The Use Of Symbolism In 'Desiree's Baby'

Southern authors during the Antebellum era, such as Kate Chopin, author of several southern gothic short stories, published many works that changed the common ideals of southern culture, providing many literary instances that influenced the thoughts about gender bias and racial identity. This made especially evident within Chopin’s short story “Desiree’s Baby.” In this story, she introduces a new and nontraditional concept of thought regarding gender and race, as well as their effects on daily life during the 19th century. Kate Chopin 's "Desiree 's Baby" exhibits several crucial thematic messages, one of which ultimately proves the impact of both racial and gender identities on social judgement, made evident by her use of symbolism and irony, proving that race not only attributes to social class, but gender does as well.

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 but he then slowly began to change the way that he treated his family due to the fact of him blaming Desiree for being black and giving him a mixed baby. When Desiree made it clear that she definitely did not have mixed blood, Armand basically disowns his family and makes them leave their