It is human nature to personify objects, events, and things which have a great impact upon our lives. For example, people often name their cars or attribute the outcome of sporting events in which they are merely spectators to something they did or did not do (wearing a “lucky” article of clothing, for example). In Kate Chopin’s turn-of-the 20th Century short story “’The Storm”, the storm is used as not only a backdrop for the events it would precipitate, but as both a metaphor for and a personification of them, as well.
The story has five human characters. Bobinot and Bibi are the first we are introduced to, as they are kept from home because of the storm. This event allows the rest of the story to unfold unimpeded, though neither Bobinot nor Bibi have very much character development devoted to them and are mostly irrelevant to the core of the story. Their main importance as characters is their absence, which is ensured by the storm.
The next two characters are the most important. Calixta, Bobinot’s wife and Bibi’s mother, is home alone when the storm arrives. Alicee, a former lover of hers, is out and about as the storm approaches, and seeks shelter at Calixta’s house. At first, he does not want to intrude by coming inside, but the storm picks up so much that the porch is of basically no shelter whatsoever. As Calixta expresses distress over Bibi being out in the weather, he at first merely comforts her, but they both give in to their tempestuous emotions (every bit as tempestuous as the storm). They ultimately make love, which liberates them. As Chopin states, “The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or trickery, was like a white flame which penetrated and found response in depths of his own sensuous nature that had never yet been reached.”
The storm then passes, and Alicee leaves. Bobinot and Bibi return; Bobinot has brought Calixta a can of shrimps, which he knows she loves, and has made an effort to clean himself and Bibi up before returning. This demonstrates that, while their relationship shows no evidence of love one way or the other, it does show that he takes care of her.
Calixta says nothing of what has happened to Bobinot, and it is clear she has no intention to. Alicee, for his part, writes to his wife, Clarisse, once he returns home. He tells her she can stay in Biloxi longer. Her very small part in the story shows only that she has little desire to be intimate with him, and that she has health problems. It also shows that he is also separated from his children.
It would appear, within both marriages, that their sexual connections are not particularly strong. For this reason, both Alicee and Calixta seek sexual relations with one another, and they would seem to have a strong sexual connection. The role of the storm in the story is, as pointed out earlier, not only a catalyst that enables the two to have intercourse, but also a metaphor for the event itself. It is sudden, unexpected, and tempestuous. And when it is over, it passes quickly and everyday life returns. It is a rare occurrence.
But the storm is more than just a metaphor; it takes on its own personality, one that makes it almost a character in and of itself, perhaps even the main character. It is the reason all the events of the story are allowed to happen in the first place. It jumps in right at the beginning, interrupting the lives of all the characters and changing them forever. Whether Bobinot or Bibi ever know it, their wife and mother is now a changed and liberated woman. She has done something which would be considered terrible by many even today, and certainly by most by the standards of the time (sought sexual intercourse outside of her marriage). In theory, she has disgraced herself, although it does not seem likely to become known to anyone but her and Alicee, and neither of them appears likely to wish to disgrace themselves by making it known (although in Kate Chopin’s works, one never knows). And this can be attributed directly to the storm. Not only does it detain Bobinot and Bibi, but it also forces Alicee to seek shelter, giving them the opportunity not only to see each other once again but to actually be alone together (it is noted in the story that they have seen each other only rarely since her marriage five years before). And when the storm is gone, Alicee must leave so that things may return to normal. In this way, the storm is perhaps the most important character in the story; it provides the “Deus Ex Machina”, the device that allows the events of the story to resolve.
As with Kate Chopin’s other works, “The Storm” makes a powerful case for sexual liberation and the ability of women to make decisions for themselves without relying on men, a strong statement for the period in which she wrote. It is impressive and beautifully descriptive, and was vastly ahead of its time. She could easily have made her point by using only the storm to imply the sexual intercourse which resulted, a common tactic of her time, but chose instead to describe it in some detail rather expressly and separately but parallel to the storm. It is for this reason I would argue that the storm itself, while parallel, is basically a character, one with its own personality and motives, which allows the events and parallels them, but does not force anyone to do anything. The actions of each character, including the storm, are entirely up to those characters themselves.
Works Cited:
Chopin, Kate. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 9th ed. New York: Longman, 2005. 127-31. Print.
