How Does Kate Chopin Present Armand In Desiree's Baby

Chopin show’s that Armand is unable to welcome the knowledge that his mother “belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery,” (250). Not only is Armand unable to accept this fact but he is not will to take responsibility for his actions resulting in his knowledge of his heritage. Desiree seemed to be the perfect solution for Armand’s secret since her background is a mystery and she has such

In “Desiree Baby” Chopin shows how one skin color defines social class, and determines the value and identity of another (Cummings).For the majority of the story, Armand is clearly looked upon as a white male of class and wealth, until the end of the story. He owns land in L’ Abri, and he has a plantation full of African Americans working for him as slaves. Armand have slaves to do his work for him. He also expresses an individual class between the races of the slaves. The lighter slaves worked inside with his

This essay will focus on the short story by Kate Chopin and its use of symbols, setting and characters. Desiree’s baby was perhaps one of the best stories I’ve ever read. Analyzing it was not easy at all. Its use of symbols was very hard to comprehend. At first, it doesn’t make sense. But as you think critically, all the symbols, and setting and the characters in this literature plunge together in one amazing story.

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.

"Desiree's Baby" is Kate Chopin's most well-known short story and most anthologized piece of work. The story takes place in southern Louisiana and her writing reflects her Creole-French descent. Chopin begins the story with a descriptive quote, "when she reached L'Abri she shuddered at the first sight of it, as she always did. It was a sad looking place...Big solemn oaks grew close to it and their thick leaved, far-reaching branches shadowed it like a pall" (185). The preceding quote gives the reader an eerie feeling and foreshadows an unpleasant ending to the story. Throughout "Desiree's Baby," Kate Chopin uses symbolism to convey her themes of racial prejudice, unequal gender roles, and

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

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).

First, Desiree’s identity changes constantly throughout her life. In the story, Desiree goes from being abandoned and having no identity, to being taken in by a loving family, to taking the identity of Armand’s wife, and then back to having no identity. Having taken on so many identities clearly affects her at the end of the story when she decides to kill herself because of her inability to try to find a new identity and see life outside of Armand. One quote that shows an identity change is, "Desiree, truly belongs nowhere. Found abandoned in front of the gates to the valmonde plantation," (Essays 3). As a child Desiree was abandoned and had no identity, but when she was taken if by that

Armand's pride comes out to rear its ugly head. He blames Desiree, saying that she is not white and that he wants her to leave. Because Desiree's background is unknown, others will judge and point fingers. But not her husband- this should be a time for him to stand up for his family and defend them against all opposition. The sad truth is that pride is not rational; it is selfish. Armand went from passionately loving his wife to stabbing her soul with the cruel request that she leave him. "He no longer loved her, because of the unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name."(p.33) Pride closed Armand's eyes and heart to Desiree's pain. Armand thought only of what it would do to his family name when it became known that he had a black child. He was so fooled by pride that Armand thought, "Almighty God had dealt cruelly and unjustly with him."(p.33) Armand had a beautiful wife and healthy baby; was this injustice?

The sense that Armand is so proud of himself is like a hint of how the end will turn out because when we realize that the child is black the reader automatically knows that he is going to blame his wife. Never would he consider himself black. The thought of Armand being black never crosses the reader’s mind either. Kate Chopin also deceived the reader into thinking that Désirée is in fault by

In Kate Chopin’s short story “Desiree's Baby”, there are many literary elements. The two most prominent elements are character and imagery. Kate Chopin uses graphic, lifelike imagery to deeply express the character of Armand. Character and imagery convey Armand's interesting and complex character, due to Kate Chopin using such vivid imagery.

     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.

From this, the reader understands that Armand is attempting to assume a persona of the powerful aristocratic slave-owner. However, in this attempt, Armand demonstrates his very weakness: he is insecure and so must prove his strength. Another example of Armand’s weakness lies in his attempt to destroy all evidence relating to his relationship with Desiree. Armand feels that a marriage to a potentially black woman could be damaging to his to his place in society so he burns all of the evidence of her presence in his life: “In the centre of the smoothly swept back yard was a great bonfire, “ (Chopin 13). Although it is true that during the setting of the story, such a marriage could have been damaging, if he truly were a strong character, he would have defended his own beliefs and maintained his marriage. A final example of Armand’s weakness is in his discovery of a letter from his mother to his father and the reactions implied by the author. The letter carries details about Armand’s own race and how he is actually black. Armand’s implied reactions are that he will in fact take no action: despite the fact that Desiree was not of African descent, she will live her life in the belief that she is. This is the ultimate example of Armand’s weakness as he is too fearful of establishing his own identity to truly do so. Armand has been shown to be a weak, socially malleable character because of his internal

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.