Purpose

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The Storm
By McKnight Malmar
Presentation By Melissa Mikelski, Sara Lachner,
Alison Tomchik, Heather Dopke
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Summary of Story
  The Storm is a short story that illustrates a
middleclass womans struggle with her
relationship with herself as well as her husband.
The story opens in a rural or suburban
neighborhood. Janet, the protagonist, comes home
from a visit with her sister expecting to find
her beloved husband in their cozy home, anxiously
awaiting her return. Instead, and much to her
disappointment, Janet arrives at her home on a
dreary, stormy night to a cold and empty house.
She surmises that her husband Ben is working late
in the city and has missed the train to the
suburbs. While Janet finds logic in this
supposition, she also longs for Ben. As the
storm grows more fearsome, Janets anxieties
heighten. She catches a glimpse of a face in the
window, and for hours agonizes over whether or
not there really is a prowler outside of her
home. This causes Janet to become even more
paranoid. After deliberating over the face in
the window, she decides she wont be able to
sleep that night and that she should at least
calm down. Janet thought building a fire in the
fireplace would help ease her nerves. Janet
ventures into the damp cellar for firewood.
While she is down there, she felt a new wave of
fear and anxiety. She imagines that she hears
footsteps of the prowler outside, and is
mortified when she sees that the bolt of the
outside door to the cellar is open. As she is
about to leave the cellar with a bundle of
kindling, she notices an odd glint of light
coming from her old trunk. It was open, but
Janet was positive the trunk had been locked.
She threw back the lid and found the body of a
murdered woman lying in the trunk.
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(Summary Continued) Janet ran back upstairs,
hysterical, and waited for Ben to return home. A
few hours later, Ben did arrive, dripping wet
from the storm. He was complacent, and didnt
recognize the great anxiety that possessed his
wife. Only after repeated implorations on
Janets part did Ben venture into the cellar to
investigate the trunk. After a few moments, Ben
called Janet down to the cellar to show her that
there was nothing in the trunk. The rest of the
story is left up to interpretation. When Janet
came into the cellar to see the empty trunk, Ben
could have lunged at Janet in an effort to kill
her to cover up the fact that the woman Janet saw
in the trunk was a woman Ben had murdered. Or,
the woman Janet saw was imagined in her extreme
state of anxiety, as were Bens murderous
actions.
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Character Descriptions
Janet Janet is the main character. She
returns home early from a visit to her ill
sister, hoping to surprise her husband. Janet is
thirty-one years old, has been married for
fifteen months, and is ten years younger than her
husband. She relies on her husband for strength
and protection, and finds comfort in the
familiar. She is trusting and somewhat naïve, as
well as lonely. She is uncomfortable being alone
in the house, especially during the storm. Janet
wants Ben to come make everything better, but she
never suspects him. Malmar describes Janet,
saying There was something childlike about
her, like a small girl craving protection,
something immature and yet appealing, in spite of
her plainnessThe fact that she had married at
all still seemed a miracle to her.  

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(Characters Continued) Ben Ben is Janets
husband. He is ten years older than Janet, and
works in Chicago. He gets mysterious letters
from New York that may be love letters from a
mistress. In the end, it is revealed that he
killed a woman (his mistress?). Ben seems very
detached he does not return the love and trust
that Janet gives him. He married her because it
was what he was supposed to do, and now he has a
pretty young thing around the house. He is very
conscious of his role as Janets older protector,
and refers to her as You poor child. In the
end, when Janet starts to realize what has
happened, Ben loses his loving, protective
attitude. His voice was odd, not like Bens at
all. It had a cold cutting edge to itHe stood
looking down at her with an immobility that
chilled herhis voice hardened. What was it you
thought?
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Purpose
The main theme of The Storm is an individual
should not settle for a life that does not make
him or her happy. Throughout the story, Janet
insists that she is content with the life she
shares with Ben, but it is obvious that she is
not. This is seen in the following passage But
he was a good husband. She sighed unconsciously,
not knowing it was because of youth and romance
missed. She repeated it to herself, firmly, as
she sipped her coffee. He was a good husband.
Suppose he was ten years older than she, and a
little set in his ways a little perhaps
dictatorial at times, and moody. He had given
her what she thought she wanted, security and a
home of her own if security were not enough, she
could not blame him for it. In this passage,
Janet expresses her regret and unhappiness, but
rationalizes to herself that she is wrong and
should be happy with what she has. Underlying
this theme is the idea that women are supposed to
want a domestic life a hard-working husband, a
home, and nothing more. Janet felt guilty for
not accepting this standard. The author uses her
to show that we do not have to force ourselves to
play the roles society sets for us rather, we
should do what makes us happy regardless of what
is expected. Another theme is the idea that no
event is isolated each thing that happens is a
small part of a larger chain of events. This
idea comes to Janet with the following Slowly
something beyond the mere fact of murder, of
death, began to penetrate her mind. Slowly she
realized that beyond this fact there would be
consequences. That body in the cellar was not an
isolated phenomenon some train of events had led
to its being there and would follow its discovery
there. The authors message here is that with
each event that happens, we need to consider what
happened before and what will happen after to
truly understand and analyze the situation.
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Techniques Used to Portray Theme

• Symbolism
• The most prominent symbol Malmar uses to get his
  purpose across is the storm itself. The storm
  symbolizes the outside world. Janet is terrified
  of the storm through most of the story because
  she fears what may happen to her if she goes out
  into it. This is seen in the following
• She was rigid for a long time,never taking her
  eyes from the window. But nothing moved there
  now except the water on the windowpane beyond it
  there was blackness, and that was all. The only
  sounds were the thrashing of the trees, the roar
  of water, and the ominous howl of the wind.
• Until the end of the story, Janet finds comfort
  from the storm in the house and in the thought
  that Ben will soon be home. The house represents
  the life that she has. As Janets character
  develops, however, the symbols of the storm and
  the house switch meanings.

• Character Development
• The meanings of the symbols correspond to
  Janets development as a character. In the
  beginning and throughout most of the story, she
  finds safety in the house (her life) and fear in
  the storm (the outside world). At the end,
  though, she finally realizes that her life is not
  as good as she made herself believe, and she
  knows that she must face her fears and go out
  into the world alone. The very last line of the
  story reads
• The blessed wind snatched the front door from
  her and flung it wide, and she was out in the
  safe, dark shelter of the storm.
• Janet has finally come to see what Malmar
  intended to make the reader see that we must not
  resign ourselves to an unhappy life. We need to
  remove all fear of the unknown when we no longer
  find safety in what we have, and go out into the
  storm. It is only then that we can begin to
  make our lives our own.

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Unique Characteristics
Style   Malmar uses stylistic techniques to
draw the reader into Janets experience. The
fear she feels becomes real through the imagery
and personification of the storm. For
example   The winds shout took on a personal,
threatening note.   The life given to the wind
makes it seem even more ferocious, as if it were
another evil threat outside of Janets home
trying to break in to hurt her. The way Malmar
describes how Janet moves through the house and
the things that frighten her employ such precise
imagery that it is easy for the reader to become
swept up in emotion   The darkness was a wall,
impenetrable and secret, and the blackness within
the house made the storm close in, as if it were
a pack of wolves besieging the house. She
hastened to put on the light again. She must
have imagined those staring eyes. Nobody could
be out on a night like this. Nobody.   A reader
can easily imagine being home alone on dark and
stormy night as described in the story. One can
relate to the isolation Janet felt in the
darkness, and how one might rationalize his
fears.
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Review Discussion Questions
  1.What was the significance of the storm to the
story? How did it portray the emotions of the
main character? How did it change from the
beginning of the story until the end?   2. Was
Janet really afraid of the storm and the face
outside? Or was she more afraid because she was
alone? Support your answer.   3.What emotions did
Janet have when she found the body? Did she
suspect anyone of the murder?   4. What
significance did Janets wearing of Bens coat
have to the story? How did it represent her
feelings toward Ben?   5. How did Janets emotion
toward Ben change from his arrival until she ran
away from him?   6. What was the significance of
the letters in the story? Why do you think that
they bothered Ben so much?      
bjbj
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A.P. Question
Her old trunk had held the curled-up body of a
woman. She had not seen the face the head had
been tucked down into the hollow of the shoulder,
and a shower of fair hair ha fallen over it. The
woman had worn a red dress. One hand had rested
near the edge of the trunk, and on its third
finger there had been a mans ring, a signet
bearing the raised figure of a rampant lion with
a small diamond between its paws. It had been
the diamond that caught the light. The little
bulb in the corner of the cellar had picked out
this ring from the semidarkness and made it stand
out like a beacon. She never would be able to
forget it. Never forget how the woman looked
the pale, luminous flesh of her arms her
doubled-up knees against the side of the trunk,
with their silken covering shining softly in the
gloom the strands of hair that covered her
face. Shudders continued to shake her. She
bit her tongue and pressed her hand against her
jaw to stop the chattering of her teeth. The
salty taste of blood in her mouth steadied her.
She tried to force herself to be rational, to
plan yet all the time the knowledge that she was
imprisoned with the body of a murdered woman kept
beating at her nerves like a flail. She drew the
coat closer about her, trying to dispel the
mortal cold that held her. Slowly something
beyond the mere fact of murder, of death, began
to penetrate her mind. Slowly she realized that
beyond this fact there would be consequences.
That body in the cellar was not an isolated
phenomenon some train of events had led to its
being there and would follow its discovery there.
Describe how the author used description and
imagery to convey the emotions that Janet felt
during this excerpt. How did the same
description and imagery help to enhance the mood
of the story?