The View on Love and Marriage in Kate Chopin's A Pair of Silk Stockings and The Storm

Kate Chopin had a very sophisticated and mature view of race, gender, love, and marriage that defies an easy explanation. Those topics often overlap and accompany one another. Write an essay, using only those stories we've read in class (you needn't use all of them) to explore or explain her views on love, sex, and marriage. (35 points)

As it was mention in class before Kate Chopin was an extraordinary writer even though she was not well recognizer and harshly criticized. One of the things that I admire about here, after reading 6 of her stories is that she’s not afraid of putting out to the world her thoughts about her views about the topics mentions on the questions, which in the 19th century, were considered radical. It is to recognize that the characters that she has create in every single story come to life just because her writing style you are able to feel how they’re feeling while you’re reading.

One of the stories that we’ve read was A pair of Silk Stockings, where one of the topic this story covers throughout it is marriage and it is closely tight to love. After reading it closely one of the conclusion I got from it was that not because you’re married you have to lose your identity, your true self and that exactly what happen to Mrs. Sommers. Almost at the end of the story she was not able to recognizer herself because of the fact the she was pleasing her man desire but not hers, she lost her identity to fulfill what her husband wanted her to be, and here is where it tights to love, is this loving a person? Is this the kind of love Kate Chopin is used to? Same happens on Regret there is an idea of a richly woman that need a child to be able to love and care. It gives the idea that Chopin thinks that love is based on having someone to be able to love, is this how it supposed to be? Is there really a need to having someone so we can love? She might be right, she might be not, again as the end of this stories it is open to interpretation.

The story of an hour regarding to the topics is the most “obvious” I’ll say. Heart is mention all over the story so it relates automatically to love, so it have a more meaningful and deep meaning behind every paragraph. Heat decease = heart trouble = love problems since heart are frequently used to symbolize love and this started far back in the western art and culture.

The storm for me is the story of Chopin that covers absolutely all the topics that every other story emphasizes on its own. It is a bit ironic that the last line of the story is, the storm happened and everyone was happy, but for a reader the idea that there was adultery is not a reason for a story to have a happy ending, but this is not the case. Chopin does not seem to have anything against adultery, it is more, in this story makes believe that perhaps, in some point of a relationship is a necessary evil, so that both parts of the relationship are happy. Here and right here is where love, sex and marriage intertwine and we have a clearer idea of Chopin's position on these controversial issues.

To conclude by saying that Chopin firmly believes in love and marriage in a wrong way would be wrong since everyone has their way of knowing that it is right and wrong, between sex and marriage before society there are things that are good and They are wrong, but who assures us that it is right or wrong? Chopin's way of interpreting these topics is the way in which I think she sees these issues, in a different way, fresh and free from prejudices, without doubts, without fear of saying things as they should be, freedom of expression and free thought. The divine comedy and the Canto V are texts already read before. Dante is a catholic man, throughout his writings he mentions biblical verses, on which he bases himself to sustain the ways in which God does things.

One of the topics mentioned in class is the 'law' of the contrapasso This term regulates the conviction of the defendants by their guilt or otherwise by analogy to it. It is present in numerous historical and literary texts of great religious influence, as the Divine Comedy. As far as the text goes, it makes reference to what the next level of hell is like, however, it makes reference to the bible followed, thus justifies, with the word of God, the consequences of not following the scriptures, doing things as God sends. A clear example of how one story ties to the bible is when Cain kills his brother Abel, according to the Genesis of the Bible, just as Giancciotto killed his brother Paolo. The way Dante, in Canto V justifies the ways of God, I feel somewhat controversial. As I am a Catholic person but not a practitioner, it is a somewhat controversial subject and creates too many questions in me.

God's way of justifying his commands are free gifts, (evil, sins) but everyone, following the word of God knows that it is right and wrong, this gift can be something good or something bad so we have the maturity and conscience to accept or deny that gift, but I feel it is something hypocritical, being God the savior offer gifts that will lead to something bad (say sin) and that in the end they will have bad consequences but they also offer you forgiveness to go to heaven and be saved from hell. It is here where I create questions like, How true is it that heaven is something other than hell or that assures me that heaven is not one of the levels of hell mentioned by Dante? Dante expressed to us Love as invoked Divinity, love as eternal condemnation that does not abandon souls or in death and Love as salvation from ignorance and oblivion. As Dante wrote in Purgatory about 'triform love' (Purg XVII, 124), it can be said that Love is the Trinity meaning that God is love and we must accept his ways.