Ivaluation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Ivaluation - Essay Example When the storm happened, Calixta’s husband and son were in town while Alcee’s wife was away. Despite their marital status, they had this intense sexual relationship that they could not find in their spouses. This presented a very liberating idea of the author about adultery. How could sex and love be different? Was she trying to say that a person can be emotionally faithful and committed but physically not? If that was the case, then any married person who could not find sexual satisfaction from his/her partner could deliberately have sex with anyone as long as it was just physical contact and mere sex, and as long as you do not get caught as the part â€Å"the actual storm passed by without doing any real damage, leaving the city as it had been before the storm† (Pope, 2010). Therefore, adultery would just be a normal thing in the society. One can always justify that having sex is just an act of fulfilling his/her sexual needs with someone who can satisfy it if that person cannot find it from his/her own partner. What is the essence of marriage at this point? Moving on, another crucial issue in this story was femininity. First, the character of Calixta was described to be â€Å"unable to conform to the society’s standards of acceptable conduct† (M, 2012) especially in the 19th century setting. Symbolically, it goes with the issue of chastity as Calixta was a married woman which went favourably with Alcee. Looking closely at it, a sexually mutual relationship compromised the affair of the two main characters. Calixta had her sexual longing and desire as a woman beyond her role as a wife and mother. Her marriage was seemingly repressing her and having a passionate sexual encounter with Alcee released her from the pressures of her married life. Giving in to Alcee was not because of love for this man but for the love of herself. It was her human nature that she needed to satisfy. This part of characterization was very liberating although not in a vulgar way, yet it made a negative impression among women in a patriarchal society. Taking into account that women have their own needs, let us say that they have the right and the freedom to voice them out and seek for their satisfaction, at what extent should they attain it? It is just to cheat on their spouse just to fulfil the physical and sexual fantasy and longing? How can the society or the women themselves distinguish their feminine satisfaction from immorality? Contrary to the first two themes, marriage that was supposed to be of high moral was given a different treatment in the story. It set boundaries among the characters instead of giving them space to grow as different individuals. Calixta found pressure in her marriage having a husband described to be undependable. Alcee, on the other side, being far away from his wife did not have a spouse to answer his sexual passion. At the end of it all, the elements lacking in their marriage pushed them to cheat on their spouses. Dishonesty in a marital relationship is immoral and sinful, but in the story, the sexual bliss served as a therapy both for Calixta and Alcee to be kinder and sweeter to their spouses. Ironically, their so called hypocrisy seemed to help strengthen rather than destroying their individual marriages. Personally, one thing I noticed in this story was the act of