Custom «Symbolism in Desirees Baby» Essay Paper Sample

All through her short story "Desiree's Baby," Kate Chopin employs the extensive use of symbolism to get across the themes of unequal gender roles, racial prejudice, as well as social hierarchy in a patriarchal society."Desiree's Baby" is Kate Chopin's mainly renowned short narrative and generally anthologized literally work. The setting of story is shot in southern Louisiana and her Creole-French descent is reflected in her writing. The story unfolds with an evocative quote, stating that "when she reached L'Abri she shuddered at the first sight of it, as she always did. It was a sad looking place and big solemn oaks grew close to it and their thick leaved, far-reaching branches shadowed it like a pall" (185). It is the preceding quote that provides the reader with a peculiar sensation and prefigures a distasteful conclusion to the story.

In Chopin's lifetime, African Americans were well thought-out to be inferior to their whites counterparts and were often forced to work as slaves for the affluent, white people in the south. early on in the story the storyteller illustrates the panorama of the plantation, L'Abri, and articulates that the, "young Aubigny's rule was a strict one, too, and under it his negroes had forgotten how to be gay, as they had been during the old master's easy-going and indulgent lifetime" (185). This demonstrates Aubigny's lack of consideration for others and apathy toward his slaves. His handling of the slaves as belongings rather than human beings divulges that Aubigny has no thoughtfulness when handling the blacks. Chopin consents to the audience to perceive Aubigny's abrupt alteration in character once he feels affection for Desiree as a foreshadowing apparatus. Aubigny's indecisiveness is shown later in the narrative after he realizes the uncanny likeness involving his child and the slave boys.

Chopin utilizes the description of the diverging roads as a symbol for the different paths taken. The beaten path represents the male biased way of life that the public is prone to follow; consequently, the isolated field signify the evolution of feminism. Kate Chopin was a supporter feminist whose text contained fundamental messages that imposed her readers with budding ideas of feminism and equivalent rights across genders well before her time. In addition, Chopin describes that "she did not take the broad, beaten road which led to the far-off plantation at Valmonde. 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" (188).

In "Desiree's Baby", Kate Chopin generates dissimilarity between societal classes by utilizing the affluent, white male characters and African American slaves in the equivalent narrative. Apparently, Chopin reveals how skin pigments and colour describe social can and caste establish the significance of a person identity. Even though her focal point is not on social problems contained by slavery or the isolated social system, there is substantiation all through the story that the line linking races is crossed.

Kate Chopin elevates several significant issues in her small narrative, as well as the character of social castes, racism, in addition to the fulfilment of a woman's distinctiveness. Chopin depicts Desiree as a woman whose personality is inhibited by her husband. Kate Chopin is now acknowledged for her early examination of individual freedom, sexuality and discovery of the cost of actions. Chopin effectively illustrates the themes of gender prejudice, racism, and societal castes by means of elements such as allegory in the short story "Desiree's Baby." Chopin integrates irony into her narrative in order to amplify significant issues such as prejudice and the increased feminism in a patriarchal society.