Desiree's Baby Rhetorical Analysis

Natalie Jack
Ms. Tantlinger
Reader Response for Desiree’s Baby
18 September 2017

Reader Response for Desiree’s Baby
Paragraph nineteen is a critical turning point for the Desiree’s Baby. The sentence, “The baby, half naked, lay asleep upon her own great mahogany bed, that was like a sumptuous throne, with its satin-lined half-canopy.”, illustrates the wealth of the Aubigny family and the privileged lifestyle their child is provided because of the social prestige he was born into. It also sets up the social hierarchy that is about to be broken down. The next sentence, “One of La Blanche’s little quadroon boys--half naked too--stood fanning the child slowly with a fan of peacock feathers.”, directly contrasts with the sentence before it and reveals the class inequality between them, despite them both being biracial. Desiree then “looked from her child to the boy who stood beside him, and back again; over and over.” Desiree realises how similar her and La Blanche’s child look when she is able to compare them both side by side, which took her three months to find the opportunity.

When Desiree realises her child is biracial, “the blood turned like ice in her veins, and clammy moisture gathered upon her face.” This simile describes her fear effectively and defines the exact moment the social hierarchy collapses.

Having La Blanche’s child there fanning furthered her pain as she was presented with the contrast of their two ways of life. Desiree then asks Armand how this happened, and he responded: “you are not white.” His confidence in his origins creates no ambiguity in his mind that his wife is the culprit and is bitter to her because of the disgrace he believes she brought to him and his family. His coldness and cruelty contrasts with Desiree's hysteria to demonstrate how white men in the South were deemed superior to biracial men and

women.

In paragraph twenty six, Desiree tries to explain herself and convince Armand she is white. She points out that her hand is “whiter than [Armand’s]”, which foreshadows the ironic twist at the end. In paragraph thirty two, she presents Armand with her mother’s letter. She stood there “like a stone image: silent, white, motionless…” This simile shows her trepidation about her husband’s thoughts about her leaving. In paragraph thirty eight, Armand’s feelings of humiliation and God’s injustice towards him, and the loss of love for his wife and child are described. The metaphor “stabbed thus into his wife’s soul.” relates the emotional agony she suffered when he kicked her out to the physical pain of being stabbed, which illustrates the intensity of her emotions.

In paragraph forty three, the excerpt “It was an october afternoon; the sun was just sinking.”, foreshadows her suicide, because nature starts to die in October and “the sun … sinking” is her life coming to an end. In paragraph forty four, her “white garment” symbolizes her innocence and the purity of her heritage, foreshadowing the irony at the end also. “The stubble that bruised her tender feet” illustrates her social standing by showing she hasn’t worked and “so delicately shod” shows that the suicide was unplanned and sudden and that she was used to staying indoors with the baby.