse, is restored by the absence of sex with Alcée. When Clarisse receives Alcée’s kind letter, encouraging her to stay on her vacation as long as she’d like, she thinks fondly towards her husband and is also grateful for the break from having to be physically intimate with him. Thus, while the sex with Alcée renewed Calixta, the absence of sex with Alcée has the same effect on Clarissa. Readers get the sense that Clarisse is a good wife (Chopin describes her as “devoted”) who simply needs a break. For example, Clarisse describes sex with Alcée (the couple’s “intimate conjugal life”) as “something which she was more than willing to forego for a while.” For Clarisse, the time away from her husband is the “free breath” which allows her to recapture a bit of herself before she became a wife.

“The Storm” did not appear in print until 1968, long after Chopin’s death; Chopin assumed that the sexually explicit content meant no editor would publish the now-classic short story. She likely was right: stories about women’s sexual pleasure—particularly stories authored by women—were rare to see in print during Chopin’s lifetime. Yet what makes “The Storm” risqué is more than the sex itself. “The Storm” suggests that women are more than wives and mothers, and as such can—and perhaps must—look outside their families to find fulfillment and happiness.