Victorian Storm Kate Chopin Is Often Referred

¶ … Victorian Storm Kate Chopin is often referred to as a writer who was well ahead of her time both in her observations of human nature, and in her daringness to write about intimate issues when such a topic was not commonly acknowledged or discussed. Her short story, "The Storm," helped reveal the universality of human passion, extending it to the female as well as the male, and it also helped disclose a truer, more human nature to the emotions and sensuality of the female.

When Kate Chopin was born in St. Louis in 1850, the scope of a woman's life was primarily limited to domestic duties. By the time Chopin began to write, in the 1880s, she was a young widow and mother of six children. Widely read, and also influenced by very strong and freethinking females in her own family, Chopin began her writing career at a time when many of the oppressive social roles were being challenged. The legal rights of women, even rights to their own property, were non-existent.

Divorce laws clearly favored the male spouse - and, the prevailing notions regarding emotion and intimacy denied women any right to pleasure. Because marriage, for many women at that time, was the only method in which she could insure her economic future, the state of holy matrimony was often a loveless situation with unmentionable duties. In her short story, "The Storm," Chopin challenged all that had been previously denied.

"The Storm," reveals both desire and passion in a member of society who was presumed to be devoid of both: a married woman. It is, in fact, the marital status itself that Chopin uses to help open the door for Calixta's afternoon of passion. No longer the inviolate maiden that she was five years earlier when she last saw her old flame, Alcee, Calixta as a married woman and mother is as free and willing as her male partner to set aside marital vows for a while.

While both Alcee and Calixta are married to others, the memories of their old unfulfilled desires outweigh any desires for marital fidelity either partner might have felt. In the isolation provided for them by the brewing storm, they act upon those more powerful desires without remorse or hesitation. In telling the story with casual frankness, Chopin disarms the situation. The affair becomes at once not only understandable, but quite possibly one in which certain readers might feel a sense of familiarity.

That which is presumed to be "the unthinkable" in the late-Victorian era becomes, in reality, "right as rain." It is perhaps understandable that many of Chopin's followers were women, because of the realistic views portrayed in "The Storm," and other pieces of her work. In looking at the wide range of individual female preferences, Chopin moves from Calixta's wild yet innocent wantonness to the frigid attitude harbored by Alcee's vacationing wife. Writing a letter to his wife,.