Essay about Miscegenation in “Desiree’s Baby” - 652 Words

Miscegenation in â€Å"Desiree’s Baby† In â€Å"Desiree’s Baby,† Kate Chopin centers on race and miscegenation in the Creoles of Louisiana during the days when slavery was legal. Chopin brings together two characters, Armand and Desiree who are completely different. Armand is a cruel slave owner who comes from â€Å"one of the oldest and proudest families in Louisiana,† and Desiree is adopted and doesn’t know her biological ancestry. The two marry and have a son whose skin turns dark after three months. Chopin shows how human beings are valued through skin color, and she shows that interracial marriages and interbreeding are not acceptable. In the story, Chopin uses three main characters, Armand, Desiree and the baby to show that love and†¦show more content†¦At the end of the story, Armand finds a bundle of love letters and discovers one that was written from his mother to his father. â€Å"He reads it. She was thanking God f or the blessing of her husband’s love: --But above all, she wrote, 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.† Armand discovers the truth that it is he who has the Negro blood in him and not Desiree. Armand’s father was not the racist that Armand is. His father married a Negro woman and had a child of mixed blood, Armand. His parents raised him in Paris where miscegenation was not a great issue as in the South. And although his mother had Negro blood in her and was too dark to pass for white, they could not live openly as a mixed couple in the States. And since nobody in Louisiana knows about Armand’s mother, it is easy to assume Armand is white. Although Armand’s skin is dark, he is still able to become a cruel slave owner who exercises superiority over any body he thinks is beneath h im. When Armand discovers that his child has Negro blood, he begins to treat Desiree as a possession just as his slaves and he no longer wants to treat her as his wife. Armand could never become his father’s equal and love Desiree unconditionally as his father loved his mother inShow MoreRelatedKate Chopin s Desiree s Baby878 Words   |  4 PagesKate Chopin’s â€Å"Dà ©sirà ©e’s Baby† Many of Kate Chopin’s short stories deal with women in search of love, self-knowledge, and a sense of belonging, however, in â€Å"Dà ©sirà ©e’s Baby† we see a much more apparent theme of miscegeny, slavery, and racism. In her critical essay on â€Å"Dà ©sirà ©e’s Baby,† Rena Korb asserts that â€Å"Dà ©sirà ©e’s Baby† mainly focusses on a woman seeking only a place of belonging. Upon reading â€Å"Dà ©sirà ©e’s Baby† one could come to the conclusion that this story is much more concerned with expressingRead MoreDesirees Baby908 Words   |  4 PagesDesirees baby Kate Chopin wrote the short story â€Å"Desirees baby† in 1892, when black people where considered second-class citizens. Even though the slaves were freed in 1865 as a directly consequence of the north states victory at the civil war, racial segregation were at it highest, particular because of the â€Å"Jim Crow† laws. Black people were free – but their opportunities were not good. Even tough many new schools and churches were built for the black people, racism were a big sinner and blackRead MoreAn Analysis Of Kate Chopin s Desiree s Baby 1705 Words   |  7 Pagespublished in 1893, Kate Chopin’s work â€Å"Desiree’s Baby† is a short story about miscegenation within a French family living in Louisiana in the late nineteenth century. Miscegenation is defined as the mixture of different racial groups, through marriage or cohabitation, between a white race and a member of another race. Chopin writes this piece of realistic fiction which exp oses the issues of society that would not be faced until many years after her death. â€Å"Desiree’s Baby† revolves around two main charactersRead MoreThe Struggles Of The Heart, Mind And Soul Essay1888 Words   |  8 PagesStruggles of the Heart, Mind and Soul â€Å"Desiree’s Baby† is a short story written by Kate Chopin set in 19th century Louisiana prior to the Civil war at a time of white dominance, racial tension and slavery. Chopin was born in February, 1850, â€Å"her father was an Irish immigrant and her mother creole† – she lived in New Orleans, Louisiana in the small town of Coulterville which provided her with a living knowledge and information to write the story (Cruz 430). â€Å"Desiree’s Baby† is about Armand Aubigny, a nobleRead MoreThe Story Of An Hour By Kate Chopin1540 Words   |  7 PagesIn â€Å"Desiree’s Baby† Desiree is an orphaned woman who married her loving husband, Armand, and they are very much in love. In Kate Chopin’s short story is says, â€Å"He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana? (24-26). When they finally have a baby, they notice that the child is showing marks that he is a mix of two races. The husband blames the wife because of her unknown past and sends her and the baby awayRead MoreKate Chopin, An American Writer1425 Words   |  6 Pageschallenging the social expectations of a wife and their need for autonomy. In Desiree’s Baby, we see a character who is a much different from Calixta and Louise. Desiree is very dependent upon the identity given to her by her husband and is thoroughly devastated when she loses the only identity she has ever known. â€Å"Desiree is desirable only so long as she appears to be a valuable possession.† (Rosenblum, â€Å"Desiree’s Baby† 1). The second that Desiree becomes insufficient, Armand disregards her existenceRead MoreKate Chopin And The Producers Of Mandingo892 Words   |  4 Pagestaboo of miscegenation and address the problem honestly in both the story and the film. By doing so, I had an insight to better understand the complexities of racial equality, history, gender, status and not delude myself into thinking these issues are not expressed in present time. Furthermore, my approach in this essay is to juxtapose between the movie and story and discuss themes, female protagonists and social issues that have occurred. To commence, Chopin’s depiction on miscegenation is fairlyRead MoreResearch Paper on Kate Chopin and the Feminism in Her Works2066 Words   |  9 Pagesâ€Å"vulgar, morbid, and disagreeable. Willa Cather, who would become a well known twentieth-century American author, labeled it trite and sordid† (Koloski). Readers and reviewers condemned Chopin’s subjects such as, adultery, female sexuality, and miscegenation. The reason behind all of this criticism is because the critics â€Å"expected to read a novel in descriptive language, colorful characters, and the sights and sounds of Louisiana Creole life. Instead of local color however, critics were shocked and