Abstract This paper discusses how readers know something important about Armand Aubigny's character by the third paragraph of Kate Chopin's short story "Desiree's Baby". The paper looks at how Aubigny is shown to be as cold as steel, a slave master and very racist, but also attempts to defend Aubigny's actions, claiming that he is a man from a culture where patriarchal and bigoted behavior is acceptable.
From the Paper "Rather than embrace the child and reassure one's wife, the way an average man would likely do, Aubigny leaves Desiree and child alone and retreats into his dark world. He was so racist and hateful of any color of skin not his own, he felt that Desiree had brought shame and injury upon his family name. What kind of a man would fall in love so quickly, and then brutally dominate his pretty, soft, feminine wife (taking advantage of her sweetness in order to have a son so his name can be carried on), only to push her away when the child she bore for him did not live up to his expectations? The answer is Aubigny is a man from a culture where patriarchal and bigoted behavior is acceptable. Yes, contemptible to those with grace and loving personalities, but acceptable because for many individuals, that is just how life was in the south prior to the Civil War."
From the Paper "The purpose of this paper is to discuss the background and business activities of Armand Hammer, Chief Executive of Occidental Petroleum Corporation headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
Armand Hammer was born on May 21, 1898, in a "tiny, cold-water apartment" at 406 Cherry Street, in the middle of the Lower East Side of New York City, near to the heart of the Jewish ghetto in Hester Street. He was born at the onset of the Spanish-American war (Hammer 2). His forebears took the name Hammer with them when they migrated to Russia, and Hammer's grandfather Jacob was the son of a wealthy shipbuilder in the town of Kherson, on the north bank of the River Dnieper. Most of the fortune that Jacob inherited was washed away while he was still a child. Relatives who administered his inheritance put..."
Abstract The paper looks at two works by nineteenth century authors, namely "Desiree's Baby" by Kate Chopin and "The Rocking Horse Winner" by D. H. Lawrence. It shows how both works, by using an omniscient narrator, give us just enough information to keep the suspense. The use of the omniscient narrator by both writers is what makes these stories work.
From the Paper "The narrator switches to Desiree's point of view, and we learn that she disappears into the bayou. We are still convinced she is part black, especially when Armand begins to give her clothes away to the slaves. It seems as well, that by her disappearance rather than returning home that she too believes she is the daughter of a slave. However, in a twist in plot, that surprises the reader we learn, "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." The theme is typical of Chopin. The idea that woman are helpless in nineteenth society, and that they cannot change their fate. The omniscient narrator strengthens that theme."
Abstract This paper examines how the light and dark imagery in Kate Chopin's story "Desiree's Baby" reinforces the social value placed on skin color in the time period and setting of the story and how, it is also a source of irony. It looks at how the mixed-race child delivered by the main character raises a question that has an unexpected answer and how the irony of the answer is caused by faulty assumptions that characters make and accept until the real truth comes to light. It shows how images of darkness and light reflect on people, physical setting and secrecy and truth.
From the Paper "The author alludes to Armand's "dark, handsome face" a number of times, but suspicion for the responsibility of the dark-skinned child still falls on Desiree's white shoulders because her parentage is unknown. When the child reaches three months old, Desiree begins to realize that the "love-light seemed to have gone out" of Armand, but she does not understand why until one hot afternoon as she watches her child sleeping on the bed. Suddenly, the realization that her baby has a similarity with the quadroon child who is fanning the baby with peacock feathers dawns on Desiree and she feels her veins turn to a paralyzing "ice." "
Abstract 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."
Abstract This paper explains that the core theme of Kate Chopin's short story "Desiree's Baby" is race and race relations. The author points out that the reader should be aware of the clues, sprinkled throughout this dark story, which reveal the real character of Armand and hint at the twisted ending. The paper relates that the clues in the story, from the dark, brooding house to the unhappy slaves to the stigma of a child, which appears to have black blood, are symbols of the racism rampant in the South before and after the Civil War. The paper includes many quotations.
From the Paper "Chopin creates a chilling work that seems at first to be light and loving. The truth is that Armand blames the child's origins on Desiree, who cannot cope with the loss of his love and kills herself because of it. He is little more than a murderer because he hides the truth from everyone and lets Desiree bear the shame of carrying Negro blood, when it is really Armand himself who is the culprit. The story is horrifying and especially so because the ending is so shocking."
