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There could have been multiple possibilities of why the baby was not “White,” but due to Armand’s first intuition that Désirée was not white, he is showing that he has authority of the situation and that what he says goes. Because the husband and wife in both stories allow this particular type of destructive relationship, where the wife is submissive and the husband treats his wife like his own property, both stories progressively deteriorate by the
Let the Emotions Spill In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess “That outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.” In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne is a character who outwardly conforms while question inwardly. Prynne is humiliated and is publicly shamed by wearing the scarlet letter upon her bosom for seven years by everyone.
Foreshadowing is a major building block in ‘The Father of Désirée’s Baby’. ‘The Father of Désirée’s Baby’ is about a woman and her husband(both supposedly white) that had a black baby. The author, Kate Chopin, used foreshadowing to build to the ironic ending. In the beginning of the story, Chopin poked Armand’s uncertain family tree shortly after mentioning Armand and Désirée’s easy love. While Armand and Désirée fell in love easily, they didn’t seem to take into account their questionable backgrounds, “The wonder was that he had not loved her before; for he had known her since his father brought him home from Paris, a boy of eight, after his mother died there,”(page 23).
To the untrained eye, a story could be viewed one-dimensionally; a tale might only appeal to emotion while logic is left out in the cold. Equally, logic may be forgotten while emotion is heavily focused on. However, through the use of Critical Lenses, readers can begin to see greater depth in literature. As readers find connections through Critical Lenses, they become more educated on various topics, more aware of social, political, and even logical abstractions. Instead of failing to retain the intent and content of the material, they even can remember details of stories more vividly when truly examining literature rather than reading it once for entertainment (or chore).
Chopin uses symbolism to show Desiree’s race by stating, “The young mother was recovering slowly, and lay full length, in her soft white muslins and laces, upon a couch.” The way Chopin illustrates Desiree’s clothing leaves readers thinking of her as pure. For Desiree to represent as ‘clean,’ leaves Armand having to be mixed. When Armand plays innocent and acts harshly towards Desiree, Desiree compares her skin to his. In the story, Desiree gets frustrated because she knows she embellished white by stating, “It is a lie; it is not true, I am white!
The Awakening is a novel written by Kate Chopin that follows a woman named Edna Pontellier on her journey to self-awareness. Edna lived a comfortable lifestyle with her husband and two children in Louisiana during the 19th century. Despite obtaining all aspects to a perfect life, Edna became dissatisfied after meeting Robert Lebrun in Grand Isle. Robert sparked a desire for unlawful lust as well as a yearning for independence in a society full of conformed standards. Edna was unable to handle the pressures associated with achieving personal freedom which ultimately led to her death.
With the denial of his past and of his race, comes hatred and racism into Armand’s heart and actions. This goes hand and hand with the denial aspect with the usage of characterization from Chopin’s part. Racism ran high in most people’s characteristics of this time because Chopin put this story’s in pre-Civil War times. With the treatment of his slaves, you can really see how Armand feels about others from the race that he sees as less than, even though he is really one of them. The substandard treatment of Armand’s slaves only stops once Desiree gives birth to the baby, but when there was a chance of Desiree being of an African descent, Armand sent her and their child away without thought, saying “Yes, I want to go” with no emotion showing in his voice or actions (3).
They end up having a kid but the boy turns out to be not white. Armand angry and upset kicks out both Desiree and her baby because of her mixed race. That night, Armand burns all of Desiree’s possessions. While doing this, he finds a letter that his mother wrote to his
This ending is foreshadowed when Desiree is describing Armands mood changes to her adoptive mother. Armand is much nicer and lenient with his workers, “Armand’s dark,handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns since the day he fell in love with her.” (2). While his mood is important the key point is how Chopin describes him, she uses the adjective “dark” to describe his physical appearance. The reader expects Armand to be of the white race considering he grew up alongside his family unlike Desiree.
During the era in which this short story was written, southern authors had a major influence on the way the culture was going to grow with racism, and also the way people loved each other. Kate Chopin, a traditional author who believed in southern ways, exemplifies how race and the characteristics of conditional love played a role in her story. In “Desiree’s Baby,” the author, Kate Chopin, provides an illustration of conditional love exemplified by the character, Armand, towards his wife and child; furthermore, Chopin provides instances of irony, elements of surprise, foreshadowing, and symbolism to prove that Armand’s love for both of them was not the unconditional love typically felt and portrayed by women, such as Desiree, during this era. Throughout the story, the readers notice different times where Chopin uses elements of surprise. One major surprise is when Armand opens the letter from his mother and finds out that he has African American in his bloodline.
Soon after he began to notice that the baby 's complexion became darker and made the assumption that the child is not his or his wife was of mixed race. The sad truth of the situation was received when he soon later discovered he was the one of mixed race, he then regretted telling his wife to leave with the baby (Chopin). Kate Chopin uses the different characters to create a storyline that the conflict of the story has ironic. (LitCharts)
The story “Désirée 's Baby” by Kate Chopin is about a man named Armand and a woman Named Desiree. Armand and Désirée are a married couple of French origin with a newborn baby. One day Madame Valmonde, Désirée 's Mother decides to come to Desiree 's house to take care of her baby but Madame Valmonde looks at Désirée 's baby and finds out that he is a quadroon then everyone in the community starts to look at Armand and Desiree and try to find out who is not white Armand immediately blames Désirée for not being white even though all the signs were pointing towards him. Désirée eventually starts believing that she is not white and ends up killing herself, shortly after Désirée 's death Armand finds a letter and finds out that he is actually half black witch raises the questions did Armand know of his black origin before Desiree’s death. Yes he did know because he acted like he hated Desiree because of her black origin and he treated his slaves badly.
If it weren’t for Armand’s racism, this story would have turned out with a much more positive ending. Because of Armand racist world views, he was unable to be a decent human and take responsibility for the child he conceived with Désirée. His racism causes him to act unkindly towards his wife, child, slaves, and I think to himself now that he knows he himself is part
Armand becomes enraged at the sight of his mixed child, and begins to relinquish this rage upon his slaves, with Chopin writing that the “very spirit of Satan” overtook him in how he dealt with them. Désirée, directly in Armand’s crosshairs on behalf of her obscure origins and his white pride, will soon shiver in his coldness and be kept powerless by his
He hardly knew Desiree, yet he married her anyway and had a son. Another literary device that is used in “Desiree’s Baby” is situational and dramatic irony. For example, like Jeniffer Smith states in Short Stories for Students that “ Several critics of “Desiree’s Baby” have charged that the ending is a trick ending, or an O. Henry ending, so-named after the short story writer famous for the reversals that came at the end of his stories”(Smith 73). Chopin is well known for using these endings in her stories. Just like in the “Story of an Hour” Chopin uses situational irony to keep the reader entertained and to shock the reader in the end.
