Desiree's Baby By Kate Chopin

Racism has devastated and destroyed people, families, communities, and friendships. “Passing” and “Desiree’s Baby”, the literary works of Nella Larsen and Kate Chopin, respectively, shed light on the impact of racism through characters whose experiences often reflect those of the authors. Both stories explore various forms of white racial dominance including feminist issues involving race. Both main characters, despite coming from significantly different backgrounds, are negatively impacted by both sexism and racism. In “Desiree’s Baby”, Desiree, an orphan raised by Monsieur and Madame Valmonde in their Louisiana plantation as if she were their own daughter, “grew to be beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere”(Chopin 3).

In the very beginning Desiree was left on a stone pillar at the Valmonde estate; it is also here that Armand Aubigny sees her and falls instantly in love with her. The stone pillar is a symbol of firm, forced male dominance in a patriarchal society. It is how men were of superior to anybody else. Desiree grew into a beautiful and gentle-hearted young woman and soon found a wealthy suitor asking for her hand. This young suitor was Armand Aubigny. He had known of Desiree’s past but was in love and did not care. Armand Aubigny’s character in this story was racist and despicable but the young bride was in love and looked past his faulty character.

These two were soon wed and had started to grow as a family. Once Desiree had birthed a son for Armand he cherished her even more as she had given him a legacy. As this child began to grow into his toddler years Armand regretted his decision to marry Desiree – ultimately leading to her and her child’s assumed death.

In the short story, “Desiree’s Baby,” Kate Chopin exposes the harsh realities of racial divide, male dominance, and slavery in Antebellum Louisiana. Although written in 1894, Chopin revisits the deep-south during a period of white privilege and slavery. Told through third-person narration, the reader is introduced to characters whose individual morals and values become the key elements leading to the ironic downfall of this antebellum romance. As Chopin takes the reader through the unfortunate circumstances and unexpected twists of Desiree’s life, a Southern Gothic tale emerges. While Armonde is Chopin’s obvious villain, one should not assume that the other characters are not antagonists themselves, as

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 short story Desiree’s Baby by Kate Chopin provides a sobering depiction of how the dark forces of prejudice and social hierarchy tore apart a plantation owning family in the state of Louisiana. Desiree’s character is that of a lady who carries the burden of being submissive to a domineering husband, a role she keeps until the very end of the narrative. Desiree is portrayed as an agent of light so to speak throughout the plotline but is seriously blinded by her doglike allegiance to her husband Armand, who is in essence her master and her livelihood. The struggle for female independence is a signature theme in a number of Chopin’s works and was a struggle for women in the South during this

All in all, the insight that can be drawn from reading “Desiree’s Baby” is that Kate Chopin personified some aspects of herself in the character of Desiree and she uses this to express her feministic views. Although Kate Chopin’s feminist views are very well documented, in the case of “Desiree’s Baby”, Chopin uses a character that shares characteristics

‘Desiree's Baby’ is southern feminist writer Kate Chopin's emotional short story and most well-reputed piece of work. The story takes place in southern Louisiana and her writing reflects her Creole-French heritage. Chopin was a southern feminist writer who often entwined her stories with the struggles of social injustices and her writing style is deep, eloquent and rife with symbolism. She seemingly tethers each element of her stories with elements she faces every day. In this story, Chopin uses symbolism to imbibe the seemingly simple imagery of Armand’s home, the field in which Desiree and the baby departed, and the fire which consumed the evidence of their existence with deep, powerful connotations to convey her themes of the injustice of

Differences between people create conflicts between people.  This is especially true between men and women, since throughout history society has viewed women as subservient to men.  Kate Chopin’s feminist short story, Desiree’s Baby, illustrates man’s domination over woman.  Since Desiree meekly accepts being ruled by Armand, and Armand regards Desiree as his possession, the master/slave relationship that exists between Armand and Desiree is undeniable.

Many female writers write about women's struggle for equality and how they are looked upon as inferior. Kate Chopin exhibits her views about women in her stories. The relationship between men and women in Kate Chopin's stories imply the attitudes that men and women portray. In many of Chopin's works, the idea that women's actions are driven by the men in the story reveals that men are oppressive and dominant and women are vulnerable, gullable and sensitive. Chopin also shows that females, like Desiree and Eleanor, undergo a transformation from dependent and weak to stronger women free from their husbands by the end of the story. In the short story 'Desiree's Baby,' Kate

     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 is a renowned author of the twentieth century. She is famous for her short stories that were written in the late 1800’s. Most of her works were published in magazines at the time but were a posthumous success because of societal dissent. The beliefs and values exhibited in her works of literature are far ahead of their time by representing women’s desire for independence from being a homemaker. One of her most popular short stories, “Desiree’s Baby,” shows how women had no choice over their own fate and were bound by the will of their husbands during Chopin’s lifetime. It was not well received by the public until years after Chopin’s death because the story draws sympathetic feelings towards the situation in which the main character Desiree finds herself in. In “Desiree’s Baby,” Chopin uses symbolism and irony to present the message of how the innocent suffer unjustly as a result of judgmental attitudes; she does this through the main characters of Armand and Desiree.

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.

In the very beginning Desiree was left on a stone pillar at the Valmonde estate; it is also here that Armand Aubigny sees her and falls instantly in love with her. The stone pillar is a symbol of firm, forced male dominance in a patriarchal society. It is how men were of superior to anybody else. Desiree grew into a beautiful and gentle-hearted young woman and soon found a wealthy suitor asking for her hand. This young suitor was Armand Aubigny. He had known of Desiree’s past but was in love and did not care. Armand Aubigny’s character in this story was racist and despicable but the young bride was in love and looked past his faulty character.