Feminism In Desiree's Baby

In Kate Chopin’s Desiree’s Baby, an adopted girl named Desiree falls in love, marries into a wealthy family, and ends up having a child seeming to contain African descent. She is scorned for this from her once loving, now hateful husband, and is basically forced to leave, her child along with her. At the end of the story, Desiree’s husband, Armand, learns through a letter from his mother to his father that he is the one that actually bears the African descent. Desiree was only blamed for this because of the fact that she was adopted and did not know who she belonged to. It was not even considered that Armand had African blood because he came from a respected family. Desiree is subject to feminist, societal, and even racial oppression even though in the end Armand finds out she should not be. Desiree’s role is to take care of the baby, and her mood changes when Armand’s does. When he is mad, she is fearful, but when he is happy she is thankful. These show the societal roles of women at the time and that she experienced feminist oppression. Ultimately Desiree feels as if she has no value in her life. Armand fell out of

Although the story seems to focus on these pressures of Desiree, it can be inferred that her husband, Armand, also deals with these pressures. Desiree is pressured to leave her family because of the disgrace she has caused, having a biracial baby and deemed the one that is at fault. A further insight reveals that Armand also loses his family in a sense because he wouldn 't have stopped loving Desiree and his own child if he knew that he was the one that was part African. Eventually Armand does acknowledge the truth after he finds a note written from his mother to his father and he has to live with that burden the rest of his life, just as Desiree does, thinking that her blood is tainted and that it was her