Words: 409
In this story Chopin tries to convince her readers that Calcite was a victim of fear during the bad storm stating how he rain was coming down in sheets obscuring the view far-off and the play of lightening across the sky but yet she continues to look out the window, Alice stands behind her lightening strikes a tree, scares her and with a cry she just so happens to stagger backwards in Allele’s arms. Here Chopin is trying to gather sympathy from her readers.
Before this even occurs Chopin describes how the master bedroom can be seen from where they are sitting, the door is open (which is to invite), it has white massive bed, closed shutters (for privacy), and it looked dim and mysterious. Chopin is setting the scene and Calcite is plotting. However, right before her act of betrayal, Calcite is worried about her child and husband being out in the storm and that makes her appear to be even more deceitful. The mere fact that she could be worried about her own family while committing adultery is ironic.
Calcite remembers that she is the mother of a child, and still it does not stop her from having the affair. Chopin makes her readers forget that Calcite and Alice are doing something wrong by getting in to details of their sexual experience and after Calcite and Alice had sex they do not feel guilty or even regretful, instead Chopin describes them to be delightful. Another example is when the writer describes the emotions in Calcite’s eyes during the act of betrayal, “As she glanced up at him the fear in her liquid blue eyes had given place to a drowsy glean that unconsciously betrayed a sensuous desire”.
It is ironic in this case because as the writer builds up the plot, she constantly reminds her audience that the storm is very destructive but later the reader finds that the fear is gone and is replaced by desire. The storm may not only have destroyed the characters’ belongings; it destroyed the trust and faith on which their marriages were based on. Calcite does not seem worried at al when her husband and son arrive. Alice writes his wife and tell her she can stay in Billow a month longer which she was fine with for the simple fact she was taking a “vacation” from married life.