The Storm Literary Analysis

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The Storm of Happiness Happiness seems to be a common goal in most people’s lives. It’s the one thing that fulfills a person. But each person is different when they try and fill the void of not being fully happy. Finding happiness is a constant search and when searching for happiness there isn’t anybody being thought of but the person looking for happiness. Some will get hurt along the way but in the end those people’s feeling do not matter if the person in search of happiness has found it. People do have a right to happiness, even if the found happiness is not a moral decision. According to Isabell Wienand in her work Is Happiness the Supreme Good?, “humans as a whole tend to follow the wrong path in their search for happiness” (Wienand…show more content…
In The Storm, we see a woman who does not only go outside the boundaries of marriage, but we see someone who enjoys that thrill of defying morals. Calixta is made out to be someone who lacks love and compassion for her husband and son. At the beginning the story says “she felt no uneasiness for their safety” (Chopin 1). She is also made out to be actually a bit irritable around them and temperamental. Her husband and son seem like they are on edge constantly to make sure they do not mess anything up and have Calixta on their case. When they come home from the grocers after the storm had passed they made sure that they were as clean as could be, “he scraped the mud off his bare legs with a stick. Then they prepared for the worse, meeting with an over scrupulous housewife” (Chopin 5). When they arrive Calixta seems to not care about their appearance she is just happy they are back safe and sound. She went from being an overworked cranky housewife to a happy wife and mother. This is all because of her encounter with Alcee. Alcee brought this happiness into her life that day. But it isn’t until after the affair that Calixta is happy. This indicates that she felt repressed in her marriage and had to find happiness somewhere else, through other means. In Chopin’s work Alcee represents Calixta’s happiness. With Alcee she is able to step outside her normal routine, she is…show more content…
But since her desire to be wanted and to feel what she did, it was her right also. Just because something is not morally correct does not mean she shouldn’t have acted on it. Everybody wishes to be happy. Some may define their happiness and what they think is happiness differently than others. But in the end happiness is happiness and everybody has the right to experience things to make them feel that way. As Isabell Wienand stated in her work Is Happiness The Supreme Good?, “happiness can consist in the awareness of the gap between what we are and what we wish to be” (Wienand 403). This means that happiness is out there for everybody, it may not be as apparent to some as it is to others but knowing what is wanted and knowing what is wanted to be, is a good indicator of where to find happiness. Everyone has the right to find happiness, just like Calixta did. Even if it is not how others think it should be found, even if it not the morally right way to go about finding happiness, it should still be sought out. Happiness is what humans desire, and to be able to act on these desires is a right that can not be taken

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