Historicism

Analysis of
Desiree’s Baby
By Kate Chopin

Passed by: John David M. Yermo

10- Vanguard
Passed to: Ms. Cherry Zerna
English Teacher
 Author of the Story
Kate Chopin (1850 - 1904), born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis,
Missouri on February 8, 1850, is considered one of the first feminist authors
of the 20th century. She is often credited for introducing the modern feminist
literary movement. Chopin was following a rather conventional path as a
housewife until an unfortunate tragedy-- the untimely death of her husband--
altered the course of her life. She became a talented and prolific short story
writer, influenced primarily by the French short story author, Guy de
Maupassant. She is best known for her novel The Awakening (1899), a
hauntingly prescient tale of a woman unfulfilled by the mundane yet highly
celebrated "feminine role," and her painful realization that the constraints of
her gender blocked her ability to seek a more fulfilling life.
Chopin's writing career began after her husband died on their
Louisiana plantation in 1882 and she was struggling financially. Her mother
convinced Kate to move back to St. Louis, but died shortly thereafter leaving
her alone. Now Chopin, suffering from the loss of her husband and mother,
was advised by her obstetrician and family friend to fight her state of
depression by taking up writing as a source of therapeutic healing, a way to
focus her energy and provide Chopin with a source of income. She took the
advice to heart.
By the early 1890s, Kate Chopin was writing short stories, articles, and
translations which appeared in periodicals and literary magazines regionally
based in St. Louis -- she was perceived as a "local color" writer, but her literary
qualities were discounted. Her novel The Awakening, (1899) was considered
too far ahead of its time; Chopin was discouraged by the literary criticism and
that she had not been accepted as an author, so she turned to short story
writing almost exclusively thereafter.
Chopin embraced a number of writing styles, taking into account her
ancestry of Irish and French descent, and her years with Creole and Cajun
influences in Louisiana. Slavery and women's rights were realities that she
incorporated in many of her stories and sketches, portraying women in a less
than conventional manner, with individual wants and needs. Perhaps in many
ways autobiographical, her exploration of women's independence was not
celebrated until many years later. Chopin was in many ways, a woman before
her time.
 She died from a cerebral hemorrhage on August 22, 1904, after
collapsing at the World's Fair, two days before.

 Background of the Story

The story was written on November 24, 1892, and published in Vogue
on January 14, 1893, the first of nineteen Kate Chopin stories that Vogue
published. It was reprinted in Chopin’s collection of stories Bayou Folk in
1894.
We can find complete composition dates and publication dates for
Chopin’s works on pages 1003 to 1032 of The Complete Works of Kate
Chopin, edited by Per Seyersted (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1969, 2006).

 Setting
The setting of this story is antebellum (before Civil War) New Orleans
on the plantations of L’Abri and Valmonde which is before the publication
date of 1893. The story takes place in Louisiana before the American Civil
War. It is one of the few stories Kate Chopin sets before the war. It has been
classified as both realistic and naturalistic, which the naturalistic element seen
in the dark ending in which Armand Aubigny rejects his wife with such cruelty
that she kills both herself and their child just to find out that he is in fact the
one with the black blood he is so intolerant of.
 Themes
 Racism  Sexism  Classism
One of the most significant theme in this story is that of the senseless
destructiveness of racism. Desiree’s husband, Armand Aubigny, rejects his
beloved wife and son, causing her to kill both herself and their son because he
realizes the child is biracial due to a past ancestor who must have been black.
His reaction reveals the cruelty and foolishness of the antebellum southern
belief that if a person has even one drop of black blood he or she is black.
In the antebellum south, racism is intertwined with classicism and sexism.
“Desiree’s Baby” depicts the ways in which the gender and economic
inequalities of mid-nineteenth century southern society intermingled with the
inequalities of racist slave culture as seen in the role of La Blanche, Armand’s
biracial slave, with whom the story suggests he is having illicit sexual relations.
 Armand’s position as a wealthy, white male allow him to exercise complete
control over his possession: a poor, black woman.
Chopin also demonstrates that inequalities between the genders and
disparities of wealth help enforce racism.
Desiree, although white, is treated as a possession.
Armand basically buys and controls her by providing fine clothes and gifts for
her and is able to give her a name and social identity through marriage as well
as take these away if he so desires.
It is he who provides her with the power to have a black nurse, Zandrine, care
for her baby, providing her with a leisurely lifestyle.
That is until her he rejects her, burning her memory by destroying her
possessions in a bonfire, thus, showing that she is little more than a possession
herself.
The story shows the power Armand Aubigny holds over his wife when it says,
“. . . she loved him desperately.
When he frowned she trembled, but loved him. When he smiled, she asked
no greater blessings of God.” When he tells her, “Yes, I want you to go”
because “he no longer loved her, because of the unconscious injury she had
brought upon his home and his name,” Desiree “turned away like one
stunned by a blow, and walked slowly toward the door, hoping he would call
her back,” and when he didn’t, she takes her son and leaves, never to return
again.

 Foreshadow
The disastrous ending of the novel is foreshadowed numerous times
throughout the story, including in the following quotes:
 “Young Aubigny’s rule was a strict one, too, and under it his Negroes had
forgotten how to be gay,” which reveals that Armand is racist and cruel.
 Desiree says, “I am so happy; it frightens me,” which shows that she suspects
her happiness won’t last.
 When the baby was three months old, “Desiree awoke one day to the
conviction that there was something in the air menacing her peace . . . It had
only been a disquieting suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks . . .
 then an awful change in her husband’s manner,” which shows that Desiree is
suspicious that her husband is turning on her, though she does not know why
yet.
 Desiree asks Armand, “. . . look at our child, what does it mean?” which
reveals that she is aware that their baby is biracial.
 “Then a strange, an awful change in her husband’s manner, which she dared
not ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from
which the old love-light seemed to have gone out,” which shows Armand’s lost
love after realizing their son is biracial.
 Irony
It is ironic that Armand Aubigny utterly rejects his wife on his assumption
that she has black blood, when in fact it is he who has a black mother, a fact that
he discovers after his wife and son are gone and he reads a letter from his mother
to his father that says, “But above all . . . 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.”
This irony reveals Armand’s unfounded assumption that he is superior to
his wife, which causes the destruction of his family and makes a hypocrite out of
himself.

 Symbolism

 L’Abri
L’Abri is a symbol of darkness and evil. This plantation home of the
Aubigny family is described as dark and having oak trees that “shadowed it
like a pall [a dark cloth covering a coffin].”
It is said that Desiree’s adoptive mother, Madame Valmonde,
“shuddered at the first sight of it.”
The dark and hidden past of the Aubigny family about their family
secrets causes Armand to ignorantly believe in his superiority to others,
including to his wife, and this leads to the destruction of his family and
happiness.
  Gate
The stone pillar at the gate of the Valmonde plantation is
symbolic of the cold and rigid racist societal beliefs in a slave-based
society.
Desiree is found as a baby in the shadow of this pillar, and she is
from that point on at the mercy of those with more power and money
than she has to be given an identity or to have it again taken away.
First her adoptive parents love and care for her as a member of
the highest ranks of society, but then she is seen by Armand Aubigny
once again in the shadow of the pillar as a young woman and given
another identity as his wife and the mother of his child just to have this
new identity ripped away from her with her husband’s mistaken belief
that she is biracial.
 Fire
Fire is symbolic of the passion and anger of Armand Aubigny,
whose initial passion for Desiree is described as being “like a prairie
fire” and then later he burns their baby’s cradle and furnishings to
forget the memory of Desiree and their son in a bonfire at the end of
the story.
 The Fine Clothing and Layette
The fine clothing and layette that Armand Aubigny gives to
Desiree and later burns is symbolic of his wealth and material
possession.
Desiree and her baby are possessions no more valuable to
Armand than these fine items, which can be bought and destroyed at
his whim.