The Contrasts of Louise Mallard and Calixta
Louise Mallard from “The Story of an Hour” and Calixta from “The Storm” are both female protagonists in stories written by author Kate Chopin. The setting of these stories is in the same time period, but the characters vary dramatically from each other in numerous ways. Each of the married characters on some level desires to obtain freedom, but they differ greatly in the matter of faithfulness, the amount of freedom desired, loyalty, ambition and the consequences they undergo due to their desire for freedom.
The two characters contrast on their faithfulness to their husbands. Even though Louise does not love her husband entirely, as Chopin stated, “And yet she had loved him-sometimes”(206). She
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still remains faithful to him that we know of. Alternatively, while Calixta appears to love her husband, she is willingly unfaithful to him with her ex boyfriend Alcee. This trait of faithfulness, regardless of how they loved their husband is one where these two characters express dissimilarity. Furthermore, both the characters want to attain freedom, although to a varying degree.
While Louise is looking forward to her long-term freedom with eagerness, Calixta only seems interested in a brief fleeting moment of freedom. This is evident as she resumes her normal routine and has dinner with her family moments after her encounter with Alcee. (272) This degree of freedom that they are seeking is another example of how they differ from each other.
Additionally, Louise Mallard husband loves her, and he “had never looked save with love upon her”(206), yet deep down she yearns for freedom, but because of her loyalty to her husband she has yet to do so. Calixta conversely does not appear to have the desire to leave her husband, and only wants to experience temporary freedom by, before resuming her life as normal. This demonstrates that Louise is loyal to what she assumed was the end; while Calixta was only loyal until the opportunity presented itself to her when her ex boyfriend Alcee shows up as the storm is coming upon them. (270)
Another area where they differ is the ambition that each character exerts to attain freedom. Showing her ambitiousness, Calixta obtains freedom by her own actions, when when she invites Alcee into her home. (270) However, Louise Mallard obtains her short-lived freedom only by accident when she learns of her husband’s alleged untimely
death. Moreover, the consequence of the characters is an additional area of variance. When Louise Mallard discovers that her husband has not died it causes her pronounced disappointment that she will not be able to attain the freedom she was looking forward to with such eagerness. This sudden turn of events causes her to perish from a heart attack. In contrast, the only consequences for Calixta, being as she didn’t get caught is the guilt for her actions that lives on in her conscience. Although from the same time period they are different, Louise is a faithful, loyal, not ambitious wife, who wants long-term freedom from her husband, but dies and never gets to experience the freedom that she was anticipating with so much zeal. In contrast, Calixta is an unfaithful, disloyal, ambitious wife, who seeks short-term freedom from her relationship and obtains it, and then returns to her normal life.
The world has always known that women were not given all of their rights. During the 19th century and even before then, most of the time women were just forced to do what they were told and what the society expected from them. Women didn’t get to make their own choices. They couldn’t fall in love, work, or be part of the society in any possible way. They were born to get old, marry, and take care of their husbands, house, and kids. Kate Chopin was one of the authors who wrote multiple stories about women and feminism. In Kate Chopin’s “The Storm,” Calixta was married, but when she saw Alcee she ignored the fact that she was married and she committed adultery with him. Kate Chopin describes how Calixta is unhappy with her married life, and how she finds happiness in adultery.
As a forerunner of the modern feminist movement, Kate Chopin explored bold new characterizations of her female subjects. Chopin is famous for her progressive depiction of the female characters in her stories. Two such stories, 'The Storm' and 'The Story of an Hour,' examine and refute the long held ideal of the subservient wife. 'The Storm,' written in 1898 but not published until later because of its provocative content, describes the passionate extramarital affair between Calixta and Alcee, a former lover. 'The Story of an Hour' follows Louise Mallard as she deals with the death of her husband. Chopin uses the extraordinary events in the characters' lives to bring them out of the coma of submissive living. In both stories, the female protagonist awakens from a marriage-induced trance and into a state of self-awareness as a person separate from her husband.
During this time a storm develops leaving them stranded seeking shelter. Alce, the character who appears to be Calixta first love suddenly appears at her house as she is alone seeking shelter from the storm himself. They had not laid eyes on each other since Calixtra was married which from a passage in the text indicated it had been five years at this points “She was a little fuller of figure than five years before” (The Storm, by Kate Chopin). Surprised to see him she invited him in which resulted in the room being filled with feelings and the sensation of flesh they craved for each other. Like the scene in Titanic they drift away making love to each other passionately. At the beginning Calixtra fights to resist the temptation “Bont! She cried, releasing herself from his encircling arms and retreating from the window” (The Storm, by Kate Chopin) but is ultimately overpower by temptation. Calixtra’s moment of awakening comes when Bobint and Bibi returns and she affectionately attends to her husband and effusively kissing her son. In this moment she see what she has, an amazing family. This is a women how just cheated on her husband with a man she has held feelings for but the love for her husband a family unit holds more values, weirdly it took her committing a wrong deed to realize this. Her moment of awakening in the case was positive though
Marriage is an important theme in the stories Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin. When someone hears the word “marriage”, he thinks of love and protection, but Hurston and Chopin see that differently. According to them, women are trapped in their marriage and they don’t know how to get out of it, so they use language devices to prove their points. Chopin uses personification to show Mrs. Mallard's attitudes towards her husband's death. Louise is mournful in her room alone and she is giving a description of the nature as a scene of her enjoying “the new spring life” and “the delicious breath of rain was in the air” (Chopin1).
Unlike Calixta, Louise Mallard is a fragile woman afflicted with heart trouble. It comes to her attention through a trustworthy friend that her husband, Brently Mallard has been killed in a railroad disaster. She is overcome with intense grief and instantly weeps o...
This is a story of a series of events that happen within an hour to a woman named Louise Mallard. Louise is a housewife who learns her husband has died in a train accident. Feeling joy about being free she starts seeing life in a different way. That is until at the end of the story she sees her husband well and alive. She cries at the sight of him and dies. The story ends with a doctor saying “she had died of a heart disease—of the joy that kills” (Chopin). Even though the story doesn’t describe Louise doing chores at the house like in The Storm we know that she was a good wife because of the way she reacts when she learns that her husband is dead. Louise gets described as “young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength” (Chopin). From this line we get a bit of insight into her marriage and herself. We get the idea that she wasn’t happy being married to her husband but still remained with him and did her duties as she was supposed to. In reality her being a good wife was all an act to fit in society’s expectations of a woman being domestic and submissive. As she spend more time in her room alone thinking about her dead husband she realizes life would finally be different for her. She knows that “there would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself” (Chopin) For a long time in
Calixta, scared from the storm, finds herself in Alcee’s arms. “Do you remember-in Assumption, Calixta? he asked...Oh! she remembered; for in Assumption he had kissed her and kissed her and kissed her” (109). As both storms begin to peak, they retreat to her bedroom. “They did not heed the crashing torrents, and the roar of the elements made her laugh as she lay in his arms. Her firm, elastic flesh that was knowing for the first time its birthright, was like a creamy lily” (110).
Alcée, a planter and a man of the outer sphere enters Calixta’s domain with good intentions. Alcée, a man with much respect and honor for Calixta, greets her and acknowledges that she is a married woman. He greets her by name and properly asks permission to wait out of the storm on her porch. She properly addresses him as “M’siur Alcée” when she greets him. Alcee, who happened to live nearby, could have ridden on through the storm, but he did not. Instead, as Lawrence I. Berkove claims, Alcee’s “wish to escape a drenching in Calixta’s home is “innocent” (90).
Women have traditionally been known as the less dominant sex. They have been stereotyped as being housewives, and bearers and nurturers of the children. Many interesting characters in literature are conceived from the tension women have faced with men. This tension is derived from men, society, and within a woman herself. Even though these stories were written during the 19th century when modern society treated women as second class citizens, in “The Storm” and “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin illustrates how feminine power manifests when the female characters are able to discover their freedom.
Marriage can be seen as a subtle form of oppression, like many things which are dictated by social expectations. In Kate Chopin’s The Story of An Hour, Louise Mallard finds herself in distress due to the event of her husband’s death that makes her question who she is as a person. The author cleverly uses this event to create the right atmosphere for Mrs. Mallard to fight against her own mind. As the short story progresses, we see that Mrs. Mallard moves forward with her new life and finds peace in her decision to live for herself. This shows that marriage too is another chain that holds oneself back. Not wanting to admit this to herself, Louise
Calixta and Alce, the two main characters in the short story “The Storm” by Kate Chopin, are sexual, mature, and knowing adults. By having them discover amazing sex outside their marriages, they return to their own marriages renewed. Chopin openly condones adultery due to the fact that the characters are not punished and in the end “everyone was happy” (paragraph 40) . A common theme of fresh sexuality and desire is seen in this story though symbols and other literary elements. Kate Chopin is an American author that wrote short stories and novels in the 20th century.
She lambasted society for its perpetual close-mindedness in a time when righteousness was considered to be an attribute, and she helped to generate more enlightened attitudes among both the women and men of her time. In The Storm, the character of Calixta is unable to fulfill society's standards of virtue, despite her perceived purity by her lover Alcee. When Alcee professes, "If she was not an immaculate dove in those days, she was still inviolate" (p. 34), he is basically saying that just because a woman is not chaste, does not mean she is not pure of heart. After all, it was Calixta's marriage which had stripped her of her chastity status.
The unrelenting fierceness of the storm forces a barrier between Calixta and her family from getting in contact as they are in different location. This barrier is shown in: “[…] to certain somber clouds that were rolling with sinister intention from the west, accompanied by a sullen, threatening roar. They were at Friedheimer’s store and decided to remain there till the storm had passed” (Chopin page 1, 2-6). The storm begins initiating its mission in maintaining the distance between Calixta and her family. By obstructing Calixta from being with her family, she starts worrying about them while exhibiting a feeling of unease. Alcée, who is revealed to be Calixta’s past lover, suddenly arrives at her house when the storm began to intensify. Rather than being a...
At first, Louise is fearful of how her life would be without her husband, who kept her oppressed for all that while. Her grief is reasonable and fitting, but it doesn't last a while. Once her anguish died down, she was able to see that there was something much better in her future and that the death of her husband meant that she finally had her independence. At first, she tries to muffle the joy she feels over this realization; this shows that she was still afraid of being autonomous. Eventually, as the story continues, she embraces the change. This newfound sense of autonomy enlivens and fills her with joy. She figures out that what she has now is more important than what she had before. Joy overtakes her grief (Chopin 56). Though the story does not give any concrete examples of the said suppression, Louise's state of mental liberation after her husband's death is enough of a
Kate Chopin, author of “The Story of an Hour” written in 1894 was the first author who emphasized strongly on femininity in her work. In the short story, Chopin writes about freedom and confinement Chopin is an atypical author who confronts feminist matter years before it was assumed. The time period that she wrote in women were advertised as a man’s property. The main idea in the short story is to illustrate that marriage confines women. In “The Story of an Hour” the author creates an intricate argument about freedom and confinement Mrs. Louise Mallard longing for freedom, but has been confined for so long freedom seems terrible. Mrs. Mallard wife of Brently Mallard instantly feels free when her husband dies. The reason she feels this way