Kate Chopin 's The Story Of An Hour

Armand assumes that Désirée is a decendent of black people. Désirée tries to deny the accusation by asking for her mother Valmondé 's proof, but Madame Valmondé only suggests that Désirée and the baby return to the Valmondé estate. Armand also insists on their leaving. After that, Désirée takes the baby away and walks off into a bayou, never to be seen again.

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 skin color between the boy and her baby. Desiree confronted Armand and asked him to

The conflict in the story then makes its turning point and becomes a crisis. Desiree tried her hardest to prove to Armand that she was all white, but no matter what she said Armand’s malicious behavior made her think otherwise. Just because Desiree was adopted and did not know any better Armand assumes she was black. She even compares the pigmentations of their skin, which proves her to be of a lighter color than Armand, and he sees it with his own eyes, but he continues to blame

Désiree was far too excited to truly hear the suspicion in her mother’s voice. Mistaking her concern for surprise at the child’s growth, it being a while since last her mother had seen the baby. Even after her mother’s departure from L’Abri Désiree continued to allow her excitement and bliss to blind her. But that bliss would soon turn to misery shortly after her son grew past three months old. Gradually, Armand became a stranger to Desirée. Lack of eye contact with Desiree, avoidance of her and the child, and terrible treatment of the slaves all became regular activity for Armand when home. The breaking point however, came upon her whilst sitting in her robes on a hot day in her room with the child. A mixed child stood fanning her son. As Désirée gazed upon her son as he slept, she looked back up to the mixed boy fanning him. Looking back and forth between them a realization hit her and left her speechless. Wordlessly she dismissed the boy immediately as her husband walked in. She called her husband’s name three times before clinging to his arm; almost pleading with him she asked him to look at their son, to tell her what it

Furthermore, similarities between the two women deal with their husband making them do scandalous actions. In Desiree's Baby, Armand, her husband breaks Desiree's heart by telling her to leave. “He said nothing” Desiree said. Armand wanted her to leave and not come back. “Shall I go Armand?” He replies telling her to leave. Desiree

She writes to her mother Madame Valmondé about what has happened who then tells her to take the baby and come back to live with her at the Valmondé estate. Désirée shows Armand the letter her mother sent her hoping that it will get Armand to prove that he still wants her but instead he tells to do it, go and live with her mother because he doesn’t want her anymore. Devastated by the fact her husband doesn’t want her anymore she leaves with the baby. The reader might think that she will go to her mother’s but instead “She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the banks of the deep, sluggish bayou.” The question arises what happens to Armand? He has a bonfire burning the corbeille that he got for Désirée along with the letters she had sent him before they were married and everything remaining from Désirée and the baby. During his bonfire you discover that the baby is dark because Armand’s mother “belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of

Then, at the end of the book, Armand shunned Desiree because the baby was black, therefore Desiree was black, and he kicked her out of the plantation and asked to never come back. She leaves the plantation, but some readers of this story got the impression that Desiree to her baby out into the fields of Armand’s plantation and killed herself and the

Critical Paragraph Prompt In literary works, cruelty often functions as a crucial motivation or a major social or political factor. Select a short story in which acts of cruelty are important to the theme. Then write a well-developed essay analyzing how cruelty functions in the work as a whole and what the cruelty reveals about the perpetrator and/or victim. Do not merely summarize the plot.

Subsequently finding out that his child was not white, Armand began to blame Desiree. “Desiree this means that you are not white (75).” Armand is so furious that he makes a bold statement saying that Desiree was the problem in the equation because she was half-black. Desiree was shocked and confused and attempted to rebut the allegation by exclaiming: “look at me (my hands) they are whiter than yours (75).” By pleading with Armand, Desiree tries to explain that she is not black and that she’s not responsible for this misfortune, but maybe it was him. In spite of, Armand feeling so superior wasn’t willing to listen and told Desiree that she could leave his life. Feeling guilty and hurt, Desiree takes a drastic action and commits suicide. Meanwhile, Armand starting cleaning house and to an extent started to reflect. He found out in an old letter that “he belonged to the race cursed with the brand of slavery (75).” In awe he had no clue that he was actually the blame for his once “royal” son being mulatto and in a sense responsible for the suicide of Desiree. In the end, Armand has begun to reap what he sow, and has also forgotten how to be

In Desiree’s Baby, towards the end, the real problem is acknowledged when the neighbors come lurking as if to confirm the existence of the passing baby, and respectively, the passing mother. Many of the unfortunate events in modern history happened when a negative view was placed upon a minority, whether it be religious, racial, or geographical. So, in a way it is justified for Armand to have conducted himself in the manner he did, when he disassociated himself to the undesired child, he was exerting his superiority over “the others”. By not telling Desiree the reason his abrupt change in behavior, he managed to ridicule her even further, she would have been thought as by others as devious for thinking she had tricked a decent, proper, young, white plantation owner into thinking she was also of his kind. This treatment was the only way Armand knew to keep his reputation as intact as

In Desiree’s story, she encounters a completely different problem in her marriage. Desiree was originally adopted by loving parents and at eighteen, fell in love for the first sight with Armand, as also he “fell in love, as if struck by a pistol shot”(708) then quickly got married. As their happy marriage blossoms, Desiree gave a birth to a child. However, to their surprise, Desiree gave birth to a bi-racial child. As a result, doubts grew even larger due to her own unknown heritage. Armand banishes both Desiree and her baby, abandoning them and his love for her. Both women struggle in their marriages due to the authority inflicted upon by their spouses. The men in their relationships are dominant as most of the other relationships in the 19th centuries. Women in this era sole purpose are to serve their husbands. In the same way as Mallard served her husband, resulting in her victorious joy and relief after discovering her husband’s death. Mallard and one was forced Desiree both loved their husbands, however, both differs in ways that one wanted freedom and one was forced out to

When Désirée tells Madame Valmonde that “Oh, Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe, chiefly because it is a boy, to bear his name; though he says not, - that he would have loved a girl as well. But I know it is n’t true. I know he says that to please me” (Chopin 540). The statement demonstrates that although there was love between Armand and Désirée, still Désirée knew that Armand was egoistic and selfish that he would only care if the baby was a boy and not a girl. As claimed by Skredsvig, “the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his dealings with the slaves” (Skredsvig 97). The quote suggests that an evil spirit or Devil took place inside Armand that he start treating his workers worse than slaves because he was so much angry by the fact that his own new born son was partially black. But then it was all about Désirée’s strength and courage in the story and not Armand (Skredsvig 98). According to Skredsvig, “Désirée’s Baby is not merely a local color story of life in patriarchal, racist Louisiana, but, more importantly, a chronicle of one woman’s inscription in that social space” (Skredsvig

When Armand first meets with Madame Valmondé, his wants did not match that of hers; while Madame was worried about Desiree’s origins and wanted knowledge of it, Armand just wanted her as a wife, not caring of Desiree’s roots. Chopin made it clear from the beginning to her audience about “the girl’s obscure origin” (Chopin 708), yet Armand finds Desiree too lovely to pass on. This makes it seems to the audience that Armand looked pass the possibility that Desiree could be mixed, but rather paid attention to how lovely she is and how quickly he could make her his own. The audience begins to perceive that Armand is a good guy in the story, which proves to a facade that Armand constructed as he sees that he could attain every white man’s wants from that time period: a white wife and white children that he will eventually pass down his prestige and power to. The moment that Armand finds out that his wants cannot be attained, his attitude shifts. When Desiree gave birth to a mixed baby, Armand knows that he cannot simply look