Desiree's Baby Analysis

Kate Chopin wrote “The Father of Desiree’s Baby”, later changed to “Desiree’s Baby,” in 1892 and was first published in Vouge, a female magazine (Gilbert 9). According to Cynthia Wolff, this story has “layers of ambiguity and uncertainty” (37) about the problems that occurred in the South during the 19th century. Chopin points out the problems of race, gender, and miscegenation throughout the short story. However, the most important thing to recognize from this story is how Chopin uses structure, symbolism, and foreshadowing throughout the short story. Kate Chopin uses structure, symbolism, and foreshadowing in “Desiree’s Baby” to reveal that Desiree intertwines her identity and happiness among other characters in the story, which ends in
Therefore, Chopin uses structure in “Desiree’s Baby” to reveal that Desiree intertwines her identity with several characters in the story. For example, the structure shows that Desiree “is essentially passive” (Peel 235) and also shows that “Desiree’s individualism resembles that of other characters (Peel 236). This means that Desiree intertwines her identity within her mother, Madame Valmonde, Monsieur Valmonde, her baby, and her husband, Armand, and ultimately she lacks her own identity because of this. Also, the structure shows that Desiree is “an object of desire” (Peugues 9) and the characters that project their desires on Desiree is her adopted mother, her baby, and her
According to Derek Foster and Kris LeJunne, “the subject of motherhood is extremely important” to Desiree (156), which shows that Desiree is focused on her baby and part of her identity is being a mother to her baby. Peel further states that “Desiree creates nothing but a baby” (235) meaning she is only useful for procreation, thus making her lack an identity of her own. Textual evidence from the text is when “Madame Valmonde drove over to L’Abri to see Desiree and the baby” (Chopin 1519). Chopin seems to structure this sentence by saying part of Desiree’s identity is from her baby. For example, throughout the story, Chopin structures Desiree’s name as “Desiree and the baby” (1519). This phrase is used another time on page 1520, when “Madame Valmonde had not seen Desiree and the baby for four weeks” (Chopin). This phrase suggests Desiree and the baby are like the same people because their identity is being