Essay about Desiree's Baby

Kate Chopin portrays realism in her book, “Desiree’s Baby.” This story takes place in the South during the time of slavery. Here, a wealthy man named Armand is homed to one of the South’s plantations. This man does the unexpected, by falling in love with a much lower class

The first chapter entitled: The Profile of Women in the British Society during the Nineteenth Century, is connected with the social history of women at that time, in addition to their status, position, rights, and the social classes they came from. It provides a description of the kind of education that the Victorian girls have received. Moreover, it gives a vision of married women and their rights, and the issues of sex, divorce, and spinsters as well.

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

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

The Victorian Era women was vastly different than the female we think of nowadays. Women during that time were expected to fulfill more of a domestic and motherly role, one that stayed at home and took care of the house. They were confined within the private sphere of the world while the men toiled away in the public sphere. The ideal Victorian women was described as:

Women in the Victorian society had two main goals which were to marry a respectable man and to have/raise children. The society had a vision of the “perfect woman” who did what she was told and did not question it. She did what her mother did before her, and her mother did what her mother did before her. They were constricted, as if they lived in a box. They couldn’t go too far forward or backward and they couldn’t tray too far off the sides. There were high standards and a true Victorian woman upheld those standards no matter how she felt about them. Victorian women were not their own; they were property-- property that was owned by their husbands or fathers.

“Désirée’s Baby” is a story of love, prejudice and rejection, a story with noble beginnings that

During the early 1800s, In a Victorian Christian rooted society the ideal women was virtuous, modest in appearance and played a homemaker role in society. Confined to cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children, they had no place in society outside of home. Their purpose in life was to get married and reproduce, then train the children in the same way of life. If

Désirée has shown that she has an acceptance when it comes to miscegeny, being that she married and conceived a child with Armand. We do not see any kind of hesitation or judgment from Désirée which might suggest opposition to miscegeny. Désirée looks past Armand’s skin color and “loved him desperately” (Baym, Franklin, Levine 553). It is clear that Désirée is aware of Armand’s heritage when she says “look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand” (Baym, Franklin, Levine 554); obviously she is not concerned about Armand’s race. Had Désirée been against miscegenation she would not have fallen in love with and gotten married to Armand.

“The real ornament of a woman is her character, her purity” (Ghandi). The Victorian society era was an era that prolonged from 1837-1901. The era inhabited queen Victoria of England when she reigned as a monarch of Great Britain. The Victorian epoch abided to be an epoch of virtue and purity. Women in Victorianism were not permitted to be seen with a man publicly and never the less be authorized to have sexual intercourse if not married. This era of constraints for the British had one goal and that goal was to cover women up and sex was only accredited when conceiving children. Society in the outside viewed a perfect female structure but if examined cautiously society converted sex and symbols in books. Soon the society

Social standing, and moral values were vital elements in Victorian society, and the fundamental doctrine of establishing this ideology, began at home. The home provided a refuge from the rigour, uncertainty, anxiety, and potential violence of the outside world. (P, 341) A woman’s role was to provide a safe, stable, and well-organised environment for their husbands and families. However, change was on the horizon with an underlying movement of business and domestic changes both home and abroad, with industrialization, and the suffragist movement. Women were beginning to gain autonomy and began to grasp their opportunities, thus significantly curtailing male supremacy and the definable acceptable ‘role’ of the woman.

“Desiree’s Baby” is a well-known short story by Kate Chopin. The story is about a young girl named Desiree, whose life had been turned around by a man that brought so much joy and love throughout her life. She married Armand and had a beautiful baby boy, and suddenly everything began to change throughout their relationship. Throughout “Desiree’s baby” Kate Chopin uses representation of harmfulness, prejudice, the difference in gender roles and society to carry out her themes. Kate uses many techniques of foreshadowing and irony to carry out the story of describing Desiree and Armand’s Connection. In Kate Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby”, the author uses both foreshadowing and irony to demonstrate the harmful effects of racism in Louisiana before the civil war.

This causes Desiree to bind her identity within her adopted parents, Madame Valmonde, Monsieur Valmonde, her baby, and her husband, Armand. Ultimately, she lacks her own identity because of this. In Dagmar Pegues’ article, “Fear and Desire: Regional Aesthetics and Colonial Desire in Kate Chopin’s Portrayals of the Tragic Mulatta Sterotype,” she quotes Ellen Peel’s idea that other characters in the story project their desires on Desiree because her name literally means she is “an object of desire” (9). This causes Desiree to lack her own identity because she is too busy granting the other characters’ desires and not fulfilling her own

Desiree's life is full of indescribable and pitiful events; first, she was lift alone when she was a baby, nameless and no one knows who her family are - this generally refers to the personality of a woman which is, metaphorically, has no presence in the society. Moreover, throughout the story no decision is made by her but

In the Victorian era, the status of women in society was extremely oppressive and, by modern standards, atrocious. Women had few rights, in or outside of the home. Married women in this period relied on men almost completely as they had few rights or independence. With this mindset in focus,