Desirée's Baby

KATE CHOPIN
 Biography
(1850 -1904)
American writer;
Stories about inner lives of sensitive,
daring women;
Recognized as one of America's
essencial authors
Most popular short stories

The Story of an Hour;

The Storm
Desirée's Baby*
A pair of Silk Stockings
A respectable Woman

Novel "The Awakening" widely condemned

Themes
Women´s search for selfhood,
selfdiscovery or identidy;
Women's revolt against conformity,
gender conformity or social norms that
limits womens possibilities in life;
Some themes are connected with
Chopin's attitude towards race
 Desirée's
Baby
1893 - published in Vogue

Plot: Set before the American Civil War

about a baby and racial crisis between a
husband and wife
Time and Place: Lousiana, before civil war
 Characters

Armand Aubigny: owner of L’Abri

Désirée: foundling, wife of Armand
Madame Valmont: woman who raised Désirée
La Blanche: slave
 Abstract
On the day Madame Valmonde
drove over to see Desiree and
her baby, she remembered
when Mr Valmonde found a
baby, Desiree, lying asleep in
the shadow of pillar;
18 years later, Armand Aubigny
saw Desiree and falls in love
immediately. He does not care
about Desiree’s ancestors and
decides it does not matter that
she does not have a family name
of her own, so they get married.
 When the baby is three months
Abstract old, the situation changes.
Desiree senses there is
something wrong. Armand
becomes cold and avoids both
When Madame Valmonde Desiree and the baby. One
reencounters the daughter and afternoon, Desiree is sitting in
the baby, she was shocked her room and starts observing
about the baby's appearance. her child and a little quadroon
However, Desiree does not see boy who was fanning it. The
anything wrong with her son. similarity between them
frightens her
 Desperate, Desiree writes to her
Abstract mother, Madame Valmonde,
asking for help. Madame
Valmonde tells her to come back
Desiree asks Armand about the
home.
baby and he responds that indeed
Armand sends her away, so
the baby is not white, which Desiree takes her baby and
means that she is not white either. leaves the house
Desiree points out all her physical
features that suggest she is white,
but Armand was very angry and
said she is as white as La Blanche
 Abstract

Several weeks later, Armand sets up a bonfire to get rid of Desiree’s

belongings. Among the stuff he decides to throw away, Armand finds
several letters. He also finds one that is addressed from his mother to his
father. In the letter, his mother thanks God for her husband’s love, but she
also reveals that she is grateful that her son will never know that his
mother "belongs to the race that is cursed by slavery."