Checking in on the papers and midterm
Current events and their applications/significance
Gender and Sexuality
• Kate Chopin (esp. “The Storm”)
• Zane Grey (Riders of the Purple Sage)
Chopin’s “The Storm”

What did you say about Calixta on the midterm?

Do you find this story surprising? Why or why not?

What does this story say about married life, family life, and
sexuality? Link this to “At the ’Cadian Ball” to think about the
lives of these characters as they change over time.

What do you make of the metaphor of the storm?
“The Storm” cont.
Descriptions involving Calixta (and Alcée); emphasis added:
 “Calixta, at home, felt no uneasiness for their safety. She sat at a side window sewing furiously . . . She was
greatly occupied and did not notice the approaching storm. But she felt warm and often stopped to mop her
face . . . She unfastened her white sacque at the throat. It began to grow dark, and suddenly realizing the
situation she got up hurriedly and went about closing windows and doors” (436).
 “She was a little fuller of figure than five years before when she married; but she had lost nothing of her
vivacity. Her blue eyes still retained their melting quality; and her yellow hair, disheveled by the wind and
rain, kinked more stubbornly than ever about her eyes and temples” (436).
 “The room with its white, monumental bed, its closed shutters, looked dim and mysterious” (437).
 “He looked down into her eyes and there was nothing for him to do but to gather her lips in a kiss. It
reminded him of Assumption.” “For in Assumption he had kissed her and kissed and kissed her; until his
senses would well nigh fail, and to save her he would resort to a desperate flight. If she was not an
immaculate dove in those days, she was still inviolate; a passionate creature whose very defenselessness had
made her defense, against which his honor forbade him to prevail. Now—well, now—her lips seemed in a
manner free to be tasted, as well as her round, white throat and her whiter breasts” (437).
 “They did not heed the crashing torrents, and the roar of the elements made her laugh as she lay in his arms.
She was a revelation in that dim, mysterious chamber; as white as the couch she lay upon. Her firm, elastic
flesh that was knowing for the first time its birthright, was like a creamy lily” (437-38). Pure (white) in spite
of heedlessness and new sexual knowledge.
 “The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or trickery, was like a white flame which penetrated
and found response in depths of his own sensuous nature that had never yet been reached” (438).
 “[Alcée] turned and smiled at her with a beaming face; and she lifted her pretty chin in the air and laughed
aloud” (438).
“The Storm” cont.
Descriptions involving Bobinôt:

Returning home, “Bobinôt was the embodiment of serious solicitude . . . Then, prepared for
the worst—the meeting with an over-scrupulous housewife, they entered cautiously at the back
door.” He thinks of his “explanations and apologies which he had been composing all along
the way” and gives an offering of shrimp to his wife. When he finds Calixta happy, he and his
son Bibi “beg[i]n to relax and enjoy themselves” (438).
Descriptions involving Alcée and Clarisse:
Alcée writes to his wife: “It was a loving letter, full of tender solicitude.” He mentions “the
babies” (439).
 On Clarisse: “the first free breath since her marriage seemed to restore the pleasant liberty of
her maiden days. Devoted as she was to her husband, their intimate conjugal life was
something which she was more than willing to forego for a while” (439).

Reference: SNL “Mom Jeans” satirical advertisement at http://www.nbc.com/saturday-nightlive/video/mom-jeans/229048/
Chopin’s “Désirée’s Baby”
What’s your reaction to the end of the text and its
message/significance (how do you read what happens
to Désirée, and how do you read the closing with
Armand’s discovery)?
Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage
Who wrote about this text for the paper?
Who’s willing to share his/her argument or
focus?
Androgyny and Transformations in Riders

Jane is constantly marked as a woman by the narrator and other characters, but:
 “In riding-skirt and blouse she seemed to have lost some of her statuesque proportions, and looked
more like a girl-rider than the mistress of Withersteen” (30). Later: “In this male attire her mirror
showed her a jaunty, handsome rider.” Lassiter cries, “If I didn’t take you for a boy! . . . It’s powerful
queer what difference clothes make” (62). This lifestyle changes (even “queers”) her class and gender
(and possibly age) status and is commonly seen with female characters in “western” settings. See
Cogewea (slide 10).
 Potentially masculinized: “Her forefathers had been Vikings, savage chieftains who bore no cross and
brooked no hindrance to their will. . . . Jane Withersteen realized that the spirit of wrath and war had
lain dormant in her” (59). Then in response to the hate, she prays (feminized act)—prays “to be
immune from that dark, hot hate” and “to hold reverence of God and womanhood inviolate” (59).
 Despite masculinization, she knows that “[i]f she were to influence him it must be wholly through
womanly allurement” (62). But she’s also domestic and maternal—with Fay she has “the mother
longing” (119). It’s right after this scene with Fay, though, that we get the great seduction scene we
discussed last week.
 When Jane faints because she thinks Lassiter has shot Bishop Dyer, Lassiter tells her, “It was queer of
you to faint. I thought you were such a strong woman, not faintish like that” (126). Note the queerness
again.
Androgyny and Transformations Cont.

Bess (renamed Elizabeth) is the best example of this, in her relations with Venters:
 After shooting her, Venters says, “Oh, he’s only a boy!” Then, upon seeing “the graceful, beautiful
swell of a woman’s breast,” he exclaims, “A woman! . . . A girl! . . . I’ve killed a girl!” (45).
 We might imagine the revelation changes how he treats her, as he thinks, “I must get out of here.
She’s dying—but I can’t leave her” (46). He tells her later, “I shot you . . . and I want you to get
well so I shall not have killed a woman” (93).
 She has “shame” and “honor” though she’s “a rustler’s girl” (79). Though Venters questions her
purity at this point, he literally carries her around in the seclusion of the rocks (86). He mocks
himself as a bad “nurse” (feminized position) because he hasn’t thought of everything she’d need
for comfort (92). Though “[s]he was like a stripling of a boy,” when clinging to him he’s reminded
of “his feeling of her femininity” and the body that “proclaim[s] her sex” (100).
 As he explores Surprise Valley (which has imagery that seems highly sexualized, as landscapes
often are—men conquering feminized lands, mountains as phallic symbols, etc.), he declares that
because he has saved Bess, “she belongs to me!” (107).
 Establishing her innocence now becomes key. When he risks his life so she can have beef to eat,
she (called a “girl” on this page) staggers against him in fear, with her “[w]oman’s face, woman’s
eyes, woman’s lips.” Venters fights “sentiment” but believes that “here is the living truth of
innocence” and that he is “her savior and protector” (114, 115). At this moment he points out that
they are “alone—man and woman” (115).
Finally…

Some remarks about a storm:
 Bess is afraid of the impending storm when she’s with Venters. He tells
her, “Why, Bess, be reasonable.” She responds, “I’m a coward.” He
replies, “Not quite that, I hope. It’s strange you’re afraid. I love a storm”
(151).
 This chapter (13) ends with this paragraph: “No more did he listen to the
rush and roar of the thunder-storm. For with the touch of clinging hands
and the throbbing bosom he grew conscious of an inward storm—the
tingling of new chords of thought, strange music of unheard, joyous
bells, sad dreams dawning to wakeful delight, dissolving doubt,
resurging hope, force, fire, and freedom, unutterable sweetness of desire.
A storm in his breast—a storm of real love” (154).

And an interesting side note on passing:
 Jane to Lassiter on Milly Erne: “I thought she was at heart more Gentile
than Mormon. But she passed as a Mormon, and certainly she had the
Mormon woman’s locked lips” (28).
Recommendations
Lillie Devereaux Blake’s Fettered for Life (1874)
 Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper”
(1892)
 Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” (1894)
 Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899)
 Mourning Dove/Humishuma’s Cogewea: The Half
Blood (1927)—a great gendered, Native American
western

For next section…
Reading Response #3 is due in section
 Bring all of your texts (the Norton as well as Du Bois and
Goldman from electronic reserves)
 Think about and be prepared to discuss:

 Your reactions to Washington, Hopkins, and Du Bois
 Your favorite poems from the McKay and Hughes selections
 A handful of key themes Goldman focuses on in her
autobiography

NOTE: Goldman’s “Outrage” and “Preparedness” from Red
Emma Speaks (electronic reserves) have been cut from the
syllabus. You may now read them for fun.