Chopin used this story is to expose the public to miscegenation. Miscegenation was a man reason why many wives and children were disowned or killed during slavery. Desiree’s baby was a victim of this because of the unknown background of his father. Because of miscegenation, not only will the baby and Desiree suffer, so will Armand. Armand name is now tainted because of the color of his new born.…
1*What is your impression of the denouement of "Desiree's Baby? Do you think that Armand was aware of his ancestry? Why or why not? The dénouement of “Desiree’s Baby” left me with the impression of shocked.…
Desiree arrives in the story as a beautiful pubescent naïve girl soon to become a young mother and loving wife hollowed and ultimately ended by her husband’s actions, and society’s expectations…
Chopin accurately demonstrates the conspicuous gap that once stood between men and women, which is present in her story “Desiree’s Baby”. Chopin applied this to many marital relationships, highlighting her belief that men were oppressive and dictatorial in a marriage. Among the two main characters in her story, “Desiree’s Baby,” it is clear that Desiree, wife of Armand Aubigny, is seen as less of a human being and more of a property that he takes for granted. As evidence of the toxicity of their relationship, Desiree feels obligated to let her husband’s thoughts and feelings affect her own opinions and overall well being, instead of allowing herself to be an individual. For example, a paragraph in the story reads: What Desiree said was true.…
There is a time in history were people were not accepted for who they were, especially by the color of an individual 's skin. The same chances were not presented to those who were of a darker complexion. Two different plots with the same concept that shed light to a situation where pretending seemed to be the only way out of the hardships of what life had to offer for blacks. “The Imitation of Life” one of the greatest movies of the 1950 's era with a strong message and a tear jerking ending. Kate Chopin gives her audience another critical, yet, mysterious story in “Desiree 's Baby.”…
People deserved that the child had black roots, which they regarded shame. Then, Armand gave up on his wife and child as he assumed that Desiree because of her unknown roots was part black. But at the end of the story he found out that he was the one who was part…
The death of her husband tells the reader that Mrs. Mallard was not happy in her marriage and is free to be an independent woman without the negative judgment from her peers. In “Desiree’s Baby”, Chopin talks about how controlling her husband is by being a slave owner and how he responds to thinking she is not white. In this story, Desiree’s husband is portrayed as a self-centered jerk. These examples in each story are vital because even though both women are in unhappy marriages with controlling husbands; their husbands have different antagonistic…
However, when Chopin wrote this story, she most likely wrote with the goal of persuading everyday people to think about social norms, and the restrictions and conditions of ordinary human beings, set in place by their society. This effort to bring attention to outdated or problematic social ideologies (like racism, in the example of Désirée’s Baby) was a common characteristic of Realist…
Coincidentally, it also plays into the character of Armand as his treatment of the slaves on his plantation changes as his child is born. Moreover, the pride Armand has as a father can be in part attributed to the child’s pigment, as it was at first the child appeared to be Caucasian, supported by paragraph sixteen where Desiree says, “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”. However, once the child began to show signs of being mixed, Armand grew viscous towards everyone, most likely due to the hatred and betrayal he must have felt at the thought that his wife had kept her mixed blood secret, effectively supporting the pigment theory through Armand’s severance of ties with the mixed child. Thereafter, Armand’s lack of empathy for his wife turned into a hostile atmosphere that lead to her killing herself. Undeniably, it was Armand’s destructive and cruel racism that hurts those closest to…
Now Armand is left scared with his color and also with a broken heart. Armand was a hypocrite and his family background is what made him abandon Desiree and the baby. In the beginning of Desiree 's baby, Chopin uses strong imagery to give the reader a clear picture of the type of person Desiree was before she met Armand. (Imagery - Examples and Definition of Imagery (Literary Devices))…
“Desiree’s Baby” is a short story written by Kate Chopin. This story is about Mr. and Mrs. Valmonde’s adopted daughter Desiree, and how she is courted by the son of another wealthy French Creole neighborhood family, Armand Aubigny who knows nothing of her origins. Desiree was found by an old pillar at a couple months old, believed to be left by a party of Texans. Desiree grew up into a beautiful and gentle young lady, but still had no knowledge on who she really was. Armand falls in love with Desiree at sight and they soon get married and have a child of their own.…
As he begins to burn all of Desiree’s possessions, he discovers a letter that was mailed from his mother to his father stating, “ 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, 182) Upon reading this it takes me back to remembrance of when earlier in the novel it also states “Armand’s dark handsome face” (Chopin, 179) and when Desiree says, “look at my hand, whiter than yours, Armand” (Chopin, 180) Chopin builds up Armand as a mixed race character who looks white and upholds, if not imposes, the ‘rank’ to prove the falseness of Louisiana values. Armand is one of the main characters who upheld this white privilege, because he looks white, although he is part black. This short story has a strong racial theme that depicts the circumstances when slavery did exist and to show how people lived in the middle of it.…
“Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin is a short story that focused on the tragic consequences of miscegenation during the nineteenth- century. This short story took place during the period known as the antebellum period on a Louisiana plantation. During the antebellum period, racism is strongly connected with sexism during this period and the cruelty of racism resulted in the intolerance of gender and race. The setting played a significant role to support the racial and gender bias between the main protagonists’, Desiree and Armand, relationship. Desiree is the wife of Armand and the mother to her miscegenation child.…
In Kate Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby”, race and color are the separating line between being a slave or a free man or woman during the pre-Civil War era in America. Armand is a white plantation owner who is angered when he finds out that his son is black. He has come to this conclusion based on the baby’s skin color alone. He accuses his wife, Desiree, of being black and lying about her race. Armand and Desiree compare each other’s skin color to prove who is whiter than the other.…
When people are young, they are taught “to not judge the book by its cover” because it can be misleading to what the book context is going to be about. Unfortunately for Armand, “the cover” was Desiree’s skin color. Armand Aubigny, a character in the short story “Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin, confronts an immense decision between love and race. He becomes furious when he notices his son’s skin color was not white and does not want to be in a relationship with his wife, Desiree. Armand is racist, has power and control of people, and shows arrogant behavior that causes Desiree to leave him.…