Analysis Of Desiree's Baby By Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin: “Desiree’s Baby” – The Setting Kate O'Flaherty, born in 1850 in St. Louis during what some would say was one of the darkest periods of American history, was a woman born before her time. Married to a wealthy cotton factor (the middleman between cotton grower and buyer) Oscar Chopin in 1870 where she then moved to New Orleans and mothered 6 children. After his cotton business went under due to a drought and mismanagement they moved again to the small French village Cloutierville, where Oscar had some family owned land. It was soon after that her husband died in 1882 of Malaria, which left her widowed with uncertain future. Kate Chopin began a writing career that would result in 2 published novels and hundreds of well-known short
The story has many themes, such as the persecution of women, male hypocrisy, and prejudice which are all related directly to the setting of a pre-Civil War era. Fortunately, Desiree gets to marry for love, however because of the time period, even love can’t overcome Armands prejudice for his beloved Desiree’s ethnic background. As a result, Desiree is left with no choice but to leave Armands plantation with their baby because during this era men control every aspect of women’s lives, leaving Desiree weak with few options. Chopin directly describes the setting of her departure by writing “She did not take the broad, beaten road which led to the far-off plantation of Valmondé. She walked across a deserted field, where the stubble bruised her tender feet, so delicately shod, and tore her thin gown to shreds. She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the banks of the deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come back again.” The manor of descriptive writing used here is perhaps the darkest throughout the story leaving the reader unsure of Desiree’s fate. Instead of taking the well-traveled road back to her mother’s home she chose to take an alternative, perhaps more dangerous path that could have potentially led Desiree and her child to an uncertain and gloomy death. Based on the overwhelming hatred which was received by her love Armond, the reader can only assume this was her purpose in choosing that path in which she traveled.
Kate Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby” uses setting wonderfully throughout the story to allow the reader to understand and depict the timeline in which this story unfolds. Though one of the darkest and most profoundly discriminant times for women’s rights, Kate Chopin describes perfectly what it was like to not only be looked upon as a woman, but also as an African American during a time at which no rights were given to