Desiree 's Baby, By Kate Chopin

“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.

In the fictional story “Desiree Baby” illustrates a married white couple dealing with their half black son. Soon the father does not accept that their baby is black. The father disowns his son as well as Desiree, but little does the husband know that he has part slave in his blood. Desiree foreshadow the theme of racism being wrong to develop a memorable plot. Early in the story, the reader learns about Desiree having a mixed baby. In a way Desiree subtly hinted at Armand, the husband that their child is not white. Armand pays no mind.

Yet it is not until Armand believes that Desiree is black that he fully dominates her simply by thinking that he is superior.  At this point, “when he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old love-light seemed to have gone out” (317).  Armand feels that he is too superior to Desiree to devote his full attention to her.  Since he no longer expresses his love for Desiree, she feels further pushed into a slave-like position in the relationship, and, “was miserable enough to die” (318).

In Desiree’s Baby, Kate Chopin writes “ He thought almighty god had dealt cruelly and unjustly with him; and felt, somehow, that he was paying him back in kind when he stabbed thus into his wife’s soul. Moreover he no longer loved her, because of the unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name.” Here, one can observe the irony as they complete the story and find out Armand actually possesses the black genes which got passed down to the baby. The whole story, Armand gets portrayed as a person who acts superior to blacks and owns slaves. He is what one refers to as a hypocrite, nothing more than a hypocrite. He deserves to work like a dog until he dies because of the pain and suffering he put hi slaves through. The whole time he claimed Desiree brought dishonor to his family when his family was the impure family that he referred to. Jon Erickson states “ The villainy is elaborated on in Armand’s attempt to burn everything associated with Desiree and the baby.” The whole story, Armand gets represented as a racist man who hates negroes. While in reality his origin shows African descent. He gave the baby the African genes and persecuted Desiree for something he was. His persecution was hypocritical just like everything else about him, he put on an image of a superior man to everyone else that one can see straight through after reading the whole

It was not until the very end of the story that she finally came realize who and what she looked like. She never noticed how similar they appeared and was shocked to realize that maybe her husband only loved her because of how similar she looked to the girl. Now she has to keep living with the thought of her husband only being with her because she looked so much like the girl. In the story “Desiree’s Baby”, Desiree was also faced with a troubling problem. Though she was white and her husband had the appearance of being white, their baby is black. It was not through the fault of Desiree that her baby was part black, but through the fault of her husband, Armand. Armand sends them away to Desiree’s mother’s but instead they head into the forest. Desiree and her baby disappear and are never heard of again. Soon after, Armand realizes that it was his fault that the baby is part black. When opening a letter, he reads, “I thank the good God for having so arranged

The story, Desiree’s Baby by Kate Chopin takes places in the late 19th Century in Louisiana, where racial separation and inequality is very prevalent. The white landowners are often in a family whose name equates to high status. The African American’s are slaves to the landowners and are often whipped and beaten during their work. They hold no status and this is solely due to the fact of their race. In Kate Chopin’s Desiree’s Baby, it is evident that race and social identity is equated directly with character status in this time period, as shown through Armand’s changes in behavior when the baby is born, as well as Desiree’s fall of status with her new baby.

The story, “Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin offers insight on racial prejudice as well as class distinction in Southern America during the late 1800s. Desiree, a new mother is accused of having slave blood by her husband, who treated slaves poorly. The irony of the situation is that Desiree was not the one who had an ancestry of slaves, but it was her husband, Armand. This story offers both an interesting plot as well as factual elements that can be related to the history at the time, making it the perfect story to teach in American Literature.

It turns out the baby is of mixed blood and because of this, he shuns his wife and the child he was so proud of only days before. “He absented himself from home and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse.”(317). Armand was “the proudest father in the parish…it is a boy to bear his name.”(317). Additionally, he accuses Désirée of not being white (a crime against his family’s “purity”) which she adamantly denies. “It is a lie it is not true, I am white! Look at my hair, it is brown and my eyes are gray, Armand you know they are gray. And my skin is fair,” “Look at my hand whiter than yours, Armand,”(318). She writes to her adopted mother and tells her of what is happening. Her mother tells her to return home with the child where they will both be loved, but Désirée is so shocked and disheartened she sets off towards a local bayou with the child never to be seen again. Armand has made the decision to lose his family in order to save his name and it’s too late to bring Désirée back. The irony is that the letter read by Armand from his mother reveals to him that it is he who is of mixed blood and not Désirée.

Many of Kate Chopin’s short stories deal with women in search of love, self-knowledge, and a sense of belonging, however, in “Désirée’s Baby” we see a much more apparent theme of miscegeny, slavery, and racism. In her critical essay on “Désirée’s Baby,” Rena Korb asserts that “Désirée’s Baby” mainly focusses on a woman seeking only a place of belonging. Upon reading “Désirée’s Baby” one could come to the conclusion that this story is much more concerned with expressing the effects of slavery and degradation of a race in all aspects of society. Désirée and Armand have their own view of African Americans especially when it comes to miscegenation, the treatment of them and even their own ideas of association with them.

In Kate Chopin’s story, “Desiree’s Baby,” written during the 19th century, Desiree is concerned that her child is of a distinct racial background. Her spouse, Armand, blames and accuses her of being half African-American. The worst problem she could ever imagine is to leave the one she admires the most, her husband. Feminist interpretation refers to the relationships encountered between separate genders. Like the article “Literary Theory” states, feminist interpretation presents the order of “behavior, ideas, enfranchisement, values, and power in correlation between the sexes” (Fung). In this story, society constantly blames women, even if they are not the ones at fault. Thus, accusation becomes apparent when Armand decides to blame Desiree for giving birth to an African American child. Throughout “Desiree’s Baby,” Chopin manifests the feminist perspective of women as subservient to their husbands when she portrays Desiree as a trite, compliant lady.

According to the passage, it’s clear that Armand loved his child, and was happy to be a father. When the baby began to develop his true color Armand’s love died for his child, and he blamed his wife for being the reason that the child was black. He did this because no one knew who Desiree’s real parents were. The truth in the matter is that just because she didn’t know who her parents were doesn’t necessarily mean that she was the cause of her child not being white.

In the short story, Désirée’s Baby, Chopin’s focal points were based upon race and pride. Désirée’s abandonment as a toddler made it impossible for her newly adoptive parents to know Désirée’s origin. When Désirée has a child with her husband, Armand Aubigny, they seem like the perfect family, happily in love, until indication of the child’s race is revealed. The child is part black, which means a parent of his is from African American descent. Armand fleetingly renounces his love for Desiree and his child in order to uphold his family name, unaware that the parent responsible for the black characteristics of the child was, in fact, Armand.

Armand felt betrayed by Desiree for having a mixed baby because he came from a wealthy family. When the mother visited, she was shocked to see that the baby was mixed, Desiree, herself, was also shocked when she looked more closely at her baby. After a while of avoiding

The reason at the time was not known. Later, it was discovered that she was not of pure white origin but a child born from a black and white parent. As can be identified, Desiree was welcomed in the house at first and she was very happy as seen from the conversation; "Yes, the child has grown, has changed," said Madame Valmonde, slowly, as she replaced it beside its mother. "What does Armand say?"

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.