Kate Chopin's the Storm Setting Analysis

Discuss Chopin’s use of setting to convey the incident in “The Storm”

Kate Chopin manages to write about how women were at that time subdued by the expectations of the people around them and the society at large. In “The Storm” Kate Chopin gives the readers an insight to how governing and restraining marriage could be for a woman. Although she brings in the theme of   gender inequality   being faced by the women, “The Storm” shows the temptations that come along as part of the flaws of marriage for a woman who has had the emotional side, flare for life and sexual feelings all bottled up and kept away like a treasure waiting to be found.
“The Storm” starts with the introduction of a moody weather with pregnant clouds, showing signs of an approaching storm. It introduces the first two characters Bobinot, a husband and a father and Bibi, his son who are both away at a store. The two characters are forced to take refuge in the store upon noticing the approaching storm. From there on, Calixta, who the play centers upon, is later introduced as wife of Bobinot, who is a housewife and is at home alone tending to the chores. Deeply engrossed in what she is doing, fails to notice the arrival of the storm.
Kate Chopin uses symbolism of the storm as a major tool throughout the play. The storm is used to represent calixta’s lost emotions, the sudden arousal awakened in her after a long time,
                                                                                                                                             
probably after living in solitude deep inside her. Calixta who is far away from her husband encounters Alcee, her one time lover before both of them got married. The building up of the storm shows calixta’s growth of sexual feelings for her male counterpart. A storm is a natural phenomenon and its activities or consequences that come after remain unforeseen, just like the stages of the storm from a gentle wind to a rougher stronger...