ENG 1102 Troy University The Story of An Hour and The Storm by Kate Chopin Analysis Week 1 – Short FictionThis week, we are discussing Kate Chopin (Links t

ENG 1102 Troy University The Story of An Hour and The Storm by Kate Chopin Analysis Week 1 – Short FictionThis week, we are discussing Kate Chopin (Links to an external site.)’s “The Story of an Hour (Links to an external site.)” and “The Storm (Links to an external site.).”Make sure that you address both stories in your posts. Consider how the author uses symbolism and irony.It is best to use the content in the text as an example。 “The Story of An Hour”
Kate Chopin (1894)
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to
break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that
revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her.
It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad
disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He had
only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had
hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed
inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild
abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she
went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she
sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to
reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all
aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the
street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some
one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the
eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had
met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless,
except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried
itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a
certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed
away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of
reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was
it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping
out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that
filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this
thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with
her will–as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she
abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said
it over and over under hte breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look
of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her
pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear
and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew
that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death;
the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead.
But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that
would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in
welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for
herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with
which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a
fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a
crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him–sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What
could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of selfassertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
“Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring
for admission. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door–you will make yourself
ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.”
“Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life
through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer
days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that
life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life
might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s importunities. There was a
feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of
Victory. She clasped her sister’s waist, and together they descended the stairs.
Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who
entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He
had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been
one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to
screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease–of the joy that
kills.
The leaves were so still that even Bibi thought it was going to rain. Bobint,
who was accustomed to converse on terms of perfect equality with his little
son, called the child’s attention to certain sombre 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. They sat within the door on two empty kegs. Bibi was
four years old and looked very wise.
“Mama’ll be ‘fraid, yes, he suggested with blinking eyes.
“She’ll shut the house. Maybe she got Sylvie helpin’ her this evenin’,”
Bobint responded reassuringly.
“No; she ent got Sylvie. Sylvie was helpin’ her yistiday,’ piped Bibi.
Bobint arose and going across to the counter purchased a can of shrimps,
of which Calixta was very fond. Then he retumed to his perch on the keg
and sat stolidly holding the can of shrimps while the storm burst. It shook
the wooden store and seemed to be ripping great furrows in the distant
field. Bibi laid his little hand on his father’s knee and was not afraid.
II
Calixta, at home, felt no uneasiness for their safety. She sat at a side
window sewing furiously on a sewing machine. She was greatly occupied
and did not notice the approaching storm. But she felt very warm and often
stopped to mop her face on which the perspiration gathered in beads. She
unfastened her white sacque at the throat. It began to grow dark, and
suddenly realizing the situation she got up hurriedly and went about closing
windows and doors.
Out on the small front gallery she had hung Bobint’s Sunday clothes to dry
and she hastened out to gather them before the rain fell. As she stepped
outside, Alce Laballire rode in at the gate. She had not seen him very often
since her marriage, and never alone. She stood there with Bobint’s coat in
her hands, and the big rain drops began to fall. Alce rode his horse under
the shelter of a side projection where the chickens had huddled and there
were plows and a harrow piled up in the corner.
“May I come and wait on your gallery till the storm is over, Calixta?” he
asked.
Come ‘long in, M’sieur Alce.”
His voice and her own startled her as if from a trance, and she seized
Bobint’s vest. Alce, mounting to the porch, grabbed the trousers and
snatched Bibi’s braided jacket that was about to be carried away by a
sudden gust of wind. He expressed an intention to remain outside, but it
was soon apparent that he might as well have been out in the open: the
water beat in upon the boards in driving sheets, and he went inside, closing
the door after him. It was even necessary to put something beneath the
door to keep the water out.
“My! what a rain! It’s good two years sence it rain’ like that,” exclaimed
Calixta as she rolled up a piece of bagging and Alce helped her to thrust it
beneath the crack.
She was a little fuller of figure than five years before when she married; but
she had lost nothing of her vivacity. Her blue eyes still retained their melting
quality; and her yellow hair, dishevelled by the wind and rain, kinked more
stubbornly than ever about her ears and temples.
The rain beat upon the low, shingled roof with a force and clatter that
threatened to break an entrance and deluge them there. They were in the
dining room the sitting room the general utility room. Adjoining was her bed
room, with Bibi’s couch along side her own. The door stood open, and the
room with its white, monumental bed, its closed shutters, looked dim and
mysterious.
Alce flung himself into a rocker and Calixta nervously began to gather up
from the floor the lengths of a cotton sheet which she had been sewing.
lf this keeps up, Dieu sait if the levees goin’ to stan it!” she exclaimed.
“What have you got to do with the levees?”
“I got enough to do! An’ there’s Bobint with Bibi out in that storm if he only
didn’ left Friedheimer’s!”
“Let us hope, Calixta, that Bobint’s got sense enough to come in out of a
cyclone.”
She went and stood at the window with a greatly disturbed look on her
face. She wiped the frame that was clouded with moisture. It was stiflingly
hot. Alce got up and joined her at the window, looking over her shoulder.
The rain was coming down in sheets obscuring the view of far-off cabins
and enveloping the distant wood in a gray mist. The playing of the lightning
was incessant. A bolt struck a tall chinaberry tree at the edge of the field. It
filled all visible space with a blinding glare and the crash seemed to invade
the very boards they stood upon.
Calixta put her hands to her eyes, and with a cry, staggered backward.
Alce’s arm encircled her, and for an instant he drew her close and
spasmodically to him.
“Bont!” she cried, releasing herself from his encircling arm and retreating
from the window, the house’ll go next! If I only knew w’ere Bibi was!” She
would not compose herself; she would not be seated. Alce clasped her
shoulders and looked into her face. The contact of her warm, palpitating
body when he had unthinkingly drawn her into his arms, had aroused all
the old-time infatuation and desire for her flesh.
“Calixta,” he said, “don’t be frightened. Nothing can happen. The house is
too low to be struck, with so many tall trees standing about. There! aren’t
you going to be quiet? say, aren’t you?” He pushed her hair back from her
face that was warm and steaming. Her lips were as red and moist as
pomegranate seed. Her white neck and a glimpse of her full, firm bosom
disturbed him powerfully. As she glanced up at him the fear in her liquid
blue eyes had given place to a drowsy gleam that unconsciously betrayed
a sensuous desire. He looked down into her eyes and there was nothing for
him to do but to gather her lips in a kiss. It reminded him of Assumption.
“Do you rememberin Assumption, Calixta?” he asked in a low voice broken
by passion. Oh! she remembered; for in Assumption he had kissed her and
kissed and kissed her; until his senses would well nigh fail, and to save her
he would resort to a desperate flight. If she was not an immaculate dove in
those days, she was still inviolate; a passionate creature whose very
defenselessness had made her defense, against which his honor forbade
him to prevail. Now well, now her lips seemed in a manner free to be
tasted, as well as her round, white throat and her whiter breasts.
They did not heed the crashing torrents, and the roar of the elements made
her laugh as she lay in his arms. She was a revelation in that dim,
mysterious chamber; as white as the couch she lay upon. Her firm, elastic
flesh that was knowing for the first time its birthright, was like a creamy lily
that the sun invites to contribute its breath and perfume to the undying life
of the world.
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.
When he touched her breasts they gave themselves up in quivering
ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth was a fountain of delight. And when he
possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of
life’s mystery.
He stayed cushioned upon her, breathless, dazed, enervated, with his
heart beating like a hammer upon her. With one hand she clasped his
head, her lips lightly touching his forehead. The other hand stroked with a
soothing rhythm his muscular shoulders.
The growl of the thunder was distant and passing away. The rain beat
softly upon the shingles, inviting them to drowsiness and sleep. But they
dared not yield.
III
The rain was over; and the sun was turning the glistening green world into
a palace of gems. Calixta, on the gallery, watched Alce ride away. He
turned and smiled at her with a beaming face; and she lifted her pretty chin
in the air and laughed aloud.
Bobint and Bibi, trudging home, stopped without at the cistern to make
themselves presentable.
“My! Bibi, w’at will yo’ mama say! You ought to be ashame’. You oughta’
put on those good pants. Look at ’em! An’ that mud on yo’ collar! How you
got that mud on yo’ collar, Bibi? I never saw such a boy!” Bibi was the
picture of pathetic resignation. Bobint was the embodiment of serious
solicitude as he strove to remove from his own person and his son’s the
signs of their tramp over heavy roads and through wet fields. He scraped
the mud off Bibi’s bare legs and feet with a stick and carefully removed all
traces from his heavy brogans. Then, prepared for the worst the meeting
with an over-scrupulous housewife, they entered cautiously at the back
door.
Calixta was preparing supper. She had set the table and was dripping
coffee at the hearth. She sprang up as they came in.
“Oh, Bobint! You back! My! But I was uneasy. W’ere you been during the
rain? An’ Bibi? he ain’t wet? he ain’t hurt?” She had clasped Bibi and was
kissing him effusively. Bobint’s explanations and apologies which he had
been composing all along the way, died on his lips as Calixta felt him to see
if he were dry, and seemed to express nothing but satisfaction at their safe
return.
“I brought you some shrimps, Calixta,” offered Bobint, hauling the can from
his ample side pocket and laying it on the table.
“Shrimps! Oh, Bobint! you too good fo’ anything!” and she gave him a
smacking kiss on the cheek that resounded, “J’vous rponds, we’ll have a
feas’ to-night! umph-umph!”
Bobint and Bibi began to relax and enjoy themselves, and when the three
seated themselves at table they laughed much and so loud that anyone
might have heard them as far away as Laballire’s.
IV
Alce Laballire wrote to his wife, Clarisse, that night. It was a loving letter,
full of tender solicitude. He told her not to hurry back, but if she and the
babies liked it at Biloxi, to stay a month longer. He was getting on nicely;
and though he missed them, he was willing to bear the separation a while
longerrealizing that their health and pleasure were the first things to be
considered.
V
As for Clarisse, she was charmed upon receiving her husband’s letter. She
and the babies were doing well. The society was agreeable; many of her
old friends and acquaintances were at the bay. And the first free breath
since her marriage seemed to restore the pleasant liberty of her maiden
days. Devoted as she was to her husband, their intimate conjugal life was
something which she was more than willing to forego for a while.
So the storm passed and every one was happy.

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