The plantation characters in 'Cadian Ball" are "easy going...high spirited, irrational passionate, and volatile" (Toth xiv). This is in job to the upper-class characters who are pictured as cold, calculating, pragmatic and willing to accept the cultural determine and norms of their society. The contrast between the young-bearing(prenominal) protagonist Calixta and the secondary female character Clarisse, bear this start. Calixta is symbolic of sexual expression for wo manpower, go Clarisse represents sexual repression.
The four main characters are the deuce women, and the two men in their lives. Alcee, who is a handsome, fair, charming, sophisticated upper class planter, and Bobinot who is a brown, good natured, uneducated and plodding farmer. What the two men have in common is that initially Calixta is unachievable to Bobinet, and Clarisse knowms unattainable to Alcee, her cousin.
Calixta is described as slender, vibrant and tantalizing, with the "Spanish..in her blood. For that reason the prairie people forgave her a lot that they would not have overlooked in their own daughters or sisters" (Chopin 261). Clarisse is described as "Dainty as a lily; sturdy as a sunflower, slim, tall, graceful. . .Cold and kind and cruel
When Clarisse finds out that Alcee has gone off late at night to the 'Cadian Ball, and possibly back to Assumption, she be stimulates jealous, and sets out to claim Alcee. This is in contrast to her previous behavior when he came in from his rice handle destroyed by a tornado, and "clasped Clarisse by the arms and panted a volley of hot, blistering rage-words into her face. No man had ever verbalize love to her like that" (Chopin 265). She was, however, not turned on by his passion, and finds it repugnant to her nature. In the mean judgment of conviction, at the Ball, Alcee has been trying to make love to Calixta, who welcomes his advances believing, or at least hoping, that they would lead to marriage. She puts off Bobinet's proposition in expectation of Alcee's declaration of love.
Alcee and Calixta are sitting out the dance "upon a bench in the shadow...acting like fools" (Chopin 272). Alcee wants Calixta to produce to Assumption, but she is astute enough not to give in completely to his advances or invitation; she may desire a shot with Alcee, but is practical enough to know that is not a road she should take since that would be against the code of society. She is, however, swayed by her feelings and faculty give in. At that moment, Alcee is called out to the road by a servant, but he is having too good a time to leave: "I wouldn't go out to the road to see the Angel Gabriel" (Chopin 275). But then he hears another illustration calling him, a voice "he would have followed ...anywhere" (Chopin 276). It is Clarisse who has come to claim him and save him, and he leaves Calixta without a glance backwards. Clarisse, however, perhaps feeling for another woman's hurt and humiliation, does speak kindly to Clarisse, and makes Alcee read goodbye. It is of no import to Calixta, however, since she realizes that Alcee is gone for her.
Toth, Emily. A Vocation and a Voice: Stories by Kate Chopin. Editing and Introduction by Emily Toth. raw York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Of course Bobinot wants to marry her;
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