Loneliness And Pain With A Drizzle Of Mixed Emotions About Life

"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

It had been four-weeks since Madame Valmonde has seen Desiree and the baby. As she arrives at L’Abri, the home of Armand and Desiree, she “shudders at the first sight of it.” The house is covered by “big, solemn oaks” (Chopin 422) who’s “branches far-reaching shadowed it like a pall” (Chopin 422). Offering another foreshadowing, it is suggested that the shadowing trees and the branches that cover the house compare to a cloth used to cover a coffin; allowing the reader to envision L’Abri as a gloomy or serious place that is absent of pleasure and happiness--a place that had not had a woman’s touch since Armand and his father returned from Paris after the death of his mother when Armand was just eight-years old.

Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of An Hour,” emotionally illustrates the hour in which a young woman with a heart condition finds out her husband has been killed in a mining accident. In the beginning, she grieves over the loss of her husband, but she soon becomes relieved and joyous when she realizes that she is now free. However, her husband returns after having been far from the mines for the day and her heart problems return and she dies. Kate Chopin was an early feminist author and was well acquainted with death after losing many siblings as a child, her husband (who left her a large amount of debt), and her mother with whom she was very close. As a means of therapy, Chopin took up writing and her ideas about feminism and death are very clear. In “The Story of An Hour,” Chopin uses multiple symbols and an allusion to a Greek god to illustrate and support the idea that male oppression harms the souls and lives of women.

Desiree?s words show that her life depends on the race, notions, and social class of her husband and consequently, she feels obligated to obey his every desire. Desiree is presented as vulnerable to whatever Armand wants and tells her to do when she says, ?Do you want me to go?? (177). Desiree displays through her actions that in many ways, her happiness only comes from pleasing her husband. Therefore, Desiree must decide whether to live completely separate from Armand, or to live with him in constant fear and unpleasantness. Desiree achieves personal freedom and independence from Armand when ?she disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thing along the banks of the deep, sluggish bayou; she did not come back again? (177). It is not even an option and is unheard of that Armand, being a male holding a respectable background, could possibly be black. Consequently, Desiree feels compelled to leave because she wants to please him. When Desiree decides to kill herself and her child, she shows that she is sensitive and vulnerable to her husband?s thoughts and actions.

Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour”, uses the death of Mrs. Mallard’s husband to reveal the female oppression that took place in their marriage. Chopin uses a great deal of symbolism, particularly in the open window, to reveal the theme of the oppression of women in this story. Chopin chose to begin the story with “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was conflicted with heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death” (Chopin 555). While the reader assumes that Mrs. Mallard has a medical heart condition, anyone who has done a close read of this story can assume that Chopin chose “heart trouble” to symbolize the conflicting feelings Mrs. Mallard

Kate Chopin was an author best known for her strong leading female characters. The essence of her characters was based on her female oriented upbringing. She was raised at home by her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother and at school she was taught by nuns. The soul of

Leading in realism, Kate Chopin is an influential writer during the realism philosophical era. She is inferior in her time and age and men at the time were the more dominant figure in society, Kate Chopin changed that. In her short stories for example “The Story of an Hour”, the main character Louise Mallard’s husband dies due to a train accident. Josephine, Louise’s sister, was the one who broke the news to her. “when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the lost of “killed.””(Chopin 1) She is in such shock that it paralysis her to accept its significance, and she cried “at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms.”.(Chopin 1) She becomes hesitant to believe it because her husband was the one that always put her on a leash so she wouldn't become overconfident with her freedom.

In “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin describes the series of emotions a married woman with a heart condition, Mrs. Mallard, endures after hearing about the death of her husband, Mr. Mallard. She assumes that she will be a mournful widow, but she ends up silently rejoicing. It turns out that she was not happily married and the thought of freedom from her attachments of marriage gave her

The story by Kate Chopin called Desiree’s Baby (1894) focuses on the slavery days of America. It takes place during Antebellum in Creole Louisiana. Kate Chopin’s purpose in this story is to show how too much emphasis on skin and racial heritage could destroy a loving family. Lying is never an okay thing to do, especially during the days when race could make or break you. Armand’s parents did wrong by lying to Armand, making him believe he was white. This caused the self-destruction of his family, owning with harsh treatment of slaves and lived a life as someone he never was to begin with.

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

    Kate Chopin was an extraordinary writer of the nineteenth century. Despite failure to receive positive critical response, she became one of the most powerful and controversial writers of her time. She dared to write her thoughts on topics considered radical: the institution of marriage and women's desire for social, economic, and political equality. With a focus on the reality of relationships between men and women, she draws stunning and intelligent characters in a rich and bold writing style that was not accepted because it was so far ahead of its time. She risked her reputation by creating female heroines as independent women who wish to receive sexual and emotional fulfillment,

“Love and passion, marriage and independence, freedom and restraint.” These are the themes that are represented and worked with throughout Kate Chopin’s works. Kate Chopin, who was born on February 8, 1851, in St. Louis, was an American acclaimed writer of short stories and novels. She was also a poet, essayist, and a memoirist. Chopin grew up around many women; intellectual women that is. Chopin said herself that she was neither a feminist nor a suffragist; she was simply a woman who took other women intensely seriously. Chopin believed women had the ability to be strong, individual, and free-spirited. She herself reached out, in

women are a huge part of our society. Yet they are not given the respect and love they deserve. Kate Chopin wanted to show how women were treated and how it affected their mental stability. Women today are still a huge part of what makes the world great and run smoothly. Kate Chopin used irony to display the great desire for freedom that women struggled to

The unique style of Kate Chopin’s writing has influenced and paved the way for many female authors. Although not verbally, Kate Chopin aired political and social issues affecting women and challenging the validity of such restrictions through fiction. Kate Chopin, a feminist in her time, prevailed against the notion that a woman’s purpose was to only be a housewife and nothing more. Kate Chopin fortified the importance of women empowerment, self-expression, self-assertion, and female sexuality through creativity in her literary work.

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.