Desiree's Baby by Kate Chopin (Sexuality)

Name Instructor Course Date Short Story Analysis Desiree’s Baby by Kate Chopin (Sexuality) Kate Chopin is an American author who is well known for her feminist theme in her works. Chopin completed most of her works a time when the society was obstructive about the place of women in the society when women who did not have a voice were mere servants of their husbands. Therefore, Chopin’s work addresses the women’s struggle for equality and their place as inferior creatures in the society. The relationships between men and women explored in Chopin’s work demonstrates the attitudes that men and women exhibit in the society. The central focus that actions of women are mostly driven by men in the society in her works demonstrates that oppressive and dominant of men as well as the vulnerable nature of women. Also she manages to demonstrate that in the end women like Desiree get transformed from dependents to strong and independent women in the society. In the story Desiree’s Baby, Chopin demonstrates the relationship between husbands and wives by showing dominance and inferiority throughout the story. In Desiree’s Baby, Chopin explores the theme of sexuality by focusing on the relationship between men and women by depicting Desiree as inferior and Armand as superior. Throughout the story, Chopin explores Armand’s superiority over Desiree. First, Desiree conforms to her traditional roles as a woman by becoming an obedient woman. This tends to change after she gives birth to her partially black son. Armand is angry about this because he believed that this alteration in his son’s color was a result of Desiree’s race. This is when Armand starts to exercise his superiority and oppressive nature towards Desiree when he tells her “the child is not white; it means you are not white” (176). Later in the story, it is apparent that these words had a significant impact on Desiree. Desiree got accused of being of a mixed because she was found as a child by her adopted family hence there was no way to prove that she was white and had no option but to accept what she was being told. She is greatly affected when she is told that she must leave the home together with the child by Armand. Being an inferior creature in the society, she had no choice but to oblige. She leaves as commanded never returns without any idea on what she was to do now that her husband was not there. At the beginning of the story, Desiree appears to be weak and powerless but turns out to be strong and independent at the end. Throughout the story, Desiree does not only challenge the concept of class but also race and gender in the society. Through the story, Chopin shows how women can lose their self-beings and freedom by becoming dependent on their husbands. Living in an era when women were regarded to be daughters, wives or mothers, without any form of power decision making is solely left to their husbands including their own. Armand dominates Desiree demonstrating how men were superior over women in the society. Hills Like White Elephants by Hemingway (Dialogue) The use of dialogue in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” plays a role in establishing the relationship between the characters and revealing their incompatibilities through the demeaning...