Desiree's Baby Interracial Prejudice

Superior Essays
Desiree’s Baby and Interracial Couples
Throughout history colored and interracial people have faced great prejudice. In the short story desiree's baby one could believe that the couple was truly in love, but do to racism in the 19th century they broke up. Interracial couples and colored people were thought of less than white people. Life was much harder for them because of the prejudice and hate. This same hate destroyed the family in Desiree’s Baby and many other peoples live. Now a day’s interracial couples and colored people do not face the same prejudice.
In Desiree’s Baby there's this couple that falls madly in love with one another. The man Armand is amazed
…show more content…
When the baby reached about the age of three months old Armand starting acting different. Desiree had noticed “ A strange, an awful change in her husband’s mamer…”(Chopin, 2). She was to scared to ask him what was wrong. Armand spoke to her in a cold tone and hardly made eye contact with her. As much as he could he tried to stay away from their home and when dealing with the slaves it was like Satan was in him.(Chopin,2) Along with Armad acting different people kept coming to and around the house. When asked why they had come they had no reason to be there. Desiree found this all so strange and she was miserable. She felt like her husband was pulling away from her and rejecting their family and she didn’t know …show more content…
They can get married legally without any fees. In the eyes of the law interracial couples are not doing anything wrong. Not to say that some people still do not think it is wrong. In small towns where people grew up with traditional values they might see something wrong with marrying someone of color. Some towns and places still look down on colored people for no reason. Racism is still alive in America but it is not as bad as it used to be. In the eyes of the law we are all the same no matter the race but with some people they see colored people as less than. Legally everyone has the same rights. Today’s generation is a lot more understanding and accepting of different

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Race relations have been around for decades, and things haven’t changed so much since the incident in Little Rock on September 4th, 1957. Most African Americans still find it hard to be included into the White American society because there are still people in the world that choose not to accept them, due to the color of their skin. They are still being mistreated and judged and people always assume the worst from them in every given situation. In the article, “The Myth of Race” by Agustin Fuentes, he explains the question about human variation and how we can tell everyone apart from each other and how it’s all just a myth. I believe that people who discriminate against anyone of color need to understand that we are all the same on the inside and we are the ones who make the categories between each other.…

    • 1579 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kate Chopin was a Realism author during the mid to late 19th century. Born to a household mixed with French and Irish, Chopin grew up speaking both French and English and experienced a fusion of two cultures. Later on, she marries Oscar Chopin and moves to Louisiana, which is where the large majority of Chopin’s stories take place (“Kate Chopin” paragraph 3). Her stories usually have slavery or women’s rights as its background. These characteristics are true for “Desiree’s Baby”.…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Desiree's Baby Case Study

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages

    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.…

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In this passage, Desiree is a young, nice, innocent woman. Living a very good and normal life until she was heartbroken by her husband. Desiree is the ages between 18-20 years old. She met a man named “Armand” who became her husband. Armand sees Desiree standing against the stoner pillar, “eighteen years before.”…

    • 325 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    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…

    • 1326 Words
    • 6 Pages
    • 6 Works Cited
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Kate Chopin's short story ¨Desiree's Baby¨, Irony is the main point of the story. Situational Irony is shown throughout the story. This starts with the unknown past of Desiree and concluding with the realization of what Armand had done to his wife. In the story it is stated between context of how the racial superiority is for the family's name. Armand once said how much he adored and loved his wife, but later led her to kill herself along with their baby.…

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Categorizing and identifying threat is part human defense mechanism which allowed humans to survive nature and evolve into the modern man. Identifying threat in nature allowed for better survival and by categorizing animals into dangerous or safe further improves the chances of survival. Unfortunately, this defense mechanism of categorizing and identifying threat in the modern world has shifted from animals to other humans. Describing someone based on their appearance is normal and it facilitates the recognition of that individual, but racism also developed due to natural tendency of humans categorizing subjects. In America, the land in which everyone is created equal, there is a clear evidence that equality between races may just be an ideology…

    • 1727 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and “Desiree’s Baby” has many elements that can be compared and contrasted. These stories share similar characteristics such as time period and the theme of marriage. With these characteristics there are many things that need to be considered in each story such as why the time period is a big deal and what it has to do with the theme of marriage. However, there are some contrasts in the two stories like location and antagonistic motives. These contrasts should be taken into account because they are what make the stories two different stories and not a rewrite of one or the other.…

    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Even with the laws passed, “racism” still continues to happen today. Although it may still exists, it is no where close to as bad as it once was. Our country today has “Black Lives Matter” blown way out of proportion. Police have shot and young black men 175 times since January 2015; 24 of them were unarmed. Over that same period, police have shot and killed 172 young white men, 18 of whom were unarmed.…

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kate Chopin’s short story, Desiree’s Baby, is set in Louisiana in the mid nineteenth century on two white-owned plantations. The story discovers the psychosomatic bearings of slavery and racial discrimination. The physical abuse and violence that was a part of slavery are present only on the borders of the story which was disguised in Armand Aubigny’s “strict” dealings of his slaves. Armand sees certain things in his lifetime, Desiree, their son, and his slaves, but as ordinary properties, “those that either mirror well or poorly on him.” (Wolff, Cynthia Griffin)…

    • 1106 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Desiree's Baby Analysis

    • 128 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Kate Chopin’s short story “Desiree’s Baby” cogitates around sexism, social class and racism. Race in terms of difference between white skin color and black skin color as it has a necessary significance in the characters’ lives over the story. At the time, bit Armand and Desiree considered themselves happy white people however, when the plot divulges their black ancestry they were face with skepticism and their lives became meaningless. Chopin uses symbolism to show white objects being positive and black objects being negative. Social class was influenced by race as black people were poor and were treated as slaves whereas white people were the slave owners and lived a luxurious lifestyle.…

    • 128 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Teresa Gilbert talks a lot about the surprises hidden in the text of Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby” in her online journal, “The role of Implictures in Kate Chopin’s Louisiana Short Stories”. She states, “not until the end can they realize that the French name of the sinister house, L’Abri, is ironical because it will turn out to be the opposite of a safe shelter for Désirée, whose name also becomes ironical when she ceases to be considered a prized posses-sion and is marked as undesirable” (Gilbert 41). The tragic ending leaves the most lasting effect on its readers as we are waiting for the plot to unfold, we are shocked by the unexpected. The unknown ancestry that Armand hated so much, was his…

    • 1299 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Desiree’s Baby” is a short story written by Kate Chopin. The story is about a girl that is found with unknown origin and is adopted by Monsieur and Madame Valmonde. Since they were not able to conceive a child they accepted her as a gift from God and named her Desiree. Eighteen years later, Armand Aubigny falls in love with Desiree and without investigating her origin, immediately marries her. She later gives birth to a baby boy that brings joy to the couple.…

    • 1292 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “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.…

    • 1375 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    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.…

    • 2107 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays