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Sexual pleasure is a natural, good, and appropriate manifestation of love.
Chopin expresses this idea in a number of stories and in her novel, The Awakening. The concluding line of “The Storm,” one of her last stories, is remarkable: “So the storm passed and every one was happy.” After Calixta and Alcée’s tryst, no reputations or relationships are ruined. Having experienced intimate, generous sex, which the narrator calls a “birthright,” the main characters are calmer, happier people—to everyone around them. At a time when sexual desire was suspect, especially in women, this story celebrates it as a joyful affirmation of human love. Indeed, “The Storm” suggests that sexual desire and satisfaction are as natural as the weather, and sometimes as surprising as a sudden storm.
The story also suggests that autonomy matters in choices about sexual activity. While Calixta enjoys an afternoon of uninhibited pleasure with Alcée, the story’s final section presents Clarisse as a contrast. Enjoying time away with friends, Clarisse is “[d]evoted” to her husband but is “more than willing” to do without sex for “a while.” Readers can only guess how long she might wish that “while” to last. For married women of Chopin’s day, sexual abstinence also meant avoidance of pregnancy, with its many risks. Clarisse may be glad for a break from her marriage bed for this reason as well. In any case, each decision about sexual experience is presented in the story without comment.
Chopin’s stories often explore ways sexual relations can go wrong. They can become transactional and joyless, or they can function like chains that imprison people. For women, expressions of sexual desire beyond what a husband dictates as appropriate are often punished. But in a few of Kate Chopin’s stories, such as “The Storm,” the complicating details of sexual relations are pared away, and what remains is the delight of the lovers’ unions.
When opportunities for joy present themselves, people may do well to seize them.
A theme of carpe diem, Latin for “seize the day,” runs through “The Storm.” The story’s characters are not unhappy. No one goes hungry or endures illness. The story presents no challenging quest for a hero to complete. It is a story of an ordinary work day interrupted by the kind of storm that often passes through bayou country. What makes the day’s story worth telling is the opportunity it presents to seize moments of happiness.
It is possible to imagine that Bobinôt and Bibi, stuck at the store, take the moment to rest, enjoy each other’s company, and pick up a special treat for dinner. But the story focuses on the more dramatic opportunity that the main characters at first refuse. Isolated in the house, Alcée and Calixta have the perfect chance to consummate their passion, after years of longing. Yet they hesitate. Alcée at first hopes to shelter on the house’s gallery, but the ferocious rain drives him indoors. Glancing at the open bedroom door, Alcée “flung himself” into a chair, and Calixta “nervously” turns her attention to a task. Both try to distract themselves from their nearness and their buried desires.
Only when lightning strikes nearby and thunder shakes the house, causing Alcée to embrace Calixta’s trembling form in comfort, do they begin to give in to the moment. Alcée sees in her eyes “a drowsy gaze that unconsciously betrayed a sensuous desire,” and he can do nothing but kiss her. Their lovemaking verges on the mysterious, renewing them and sending them, after the storm, out into an Edenic world. Whether they will find other moments to seize joy in the future, for now, both are kinder, happier people than they were before the storm, because they did not turn away the chance for moments of joy.
Imperfect families make do.
“The Storm” presents two families. One lives in tight quarters, is more or less together most of the time, and just scrapes by, while the other lives in more spacious quarters and is financially settled, able to travel and enjoy leisure. Neither family is perfect. The story hints that Calixta is a demanding housekeeper and intimidates her son sometimes, and the converse may be true as well: Bibi and Bobinôt make it difficult to keep the house tidy. Alcée and Clarisse have succeeded with their plantation, and they have children, yet their marriage comes across in the story more as a partnership than a friendship between lovers.
When Alcée and Calixta take advantage of the storm to realize their passion for each other, the decision seems spontaneous, but readers know that it has been long in the making. Passion that they set aside or attempted to ignore strikes them as the lightning strikes the chinaberry tree, and they fall into each other’s arms. This is clearly a betrayal of the marriage vow of fidelity. Certainly in Chopin’s day, their lovemaking is a betrayal, and their gracious behavior toward their families afterward is deceptive. Their feelings of goodwill may spill out onto their families, but the warmth they feel is for each other.
Yet in the short term, at least, family harmony is not disturbed. Calixta reunites with her husband and son around a laughter-filled table. Alcée, for his part, extends affectionate care to Clarisse by allowing her to stay with her friends, away from her duties, if it benefits her health and happiness. These families are imperfect, and readers may suspect that Calixta and Alcée will revisit their passion when they can. Nevertheless, both families make do with what the people in them can manage.
