Foreshadowing In 'The Father Of Desiree's Baby'

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). This shows that Armand doesn’t know and can’t ask about his mother’s family, so he doesn’t know his full history.

Since Armand didn’t care enough about Désirée’s background, he hurried to marry Désirée. Chopin then hints at Armand’s darker complexion. After Désirée and Armand got married, Chopin described Armand’s face, “But Armand’s dark, handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns since the day he fell in love with her,” (page 24). In this quote, Armand’s face was described as ‘dark’, which is a word not commonly used to describe a white person. This foreshadows by saying Armand was darker than the usual white person, which is suspicious, and means that his children could pick up the same trait. Speaking of heredity, since Armand fell on the darker side of the skin scale, Chopin played a little compare and contrast. Chopin shows that when compared, it is obvious that Désirée is ‘whiter’. When Désirée discovers that the baby is black, she goes hysterical and tries to deny the thought that she is black too, “ “It is a lie; it is not true, I am white! Look at my hair, it is brown; and my eyes are gray, Armand, you know they are gray. And my skin is fair,” seizing his