'More Than Just a Story Essay\r'

'Joanna Bartee’s noviceal essay of Kate Chopin’s ill-judged narration, The beleaguer, maintains that the spend a pennyd bilgewater is an allegorical look at feminist sackment and sexual reservations in the Nineteenth century. She maintains that the ramp is a metaphor for the pen up sexual zilch that culminates in an extramarital affair while Calixta’s husband and son ride disclose the potent storm at a small grocer’s store nearby. Bartee points bulge that Chopin was in touch with her hold feelings regarding sexuality and by this storey she was able to demo her views though she chose non to make them k presentlyn through publication in her lifetime.\r\nFreud said that sometimes a cigar is respectable a cigar; the opposite is also true. Bartee makes an effective argument that her mind is correct by financial backing up her opinions with pertinent blocks of dialogue from the yarn and by simply pointing divulge the obvious. To begi n Bartee says that the deed of conveyance of Chopin’s unforesightful story has a dual meaning, and though the tale unfolds during a raging storm, the storm of the title is representative of repressed human female sexuality.\r\n magic spell Alcee comes to the home of Calixta seeking refuge from the storm it is to a greater extent a rhetorical device to enable the darn to unfold as it does. The physical storm is moot to the actual theme, which is sexuality and human desire. Bartee says that initially the story begins with just the details that can be gleaned from a read, presume the reader is capable of taking a sting of latitude. She tells us that the dickens main characters, Calixta and Alcee, were once l everyplaces and claim now met in the present time of the short story, during a powerful storm.\r\nShe is reading to a greater extent into this assessment than is actually said in the story when she declargons, â€Å"…Calixta and Alcee, had a flirtation severa l years before the story takes place, simply each made a more suitable spousal to someone else and they take non seen each other since,” (Bartee). It is known from the story that they had a flirtation but as for each do a more advantageous spousal, that seems to be speculation. Joanne Bartee’s essay addresses the title, saying that ‘The Storm” is metaphor for the pent up passions of a Victorian period.\r\nIt seems logical that this is the case, for the reference flaunts it at every opportunity. She says, â€Å"They did non heed the crashing torrents, and the gravy of the elements made her laugh as she lay in his arms,” (Chopin II-20), to render the passion of the 2. Then she says, â€Å"The rain was over; and the sun was turning the glistening green humankind into a palace of gems. Calixta, on the gallery, watched Alcee ride forward,” (Chopin III-1) to describe the parting of the devil, saying that the storm of passion had ebbed.\ r\nBartee quotes critic Robert Wilson as well, saying that Wilson believes, â€Å"Chopin’s title refers to nature, which is emblematically feminine; the storm can therefore be seen as symbolic of feminine sexuality and passion. ” Bartee points emerge that Claxita is the essence of domesticity as the story opens, totally unaw atomic number 18 of an impending storm. This storm will not however be the one of nature but preferably the storm of her pent up desires, released when her former concubine arrives unexpectedly. She is sewing, while her husband’s Sunday wearing apparel are airing out on the porch.\r\nBartee believes this is an allusion to civilised and proper society in that Sunday attire can be taken to mean those clothing that her husband would wear to church, accompanied by his married woman and child. Early in her critique Bartee says that the entire short story is filled with illustrations of how the storm is the driving office and main theme of Chopin’s story. She also points out that the story was published posthumously, years later, indicating, perhaps, a wavering to share her views with a Victorian public, believing it was excessively graphic to be read with her name disposed to it.\r\nWhile it is mild by today’s viewpointards, at the time that it was written it must have been considered a bit risque to have a woman author put her name to a story to obviously full of not whole secret sexual desires and passions but infidelity and adultery. The bringing close together that the storm passes just as the tryst is completed and Alcee is riding way is certainly an indication that the vivid storm and the storm of passions, which have obviously been sated, are one and the same. Bartee points out that Calixta’s husband, Bobinot, wisely waits out the storm at the general store just as he avoids the passions of married woman as well.\r\nHe is aware of what the natural storm can do and does not inte nd to let it batter him, likewise, Bartee says, he is aware of the passions of which his wife is capable and he does not mean to allow himself to be battered that the stimulated storm brewing in his wife’s psyche. Bartee believes that Bobinot is aware of the situation, though this seems to be conjecture on her part. If this is the case then Bobinot is hiding from the passions of a wife by avoidance, and there is not enough learning given to make that claim.\r\nBartee points out the obvious with clearness and most of what she says seems logical, but at this point she appears to be taking a leap of imagination that is not justified by the text of Kate Chopin. Calixta seems content to do her familial chores, tending to her home and seeing to her husband’s clothes. Bartee says at this point that many of the chores that she has to do are done in obvious defeat and are also symbols of the sexual repression of this Nineteenth Century homemaker. This may be the correct as sessment as Chopin says that Calixta,\r\nâ€Å" … unfastened her white sacque at the throat. It began to maturate dark, and suddenly realizing the situation she got up hurriedly and went more or less closing windows and admission,” (Chopin II-1). This, Bartee implies, is the foreshadowing that a pestilential storm is about to blow, and it may overwhelm her. She is leery of how bad it is going to get and takes some nominal precautions to shelter her home from the approaching storm. Bartee does not address the symbolism inherent in the actions of Calixta during the initial meeting of the two former intimates.\r\nAlcee asks for permission to take shelter on Calixta’s porch, but they both quickly realize that such shelter is totally ineffective against the lunacy of the storm, which, obviously at this point is not just refers to the weather but more pointedly, to the raging emotions theme to build in the man and woman. When Calixta invites Alcee into the h ome of her family it is virtually a paradigm shift in her spatial relation toward both the old flame and to her duties as wife and mother. â€Å"He expressed an intention to remain outside, but it was soon apparent that he might as well have been out in the open,” (Chopin II-5).\r\nThe two then find it appropriate to ‘put something infra the door’, to further isolate them from the outside world. The description of her husband’s clothing, intimate possessions, which cover and protect a man, are exposed outside the home. at that place is a real possibility that they can be lost, damaged or destruct, just as her wedlock can be lost, damaged or destroyed by her emotional storm of passion. This symbolism of them break outside, exposed to the elements, Bartee says, is symbolic of the danger that Calixta feels concerning the approach of the storm.\r\nHe husband’s intimate possessions are in danger of being destroyed or lost. Bartee writes, â€Å"Th ey are in danger of blowing away from the strong winds that are approaching with the storm,” (Bartee). Alcee grabs Bobinot’s pants, which, Bartee says Wilson describes as a degeneracy of the constraints which Calixta, as a married woman, should be feeling. Bartee likewise correctly assesses the description Chopin gives the reader of symbolically putt away a cotton sheet.\r\nThis sheet, that covers a marriage bed, is in sight when Alcee arrives, but as the two characters talk, Calixta pointedly puts the sheet out of sight, and, if could be inferred, out of mind. Bartee does not mention that the author describes the view she has of the marriage bed itself and that Calixta is aware that the son’s quiescence couch are in view as well. This could also be taken as symbolic of the intimate glimpse Calixta is permitting a virtual stranger, an outsider to her family, to have of her home and private life.\r\nChopin describes the scene thus, â€Å" The door stood open, and the room with its white, monumental bed, its closed shutters, looked dim and mysterious,” (Chopin II-9). Bartee’s opinion is that in symbolically putting away the cotton sheet, an object of domesticity, getting it out of their sight, Calixta is now symbolically clearing her mind, removing any obstacles that might stand in the way of the two as they move inexorably toward the inevitable passionate union toward which the story has been leading.\r\nBartee quotes lines from the story saying that not only do the two lovers lack any remorse, they feel regenerate and invigorated by their act. Bartee says, â€Å"Chopin writes, â€Å"So the storm passed and everyone was happy. ” Bartee does not mention what seems to be more than a perfunctory comment immediately prior to that line. Chopin’s third-year line reads, â€Å" Devoted as she was to her husband, their intimate connubial life was something which she was more than willing to forego for a while. â₠¬Â This refers to the wife of Alcee, who, it seems, although unaware of the details of the tryst and the storm, has profited from it.\r\nThe fact that everyone is happy must therefore include Alcee’s wife, and she is temporarily relieved of the more mundane of her ‘uxorial duties’. Still, Bartee makes an effective argument that her view is correct by backing up her opinions with pertinent blocks of dialogue from the story and by simply pointing out the obvious. Works Cited Bartee, J. The Storm: More Than Just a Story Retrieved 5-23-07 from http://facultystaff. vwc. edu/~cbellamy/ grey%20Literature/SL%20Chopin. htm Chopin, K. The Storm 1898\r\n'