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Themes And Symbolism In Desiree's Baby By Kate Chopin

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“Desiree’s Baby” is a story written by Kate Chopin. This short story is about a young girl named Desiree who was adopted by the Valmonde family. She later on falls in love and gets married to Armand Aubigny, the owner of the plantation; L’ Abri. Desiree’s ends up having her first child, but there is something different about this baby that makes Armand avoid his wife and child. It turns out that the baby is of mixed race and Armand blames Desiree. In the end Armand tells Desiree to leave with her baby. Once she does, Armand finds out that his mother was really a slave, when he found a letter that was for his father and so he was the one who caused his child to be mixed. In “Desiree’s Baby”, Kate Chopin uses themes, characters, and symbols to develop the short story. The first literary device is theme which is the message about life or human nature that is “the focus” in the story that the writer tells (Glossary...3). The themes of this story is slavery, racism. During this time period there were plantations that were run by the wealthy men who had slaves to work for them. “Armand Aubigny sat in the wide hallway that commanded a view of the …show more content…

“And yet the mere fact of her racial history causes Armand to reject her and the baby, to cease to see her as the woman he loves and instead to see her as simply black and therefore beneath him”(Champlin 1). Even though Armand once loved Desiree, it all changed just because of her background. Desiree’s finds out her baby is mixed, Armand tells her to leave because she brought shame to his family name. “And yet the mere fact of her racial history causes Armand to reject her and the baby, to cease to see her as the woman he loves and instead to see her as simply black and therefore beneath him”(Champlin 1). Even though Armand once loved Desiree, it all changed just because of her

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