An Analysis Of ' Desiree 's Baby '

“Desiree’s Baby” is a short story that touches on the subject of racism. Desiree’s Baby was written by Kate Chopin. Kate Chopin is an American author from St. Louis, Missouri. Kate Chopin’s works often involved women’s issues, racial differences, and social inequalities. Desiree’s Baby is a short story about a woman who had a child that was of a mixed race. Desiree’s Baby touched on many subject, such as racism and social inequalities. Kate Chopin, in her work “Desiree’s Baby,” demonstrates prejudice through foreshadowing, dramatic irony, and situational irony.

Kate Chopin, a renowned 17th century writer, gained posthumous fame for her unorthodox literary techniques and her controversial themes. Her work often broached the topics of gender roles, women’s sexuality, and white privilege, yet, it remains relevant today. “Désirée’s Baby” contains many of the same features that characterize other works by Chopin, including the use of surprise endings. Through deep analysis of “Désirée’s Baby,” the reader better grasps Kate Chopin’s foreshadowing the story’s O. Henry ending, otherwise known as a surprise ending, of Armand’s racial heritage and Desiree’s death, through the use of symbolism, characterization, figurative language, and elements of surprise, and ultimately provides the reader with a relatively

In her short story named “Désirée’s Baby”, Kate Chopin gives readers an inside view of the concept of race in the pre-Civil War era of Louisiana. Chopin’s protagonist, Désirée, clashes with societal standards because of her mixed-race child and unknown racial origins. Race becomes a major conflict throughout the story and drives Désirée’s husband to blame her for the child. The ironic ending of the story not only gives a surprising twist but also makes a stand against the concept of biological race. While the racial issues of “Désirée’s Baby” were set in the past, these social concepts still occur today in the modern era.

Thesis statement: During the 19th century social class was more important than values, as the story focuses on Armand being ashamed of his baby due to his color, which creates conflict for him.

In late 19th century Louisiana, sexism and racism are highly prevalent in society. An orphaned child, Desiree, falls in love with Armand who is the owner of a plantation. After they marry, Desiree gives birth to a boy who will carry on Armand’s name. When it shows that the boy has dark skin, Armand’s pride hinders his love for his family. Kate Chopin displays the theme of pride through the use of color, conflict and imagery in her short story “Desiree’s Baby”.

Sometimes the hardest thing for an individual to do is taking a stance against the culture they live in, and sometimes the people who take the stance are underappreciated. Sadly, this is story of a talented writer named Kate Chopin; who took a stance against her environment with her writing, most notably in her short story, “Desiree’s Baby”. Chopin’s short story “Desiree’s Baby” uses the themes of naturalism, realism, and the usage of irony to expose the hypocrisy of racism.

The racial elitism that existed in Southern culture at the time served as the foundation for the social structure on the Aubigny Plantation and Chopin details how this societally engrained prejudice cruelly affects both servants and master. “Young Aubigny’s rule was a strict one, too, and under it his negroes had forgotten how to be gay, (Chopin 416)”. This excerpt from Desiree’s Baby implies that Armand Aubigny fits the stereotypical description of many slave owners of the time and

When thinking of American authors that have always received great praise, one might not think of Kate Chopin. Nevertheless, in the literary world, Kate Chopin is one of those authors highly commended, treasured, and spoken about, but that always was not the case. In her time of writing, the works she published did not go without severe judgement. With her wide array of literary devices, Chopin’s style of writing hinted at things such as adultery or slavery, which were highly taboo subjects during her time; however, as times have changed her works have become of a higher value in the realm of literary works. In the story of Desiree’s Baby, Chopin not only uses forms of foreshadowing and irony to show the emptiness of Desiree and Armand’s broken

In Desiree’s Baby, Kate Chopin shows how over valuing of white race and status can destroy a relationship and a family. Race and status are intangible ideas humans make up to segregate one another and should not be valued higher than a human life, but this is not the case in "Desiree’s Baby.”

The story Desiree’s Baby is about a young woman who is adopted by a two wealthy french creoles that live in Louisiana. Monsieur and Madame Valmonde adopted Desiree when she was found as a young infant by a pillar near the gate of their estate. The story then follows Desiree as she matures into a young woman and is married to a man named Armand whom which she loves very much. Armand and desiree soon have a child and both are extremely happy about the child but Armand soon pulls away both his compassion and happiness when he see’s something wrong with the child. Armand realises that the child is has some black in it, which happens to be the skin color of slavery. Shamed Armand blames Desiree for his child being part black seeing that Desiree’s

     In Kate Chopin’s short story, “Desiree’s Baby”, she demonstrates how racism played a major part in people’s lives in the 1800’s. Kate Chopin is extremely successful in getting her readers to feel disturbed by the events in the story. Through words and images, the reader feels touched by the story, either by relating to it at some points or when confronted with things we frequently decide to ignore in the world: the evil some human beings are capable of possessing.

Throughout time, humans struggled with issues of conformity and individuality. In the modern world, individuality is idealized, as it is associated with strength. Weak individuals are usually portrayed as conforming to society and having almost no personal ideas. In “Desiree’s Baby”, a short story, the author Kate Chopin deals with the struggles of African descendants in the French colonies during the time of slave labor. The protagonist is a white woman named Desiree who is of unknown origin and birth as she was found abandoned as an infant at an aristocrat’s doorstep. Eighteen years after her discovery, she and a fellow aristocrat, Armand Aubigny, fall in love and get married. They soon have a child, yet conflict arises when the child

Kate Chopin’s “Désirée 's Baby” was set in the days before the abolition of slavery, at a time when the ownership of another person was not only acceptable, but also economically impactful in the south. It was normal to see big plantations owned by whites and tendered by black slaves. We see all of this and more in “Désirée’s Baby”. One of the characters, Monsieur Valmonde finds an abandoned baby one day while out riding. His wife, Madam Valmonde, does not have a child of her own so she takes the baby in and names her Désirée. Madam Valmonde and her husband, Monsieur Valmonde raises the child, until she is old enough to become married. Her attractiveness and especially white skin attract Monsieur Armand Aubigny, a plantation owner, and they immediately become married and have a child. Désirée and Armand both originally associate themselves with the white class, but once the plot unveils their black heritage they are faced with uncertainty, and ultimately their lives become meaningless and not worth living. Throughout the story, Kate Chopin uses symbolism to convey her themes of racial biasness and social ladder in a society. The characters and the setting in this short story help provide the readers with more understanding of how racially charged our society was at that time.

"Desiree's Baby" is not a mere tragic short story by which a reader may be entertained by its ironic and catastrophic ending. It is a story of a crime and brutality against women of all generations to come, depicting vividly how a woman may suffer and conceal her anguish for the sake of others. It is a story of innocence slain mercilessly by the unscrupulous power of harshness that directly governs human societies.

Kate Chopin’s Desiree’s Baby is a short story about a girl named Desiree who is abandoned, then adopted into a wealthy family. Young Desiree soon grows up and falls in love with a slave owner, Armand,with whom she conceives a son with only to discover that her child's appearance consists of African descent characteristics. Chopin narrates the issues of oppression and loss of identity during a historical period of time through Desiree’s character. Derek Foster and Kris LeJeune's critique, focusing on the feminist standpoint of Desiree’s Baby, attempts to demonstrates how Desiree’s act to flee into the bayou is her first accomplishment of independence.