Kate Chopins Desirees Baby :: Desirees Baby by Kate Chopin

Desirees Baby is a short story written by Kate Chopin. It is set innineteenth century Louisiana. The story starts with Madame Valmonde going tovisit Desiree and her baby. She thinks back on her memories of Desireeas a babyIt made her laugh to think of Desiree with a baby.Why it seemed notwithstanding yesterday that Desiree was littlemore than a baby herself.This quote tells us two things. The first is that Madame Valmonde musthave known Desiree as a youngster and is either a close family friend ofeven a member of the family herself. The second thing is that Desireeis young. The word baby could either mean childlike or physicallyyoung. Desiree seemed to be a normal child and had had a normalchildhood. The third paragraph tells us more about DesireesbackgroundShe had been purposely unexpended by a band of passingTexans.This makes us think that she he had been abandoned at a very young ageoutside Madame Valmondes home. We can also tell from paragraph fivethat She was induceless.No one knew what her name was or what her family background was like.It was all a rumour.Eighteen years by and by this, Armand Aubigny fell in love with Desiree.From the fifth paragraph of the first summon we can tell that Armand wasvery proud of his family name.What did it matter about a name when he could giveher one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana?This is a very old fashioned point of view. To Armand, his name waseverything. There is a very powerful social contrast between thenameless Desiree and Armand.Signs of racism become apparent in the book on page 67Young Aubignys loom was a strict one, too, and underit his Negroes had forgotten how to be happy.Armand must have treated them very harshly and made them unhappy. Hishome is described as existence sad looking and quite dreary.The second paragraph of page 67 gives the reader a description of thetype of home Armand owns. There are muslins, a couch decorated withlaces, there are also slaves. Madame Valmondes first reacti on to thebaby was one of shock and astonishmentThis is not the babytheoretically this isnt very significant because babies tend to growvery quickly and their outward appearance can change very fast. Theeighth paragraph on this page gives us a hint at why Madame Valmondwas so startled when she first saw the baby.Madame Valmonde had never removed her eyes from thechild. She lifted it and walked with it over to the window