ipl-logo

Situational Irony In Desiree's Baby

1535 Words7 Pages

Kate Chopin is the author of a very popular short story called “Desiree’s Baby”. This story takes place in the 1890s, during the time of slavery and has to do with a white woman named Desiree Valmonde, who was abandoned by her parents and adopted by a married couple. It also has to do with a white man named Armand, who is Desiree’s significant other. Being the happily, healthy couple that they are, they decide to have a baby together, and when the baby is born Armand and Desiree were both delighted and seemed as if life couldn’t get better. As soon as the baby gets older, Armand started to notice that his baby’s skin was giving off the complexion of either a “quadroon” or “octoroon”- ⅛ or ⅛ African. He instantly blamed Desiree’s unknown background …show more content…

Situational Irony is when an event occurs that directly contradicts expectations (Teaching...1). During the story “Desiree’s Baby” Armand and Desiree have a baby, and everything is going great until the baby gets older. The baby starts to give off the appearance of an African and this causes Armand to be furious and unsatisfied for he claims he is a white man and at the time the Africans were considered low. He accuses Desiree unknown past for the cause of this and accuses her of being part African. He destroys his marriage and family and orders Desiree and the baby to leave and never come back.While being so enraged with anger he starts to burn everything that belonged to Desiree from all of her clothes and gowns to all of the letters they wrote to each other. In doing this he came across a letter from his mother intended for his father. When he opened and read it, he realized that he is part black and that he is the reason why the baby came out part African. The letter read “I thank 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 5). This is a good example of irony because it is a very dramatic plot twist, nobody would have every expected this and it leaves the reader in “Awe” (Owleyes

Show More
Related
1367 Words | 6 Pages

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

Read More
784 Words | 4 Pages

Signifying that Armand had calmed and settled down once he meet her, he was so in love with Desiree. After a while and 3 months had passed y of the baby’s birth Armand’s attitude had changed she didn’t want to ask but it made her unhappy. Armand didn’t want his family legacy to be ruined because the baby wasn’t white which he believes Desiree wasn’t white either which isn’t the women he fell in love with. This can conclude the fact that people weren’t supportive of interracial relationships and how because of the baby’s skin color Armand’s attitude changed just cause he didn’t want his reputation to be ruined.

Read More
1076 Words | 5 Pages

I cannot be so unhappy and live” (Chopin 234). The significance that her life has a white lady instantaneously is gone by the nature of racism, as Desiree may be considered a black lady. Desiree is really tortured by this rumor because she knows the hardships that women go through that are considered black, “the condition of being black and female is much more debilitating than that of being black and male”

Read More
873 Words | 4 Pages

One of the main issues that Kate Chopin made evident through the plot of “Desiree’s Baby,” was that Armand treated his slaves poorly because of their race. During the story, Chopin says, “And the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his dealings with the slaves.” This evidence shows that not only did Armand show racism towards his child when he realized that he had mixed blood but also towards his slaves. Armand treated his slaves the same way that his dad treated them on his plantation. Another idea that makes racism evident during the first of the short story Armand spoke highly of his son and showed acts of love towards the baby and Desiree

Read More
773 Words | 4 Pages

The illustration of the mysterious haze bestowed around the house gives an inkling to the idea that something is impure, mostly surrounding Armand and the Aubigny family since it is their land. This is associated with both the idea that the baby is not white, and that his “imperfection” comes from Armands bloodline. Before Desiree’s recognition of her child's skin color, the reaction of Madame Valmonde toward the baby further develops the idea that Desiree has overlooked the reality of her baby’s ancestry. She was notably startled when she first saw the baby, then proceeded to hold it to the sun in order to better examine it. When she did this, she gazed back at the housemaid, who was black.

Read More
1267 Words | 6 Pages

This is shown when Armand’s mother writes, ‘“night and day, 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. Par 6). This shows how Armand was racially mixed himself. Armand's mother's words show the degree to which the American racial tension has conquered even the black mind. She considers her race “cursed with the brand of slavery” (Chopin.

Read More
763 Words | 4 Pages

Analysis of Symbolism in Desiree’s Baby Set in antebellum Louisiana, Desiree’s Baby tells the story of a couple and how a relationship went south very quickly. Desiree’s Baby gives the reader an idea of how women were treated in the 1850’s and touches on the treatment of slaves Pre-Civil War. In this analysis of Kate Chopin’s, Desiree’s Baby, the symbolism of the treatment of the slaves, the deserted field, and the bonfire all signify more than they let on in the story.

Read More
295 Words | 2 Pages

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).

Read More
1210 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the discovery of his son not being white, he blames Desiree for being the cause of the problem. He won’t speak out of the discovery of him being the one with black heritage because it is unacceptable to his family. He is insensitive and would rather harm his own family (Gradesaver.com...1) Another example of irony occurs in the way that Madame Valmonde didn 't have a child of herself and one day while her husband was riding he comes upon a child just asleep next to a stone pillar (Chopin... Pg.

Read More
660 Words | 3 Pages

In the short story, “Harrison Bergeron” Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. relies on the use of irony to indicate where our country will stand once we have gained total equality amongst each other. The theme in “Harrison Bergeron” is that the government cannot enforce equality within the people. The author creates a fictional visualization of the future in the year 2081, where the government controls the people and tortures them in order to maintain “equal opportunity” in their world to prove why it is impossible to achieve absolute equality in the world. Vonnegut dives into a whole other level of uniformity in Harrison Bergeron by focusing on eliminating advantages in appearance, intelligence, strength, and other unique abilities rather than focusing on

Read More
1012 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
1283 Words | 6 Pages

The irony of this short story was that it was Armand who was of mixed raced and not his wife. He was the one who tainted the baby, he found out after fining a letter from his beloved mother that was written to his father (Chopin). Irony is a surprising interesting twist at the end on a story. I am sure that after he read this letter that he soon figured out why his father was so kind to the slaves and how it was wrong of him to treat his wife the way he did and immediately regretted his choices. Thus, she was no longer there and he could not get her back, he thought she went back to live with her stepmother, and if he goes to look for her or the stepmother went to look for her and the child they would both find that Desiree never went to her original destination.

Read More
939 Words | 4 Pages

Situational Irony is a very important element in literature and can be found in many famous literary works including Ray Bradbury’s There Will Come Soft Rains. Situational Irony adds drama to the story and engages the reader. There are three specific examples of situational irony in There Will Come Soft Rains: The house continues to perform its daily tasks even though no one lives there, the house is destroyed by a tree branch that starts a fire yet it survived a nuclear fallout, and Mrs. McClellan’s favorite poem describes the situation in the story. The first example of situational irony can be seen in the fact that the house continues to do its everyday tasks even though all of the humans that used to live there are dead.

Read More
1280 Words | 6 Pages

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.

Read More
623 Words | 3 Pages

“Desiree’s Baby” Irony Essay In many of Kate Chopin’s stories, irony plays a big part in the outcome of the story. An irony is the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. In her story “Desiree’s Baby,” there is a big irony when Desiree’s husband, Armand, believes that she had an affair and made their family impure, has messed up their all white bloodline, and has made them “cursed with the brand of slavery” (84).

Read More

More about Situational Irony In Desiree's Baby

Related Topics

Open Document