Desiree's Baby Literary Analysis

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The theme for Desiree baby is Pride and prejudice, racism and also shame. Having pride with someone you love and having a belief of a race that judges your origin or nationality. The claims of Desiree’s Baby and the key main points are in the story. Also, it shows the impact that society can have on us and how it affects people point of view. “he no longer loved her, because of the unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name.” In Desiree baby the story contains about love, pride and race. The story has a historical background. However, this story was written in 1892 by Kate Chopin, but took place during the era of slavery. In the story, Armand is an owner in Louisiana in his father’s plantations. which then allows him to …show more content…

In the story Kate Chopin describes in the story how “Young Aubigny’s rule was a strict one, too, and under it his Negroes had forgotten how to be gay.” Young Aubigny is Armand. Armand had a dominate way of controlling slaves for his father’s plantation due to the fact that his family was well known. The story begins when a well-known owner named, Armand Aubigny, falls in love with and marries a ravishing person named Desiree, whose ethnic descent is unascertained. Throughout the story Armand disowns Desiree and his baby when he realizes that his child is interracial, which is a race of a black and white heritage, Armand now believes that his wife is black. He feels certain of his race and lineage of origin he ends up feeling so ashamed and was hurt because of the shame his wife Desiree has brought upon his family name of Aubigny. Desiree begins to become a victim of dislike, distrust, and abuse that derive from the acceptance in society of racism. Chopin is showing how women has lacked individuality and respect back in time. Love was impacted the first in the story because, love can mean different things and ways to

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  • Desiree's Baby Literary Analysis

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    Kate Chopin, an acclaimed American author, made waves during the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century by creating various works that often addressed sensitive issues such as the overbearing domestic roles of women and the ingrained prejudice in society. Her famous short story, “Désirée’s Baby,” reflects this idea as it demonstrates how hypocrisy and prejudice destroy the marriage between the main characters Désirée and her husband, Armand. While these two are the catalysts of the events that took place in the story, another person plays a significant role in their tragedy. La Blanche is a slave at L’Abri who Désirée and Armand mention on three separate occasions, but she never appears nor speaks in the story herself. Despite

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  • Analysis of Desiree Baby by Kate Chopin

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    The characterization of Armand showed that he knew all along about his ethnicity. Armand wanted to cope with his insecurities and feel to his slaves, which is evident in the following example: “…young Aubigny’s rule was strict and under it his Negroes had forgotten, how to be gay as they had been during their old master who was easy going and indulgent in his lifetime” (Chopin 708). Armand was afraid people in the community might get to know about his secret. For example, when Desiree is confronting him, she asks, “Do you want me to go?” (710). Armand replies, “Yes I want you to go” (710). Armand immediately makes up his mind to allow her t...

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  • Kate Chopin's Desiree's Baby

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    ...ne major proponent that affected Aubigny’s outlook upon the African race was how his family name played in relation to the Southern culture. Another part that was analyzed was how Armand actually treated his slaves from making them forget how to be happy to him severely punishing them at the expense of his biracial child. Also in the context that his child was part African served as a catalyst for his change of heart from love to hate towards his wife which then terminated to his banishment of his wife and son. In the end of it all, the reader has seen the adverse and destructive effects that racism can have upon a select group of people and on society. From what Armand despised the most, was actually a part of him that he could never get rid of.

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  • Psychologicalism In Desiree's Baby

    1002 Words  | 3 Pages

    In “Desiree’s Baby,” Kate Chopin writes about the life of a young lady and her new family. In this short story, the fond couple lived in Louisiana before the American Civil War. Chopin illustrates the romantic atmosphere between Armand and Desiree. Chopin also describes the emotion of the parents for their new born. When the baby was born, Armand’s heart had softened on behalf of others. One afternoon, Desiree and the baby were relaxing in a room with a young boy fanning them with peacock feathers. As they were relaxing, Desiree had sniffed a threatening scent. Desiree desired Armand’s assistance as she felt faint from the odor that she could not comprehend. Armand had denied the request his wife sent. Therefore, he cried out that she nor the baby were white. Thus, Desiree took the baby and herself and walked into the bayou and they were never seen again. In this short story, Chopin illustrates the psychological abuse Desiree faces from her husband.

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  • Kate Chopin's Desiree's Baby

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    “Tell me what it means!” she cried despairingly.” It means,” he answered lightly, “that the child is not white; it means that you are not white” (Chopin, p. 192). Kate Chopin's "Desiree's Baby" is a well-known short story. “In her life, Kate Chopin actively searched for female spiritual emancipation and expressed it in her writing”(Deter, 2000). Throughout the story, Kate Chopin uses symbolism to convey her themes of racial predisposition, unequal gender roles, and social ladder in a society. The characters and the setting in this short story help provide the readers with more understanding of how patriarchal our society is at that time.

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  • Lust And Love In Desiree's Baby, By Kate Chopin

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    That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love, as if struck by a pistol shot…The passion that awoke in his that day, when he saw her at the gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like everything that drives headlong over all obstacles.”(47). Most often, such love does not last, it is like a fire that ignite some dry straw but it is consumed very quickly. The true love was the one between Armand’s father and his wife, which was of black race. To be with her, he left his plantation and his important name in Louisiana and went to live in France, a land foreign to him, just to offer an easier life to his wife, “But, above all, she wrote, “night and day, I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery.” (Chopin 52). To show his love for Desiree and their baby, Armand could do the same thing his father did many years ago, but his attitude towards Desiree looks like in fact his love was just one who pass away went something wrong happened in their life, when life 's challenges arise. The true love is when you can’t live without another person, when his/her happiness is your happiness, “This was what made

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    Kate Chopin's use of irony in the story is particularly effective. She points out the various aspects that prejudice is unfair to the characters in her story. If Desiree had been the one of mixed race then she could have been considered by as the innocent heroine. Consequently, because Armand is the source of the suspect blood, Desiree becomes totally the victim.

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  • The Theme Of Women In 'Desiree Baby' By Kate Chopin

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    This story is more on the racist side other than being enslaved in marriages. Even though is more on the racist side you can connect it with Kate Chopin Common theme. The story is mainly about a married white couple who haves a black child. Again at this time period there is still a lot of slavery going on, so the husband blames the wife, Desiree, for being black since she was originally adopted. After the husband finds out that there’s a possibility that his wife have black heritage in her. “Then a strange, an awful change in her husband’s manner, which she dared not ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old love-light seemed to have gone out. He absented himself from home; and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child” (Chopin). Here in this part of the story Chopin shows how was Desiree being mistreated once the husband found out she might be black. Not only does it proves the rights of women and was it disobeyed but also proves how the time period the story takes place. What I’m trying to prove is that Kate Chopin common theme is women rights and their role in marriages at her time era, it shows all her stories are taken place around the same generation. “Desiree was happy when she had the baby and Armand was as happy and nice to the slaves then before but after he saw his child growing to be mixed it changed his whole attitude” (Griffin). This shows how the story takes place during slavery time, since the husband had

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  • Desiree's Baby, by Kate Chopin

    1122 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout time, humans struggled with issues of conformity and individuality. In the modern world, individuality is idealized, as it is associated with strength. Weak individuals are usually portrayed as conforming to society and having almost no personal ideas. In “Desiree’s Baby”, a short story, the author Kate Chopin deals with the struggles of African descendants in the French colonies during the time of slave labor. The protagonist is a white woman named Desiree who is of unknown origin and birth as she was found abandoned as an infant at an aristocrat’s doorstep. Eighteen years after her discovery, she and a fellow aristocrat, Armand Aubigny, fall in love and get married. They soon have a child, yet conflict arises when the child is discovered to be black. The young family is destroyed when the baby’s father, Armand, refuses to accept the child. In “Desiree’s Baby”, Chopin demonstrates through Armand’s conflicts how weak humans conform to environmental norms.

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