FREE ESSAY ON THE STORM

THE STORM

Analysis of "The Storm"
In McKnight Malmar's frightening story "The Storm" she 
weaves a violent storm and murder together to heighten the 
horrific fear that engulfs Janet Willsom. The storm is a 
combination of mother nature, Janet's emotions and her 
heartbreaking dilemmas.
The story begins with Janet Willsom coming home from a 
vacation seeing her sister who is very ill. She has come back 
a week early hoping her husband, Ben, would be home so 
she could surprise him but he's not. There is a very strong 
storm unfolding outside and Janet gets concerned with 
Ben's whereabouts. She wonders if he is still in the city
working late. There is a letter addressed to Ben on the table 
but she destroys it because she knows that this letter is 
probably no different from the others that have been sent to 
him in the past.
Throughout this suspenseful tale she is lonely in the isolated 
home far away from the busy urban city. As the storm got 
worse, she started to hear footsteps and she thought she 
saw a face at the window in the living room. Was this 
ghostly face in the window her husband? Realizing that 
maybe it was her imagination, she went to the basement to 
get wood to make a fire. 
The basement was damp and dark and there was a chill in 
the air because the basement door was wide open. Janet 
wondered if the wind was so strong that it blew it open or if 
there was an intruder. She grabbed the doorknob and closed 
it as hard as she could because the wind was so strong. 
The fire wood was in the corner so she walked towards it. 
All of a sudden she noticed that her old trunk was opened 
just a crack, she walked to over to it and threw it open. 
Lying in there was a body of a woman in a red dress with a 
man's diamond ring on her finger. In terror Janet ran up the 
basement stairs, locked the door and reinforced it with a 
heavy wooden chair. Simutainously she heard glass 
shattering from the cellar window and ran into the living 
room to calm her fears.
Soon after, Janet's husband Ben walked in the front door 
soaking wet, dirty and pale. She started to tell her husband 
the events that had happened that night. He found it hard to 
believe that there was a prowler lurking around outside and 
that there was a dead body in the trunk. Janet took him to 
the basement, they looked in the trunk but there was 
nothing in it. She wondered if she was seeing things until 
she saw the same diamond ring on her husband's finger that 
had been on the woman's finger. She realizes that her 
husband killed the woman. With all of the fear and strength 
in her body she runs up the basement stairs, ignoring Ben 
screaming her name she runs out of the house and never 
looks back.
The story gave me a feeling that I was there out 
of sight from her but watching her every move. It was 
also from a very suspenseful third-person point of 
view. Throughout the story she thinks about all the 
good qualities her husband has and at the same time 
is missing him. The letters that are addressed to him 
says New York City on the envelope; he is always 
angry about those letters but Janet never sees the 
contents of those letters. My theory is that these 
letters are from his mistress; she was
blackmailing him to leave his wife. There was a lot 
of emphasis on the storm itself , She starts to 
become apprehensive about the storm because of 
its increasing power "The wind hammered at the 
door and the windows, and the air was full of the 
sound of water, racing in the gutters, pouring from 
the leaders, thudding on the roof." (244) I feel that 
there is a storm outside but there also a storm going 
on from within Janet because she has doubt about 
her husband's fidelity.
As for the ghostly face in the window and the dead 
woman in the trunk; her husband killed his mistress, 
heard his wife walking in the front door, put the 
dead body in the trunk and ran out the basement 
door to the outside. He was the face Janet saw in the 
window. Once she went to the basement to get fire 
wood and left, he couldn't open the basement door, 
so he broke the window, took the dead body and 
disposed of it. Janet yearns for her husband to 
protect her from the storm and in the end she takes 
comfort from the storm.