Race, Class and Gender in Kate Chopin’s “At the ‘Cadian Ball” and “The Storm” PDF

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Essay on Race, Class and Gender in Kate Chopin’s “At the ‘Cadian Ball” and “The Storm”...

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Race, Class and Gender in Kate Chopin’s “At the ‘Cadian Ball” and “The Storm”

From the mid to late nineteenth century, stories which captured and displayed the peculiarities of the different regions of the United States (including their dialects, landscapes and customs) while questioning what it meant to be American were highly popular and composed a literary movement called “Local Color”. Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was an American feminist writer who was part of that movement. Important events in the history of the United States such as the Civil War, the emancipation of slaves followed by Reconstruction and the Jim Crow laws, industrialization and the beginning of women’s emancipation it gave rise to, occurred during her lifetime and influenced her writing. Thus, her fiction explored the themes of race, gender and class roles, which were strictly defined in the antebellum Southern states and redefined after the Civil war. By focusing on each of these themes in two of her short stories, “The Storm” (1898) and its prequel “At the ‘Cadian Ball” (1892), we will consider the extent in which these short stories challenge the patriarchal white society of the late nineteenth century.

The themes of race, class and gender are strongly interlinked in these short stories, therefore it is important to keep in mind that this essay is presented from an intersectional perspective. Indeed, Calixta is a woman, an Acadian (a descendant of French-American exiles from Acadia), and has Spanish origins. However, it is her ethnic origin that is first presented, and, linked to her Acadian origins, defines her social class and prevents her from marrying Alcée Laballière, who is a wealthy Creole (a descendant of French or Spanish settlers). Therefore, race seems to be the basis for the other social constructs present in the stories. It is also Calixta’s Spanish origins that seem to be the reason behind her brimful sexuality and her lack of civility. At the beginning of “At the ‘Cadian Ball”, her voice is described as “having cadences in it that must have been taught by Satan” because of her origins. She slapped Fronie with “true Spanish spirit” and her romantic misbehavior in Assumption is characterized as a typically Spanish one (“C’est Espagnol, ça,”). She embodies the figure of the temptress, her origins being linked to sensuality and animality (“Bon chien tient de race”). She has nothing of the exemplary woman of the nineteenth century and yet, she is the representation of the ideal woman in these stories, for both Alcée and Bobinôt. Her physical beauty and attractiveness seem to be more appealing than any moral or intelligent value.

During the nineteenth century, women were mostly considered to be innocent and faithful. The ideal woman of that time was mild, demure and modest. She was reluctant to have sexual relationships, just as Clarisse. On the contrary, Calixta is brazenly flirtatious as “At the ‘Cadian Ball” shows, impulsive and outrageous. Yet, in “The Storm” she has a magnetism (implicitly compared to the storm of the story) that Alcée cannot resist, while being ready to postpone his reunion with Clarisse, his virtuous wife. Thus, Kate Chopin questions the nature of the ideal woman in these stories, and the implications of being a woman. However, Clarisse and Calixta share a characteritic: their husbands do not seem to give them fulfillment. They both remember their maiden days with nostalgia, but not for the same reasons. Calixta finds pleasure in adulterous sexuality and Clarisse finds alleviation in the absence of her husband, but in the end they both feel freer without their husbands. This could be because of the liberating effect of the challenge (for Calixta) and lack (for Clarisse) of patriarchy. The adultery Calixta is guilty of also represents a challenge to the morals of her time: not only did she commit it, but in addition she is “happy” afterwards, and never punished. Kate Chopin weights the gravity of adultery, of which “the storm” is a metaphor. Going further, one could consider that this is a way of showing that the liberation of women is not a danger for patriarchal order and family (Calixta goes back to her domestic occupations afterwards).

Nevertheless, in “At the ‘Cadian Ball”, Alcée still chooses Clarisse over Calixta. It could be because of love, but also because Clarisse is of the same ethnicity as him and belongs to the same social class. Even though Calixta experiences adulterous sexual fulfillment with a man from a higher social class, Clarisse maintains her status of wife and behaves like an upper class white woman, maintaining her sexual distance. Even when Calixta speaks to Alcée in “At the ‘Cadian Ball”, she speaks a Southern dialect while Alcée answers in perfect English, which shows the social barrier between them. Calixta manages to challenge the rules of social class in both stories, but just for a short time. In the end, she has had to marry the “brown” Bobinôt, a socially inferior man because of his color and his Acadian origins. The only real way to escape patriarchy appears to be in the exploration of one’s womanhood in a secret and personal garden.

To conclude, we can say that Kate Chopin has tackled the burning social issues of her times in these short stories and has proposed challenging views. Yet, the woman of color remains very tied to

the animal realm, and the white woman remains immaculate. The rules of the social hierarchy remain followed, and the different classes mingle together only to get benefits one from the other: Alcée enjoys sexual pleasure he cannot enjoy with his wife, and so does Calixta by transcending her social position as an Acadian. Her power remains only sexual and short-lived. Notwithstanding, Kate Chopin paved the road for feminist literature yet to come. It could be interesting to link her personal life and her mixed origins with the sociological notion of intersectionality mentioned earlier, which was developed in the 1930s. It could lead to a better understanding of the characters in her writings but also of the latenineteenth-century America....