Main Themes in Kate Chopin's 'The Storm'

In The Storm, we are first introduced to Bobinôt and his four-year old son Bibi. They are waiting out a storm in a store while Calixta, dutiful housewife to Bobinôt and mother to Bibi, is home alone. When she notices the oncoming storm and steps outside to retrieve clothing from the washing line, her former apple of her eye. Alcee rides up to the house on his horse and asks whether he could wait out the storm on her front porch. This eventually leads to a rather off the charts sexual scene, which coincides perfectly with the crescendo of the storm pounding the roof, leaving both parties equally satisfied as they part ways and continue their own individual lives. What brings Calixta and Alcee together, besides their history and attraction to each other, is also the fact that they are similar in the sense that both their marriages lack passion. Calixta is not the only one who experiences pleasure like she has never had before her passion “penetrated and found response in depths of his own sensuous nature that had never yet been reached”. This shows that Alcee is also unhappy with his intimate life with Clarisse, his wife.

There are several themes running throughout The Storm by Kate Chopin. Portrayed first and foremost are the roles that society places on us, in this case Calixta inhibiting the role of housewife and mother in Part I. We are shown of the themes of Romantic love and filial love. She is engrossed in her housework (“sewing furiously”), so engrossed even that she does not notice the fact that a storm is on its way until the sky darkens. This could already be symbolic of the suppression of women as individuals in society; her role as wife and mother is consuming her, leaving little space to explore any other desires or needs that she may otherwise have.

Part II then reflects a revolutionary kind of woman for the time this story was written, since Calixta is portrayed here as a woman with her own sexual desires and needs; man’s desire for woman is not the preface of this, as Calixta’s “eyes betrayed a sensuous desire” mirroring Alcee’s “desire for her flesh” .

The role of (human) nature and morality is a third theme in this short story; it seems like Chopin is condoning this affair, be it as a statement for the sexual freedom of women and an emphasis on the importance of equality or simply a reflection on natural phenomena and the fact that it is in our human nature to experience and enjoy sexual encounters. The fact that their climax coincides with the crescendo of the storm only further highlights the Romantic idea of our link as natural beings to the natural world; when the intensity of their passion increases, so does the storm; when it stops raining and the sun turns “the glistening green world into a place of gems” they are at ease and beaming at each other as Alcee rides off on his horse in Part III. The journey Calixta travels, from fulfilling the societal role given to her as mother and wife to her transformation into an individual, sexual and natural being, truly shows the influence of Romantic love elements throughout this (short) story.