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. Madame Valmonde told her to come home with her child. Armand is powerful in a number of ways as a white, wealthy male in a patriarchal and racist society. Armand Aubigny and Desiree got married and had a child together. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Desiree herself is overcome by racism that she says if it is true, she might as well die.
Because of the way Chopin wrote this text, we are able to evaluate what love meant in this time period and discover the thin line between love and betrayal, and how racism plays into these images. Despite the brevity of the story the author has written at length about this characteristic of Armand, which clearly demonstrates that she wanted to throw light on the racial discrimination, which took place during that era. The words used all can be related in how they all are directed toward the common idea of being left behind or lost. Textual, Contextual and Critical Surprises in Désirées Baby. Désirée herself is a white woman, who was abandoned as a child and raised by someone other than her biological mother. Comparing Désirée's Baby And The Birth-Mark 1367 Words 6 Pages Are Women Truly Property? Desiree was an abandoned baby found by Monsieur Valmondé. .
He has treated his wife and his slaves with violence and cruelty based on the color of their skin, and now he must face the fact that he is actually part-black himself. Desiree grew into a gentle and loving young woman. He says that it means that the boy is not white and that she is not white. One day Desiree sees a little boy who is a quarter black, half naked. Gender Armand treats Désirée as a possession even when he is in love with her and still believes she is white.
Ethnicity is something that affects the daily lives of people all over the planet and has been affecting it for years. The elite white society to which she has always belonged will now consider her to be a second-class citizen. It may be the case that if Armand truly believed in the racialized hierarchy of his day, in the inferiority of black people, and in the supremacy and superiority of white people, he ironically would sell himself into slavery or some kind of bondage. The Absurdity of Arbitrary Racial Distinctions " Kate Chopin subtly reinforces this point with her choice to refrain from describing the baby's physical features. But after learning about his mother, would he deny himself what he denied others? He does not come home often, and he is much harsher with the slaves.
This story is about a mysterious woman named Desiree who fell in love and married Armand. Désirée understands the social, political, and economic consequences that being mixed-race entails for both herself and her son. Not only does he wish to… The story ends with a twist of situational irony: Armand discovers too late that it is he and not his wife who has black heritage. However, consider how Désirée is a passive bystander, claimed by others during both of these transitions. Unconditional Love In Desiree's Baby 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.
She looks for the good in Armand, though the same cannot be said of Armand's behavior towards her. Desiree went in search of her baby. Notice that Désirée is standing by the same stone pillar when she meets Armand. The passion that awoke in him that day, when he saw her at the gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives headlong over all obstacles. Chopin also uses various metaphors that offer the narrative, an element of foreshadowing. This was what made the gentle Desiree so happy, for she loved him desperately.
Overall this was a great story and it teaches you many great lessons. Enslaved women like La Blanche are doubly powerless: they are not free, and in some cases, they are forced to have sex with the very men who enslave them. When the baby is about three months old, Desiree starts to feel a change. It is absurdly cruel for his father to reject him and his mother to likely kill him because they and others see mixed-race features in him. Chopin touches on a lot of different areas in this short story Themes Of Stereotypes In 'Desiree's Baby' literature. It is a story that was written during the antebellum period in Creole Louisiana and revolves around miscegenation.
The prevailing belief was that she had been purposely left by a party of Texans, whose canvas-covered wagon, late in the day, had crossed the ferry that Coton Mais kept, just below the plantation. This is not the first time he has seen her as he has known her ever since his father brought him over from France when his mother died at a young age. All are essential to finish the game. Having taken on so many identities clearly affects her at the end of the story when she decides to kill herself because of her inability to try to find a new identity and see life outside of Armand. Rather than taking her to an orphanage, she raises her as her own.
In the centre of the smoothly swept back yard was a great bonfire. It was an October afternoon; the sun was just sinking. The stone pillar thus also symbolizes the various transitions that Désirée experiences throughout her life. Madame Valmonde urges her to come home to her. The yellow nurse woman sat beside a window fanning herself. In fact, at the moment it would seem that Desiree has more of an incentive to leave Armand and to protest his behavior than vice versa. Ideally, these feelings are everlasting; however, they are oftentimes simply circumstantial.
Set in Louisiana in the mid-nineteenth century on two white-owned plantations some time before the Civil War, the story explores the psychological impacts of slavery and racial inequality. Blacks were still treated as slaves and not as equals. This changed the course of her life. As the baby grew older, Armand accused Desiree of being African American and demanded her to leave with the baby. Yes, President Lincoln had signed the emancipation act and the civil war was won by the Union forces, but these changes meant little in the ground reality. When Désirée's husband, Armand, learns that their newborn son has Black ancestry, it hurts her.