Desiree's Baby

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DESIREE'S BABY
The story “Desiree's Baby” by Kate Chopin is surrounded by numerous issues. The themes discussed in the story include isolation, the concept of love, racial prejudice, violence, as well as identity. Among the mentioned themes, racial prejudice has been brought out in a controversial way. Some critics like Wai-chee Dimock strongly believe that the injustice portrayed is contrary to the one caused by racial oppression; instead, it could have been the injustice of a racial identity that was wrongly attributed (Madden & Frank, 12). This observation is quite agreeable based on a number of considerations.
The most likely suggestion that an individual would get when reading on the story would be that Desiree might have died due to racial injustice. This can be pointed out at the instance where Armand comes into picture because the story narrates that he exiles her together with their child at their home. This happened as Armand reasons that the child might have received the curse that has a brand of slavery. The consideration of this part of the story might bring the suggestion that Desiree must have faced racial injustice which goes to extremes of death. However, this argument can be very disagreeable because injustice elaborated here seem to take a broader angle. Evidently, the main reason as to why Armand rejects his wife and child in the story was when their child starts to show some signs of mixed ancestry, which he thinks must have been derived from the wife's unknown ancestors (Chopin, 23). The fact that the ancestry of the wife remained unknown to him must have been a bother. He seems to value identity and even though he is portrayed as a racist where he seem to have a lot of confidence in the dominance of his race and lineage, his thoughts and feelings are understandable. Even so, his confidence of his own identity is proved weak towards the end of the story where he finds out that he was the one with mixed ancestry. The injustice of wrongly attributed racial identity pops out clearly as Desiree and her baby are mistreated even by the closest people in her life simply because of the assumption that she must have had an origin that they despised. Having been adopted by a wealthy family of Madame Valmonde and Monsieur, Desiree might have missed the knowledge that regarded her origin. This is because she had been discovered by the adopted family in a stone pillar's shadow where she lay near the gateway of Valmonde. The fact that no one knew her origin as she was only collected caused her to become a victim of racial identity. Her husband, Armand that a...