Desiree's Baby

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer notes that Kate Chopin's short story 'Desiree's Baby' investigates both racial otherness and gender differences. The writer points out that the plot of the story, having as its climax point the discovery of the traces of black genealogy in Desiree's baby, seems to focus on racism primarily. However, the writer discusses that looking at the story from a different angle, one can say that the gender conflict plays an even more important part in the structure of the story. The writer concludes that Chopin draws a very powerful image of the patriarchal society specific to her time, but still lingering in the present, in which only the man has the power to act in which the woman is nothing more than her social role, and this role she has to perform with a null identity so as the man might assert his own identity.

From the Paper:

"However, even at first glance Armand seems to prove that he can fight prejudice and cross over such social barriers as the lack of a noble name, his attitude here is actual the first sign of male possessiveness and aggressive dominance over the woman: he will give Desiree his own proud name, and in the act Desiree will become one of his valuable pieces of property."
"The fact that Armand treats Desiree as a piece of property and an accessory to his estate and to his old name is reinstated when the baby is born and he proves to be a male, and which significantly contributes to the father's masculine pride."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Chopin, Kate. The Awakening and Other Stories. New York, Oxford University Press, 2000
• Evans, Patricia. Southern Literature: Women Writers. http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/southwomen.htm
• Jones, Ann Goodwyn." I Was Telling It." Southern Cultures. March 1999. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb289/is_199903/ai_n5811979
• McCullough, Kate. Regions of Identity: The Construction of America in Women's Fiction: 1885-1914. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999
• Sellers, Susan ed. The Helene Cixous Reader. London: Routledge, 1994

More papers on Desiree's Baby:

• Analytical Essay # 49865 : "Kate Chopin's "Desiree's Baby"
• Essay # 71245 : "Desiree's Baby"
• Book Review # 123627 : "'Desiree's Baby' and Racism"

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