The Storm

So explosive and potentially incendiary to her career was the lesbian affair at the time of composition of “The Storm” that Chopin chose not to even offer it for publication during her lifetime. The storm is a metaphor for exactly the type of reaction that Chopin was dealing with by daring to write a story that so openly explored a subject so profoundly taboo in turn of the 20th century America. That the story seems to end with an anticlimax is undoubtedly an indication that Chopin never even entertained the idea of publication; the storm passes without seeming incident. Seemingly, anyway.