The Kiss by Kate Chopin Analysis Example

Great writers are able to place readers into a different world, making them travel throughout their sentences and create movies in their mind. ''The Kiss'' by Kate Chopin does an exceptional job at accomplishing this and more. She created characters that you don't have to like and executed a message throughout their interactions. Chopin conveys through her writing that intelligence and manipulation are often two sides of the same coin. 

''The Kiss'' by Kate Chopin centers around a girl named Nathalie and her misadventures with two lovers, Brantain and Harvy. Brantain is an awkward and naive man desperately smitten with Nathalie. Nathalie, on the other hand, is in a secret physical relationship with Harvy and only wants to marry Brantain for his money. The text proves this when Chopin writes, ''She was rather confidently waiting for him to declare himself and she meant to accept him. The rather insignificant and unattractive Braintan was enormously rich: and she liked and required the entourage which wealth could give her''(Chopin 1). When Nathalie's and Harvys relationship is exposed to her soon to be husband, Nathalie decides to take matters into her own hands and manipulate Brantaininto marrying her. She convinces Brantain that Harvy is just a family friend and they were not romantically involved. Her exact words were ''Mr. Harvy is an intimate friend of long standing. Why, we have always been like cousins--like brother and sister, I may say...''(Chopin 2). Brantain believes this and even asks Harvy to kiss Nathalie, but Harvy declines and tells Nathalie ''I've stopped kissing women; it's dangerous,''(Chopin 3). 

Within the plot, Chopin manages to break stereotypes while also enforcing them. Brantain being an easily manipulated man was one stereotype Chopin broke time and time again. Men are sterotypically considered the stronger and smarter sex, but Brantain proves this is false when he succumbs to Nathalies obvious manipulation. Nathalie's character is a bit more complex as she both proves and disproves stereotypes against women. Traditionally, women are seen as meek, submissive, and even unintelligent. Nathalie is a vigero in this story. She is strong willed, very outspoken, and extremely clever. She manages to make two men fall into her trap without even trying. Although Harvy did reject her, it does not mean she wasn't the one to come out on top. She still got her marriage to Brantain and overlord of wealth. 

All of the drama in the story ''The Kiss'' comes together and forms an overall theme; intelligence and manipulation are often the two sides of the same coin. Intelligent people have an easier understanding about how relationships between people work and this can be used to exploit others who have trouble seeing these social cues. In order to be a successful manipulator, you have to have some type of higher intelligence. Nathalie took this higher understanding and used it to her advantage. While she is not the most likeable person, she is a smart woman who knows what she wants and exactly how to get it.