In short fiction, not only does physical setting show a particular location, time, climate, and culture, but physical setting often symbolizes characters’ emotions. In The Storm and The Story of an Hour, Kate Chopin uses the physical setting to portray her characters’ desire and joy. In her short fiction The Storm, Chopin uses the intensity of the storm to symbolize the powerful lust of Alcée and Calixta. For instance, as they go into the house, “the rain beat upon the low, shingled roof with a force and clatter that threatened to break an entrance” (Chopin 106.) The violent deluge symbolizes their forceful sexual desire which threatens to break down their morality. Calixta feels the uneasiness, a sense of déjà vu, as “Alcée joined her at …show more content…
Mallard who feels free after hearing of her husband’s death. When she goes into her room, “there stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair” (Chopin 179.) The open window illustrates the open opportunities to live her future days without her husband. Furthermore, the comfortable, roomy armchair represents how she feels emotionally comfortable as she is released from her husband’s control. From her window, she sees trees “aquiver with the new spring life” (Chopin 179.) The new spring life symbolizes her rebirth in which she can live all the “spring days and summer days” for herself. From her room, she sees “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” (Chopin 180.) The blue sky represents the light of hope at the end of the tunnel. In addition, that light appears in the west—the direction where the sun sets at the end of the day—it illustrates the end of her marriage, and she now sees the light that is previously covered. When she acknowledges the joy, she feels possessed by it and has to control herself from letting the word “free” escape from her lips. She even “breathed a quick prayer” for a long life in which to enjoy this joy (Chopin 181.) However, the sudden return of her husband has taken away her freedom. The theme suggests the forbidden joy of freedom as Mrs. Mallard’s