Desirees Baby by Kate Chopin
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Desiree's Baby, by Kate Chopin is not only a character study, but it seeks to make larger points about race and gender. Through her short story, Chopin makes several references to the importance of a person's bloodlines and sex and the relationship it has on their place in society.
In the old south, bloodlines were very important to the status of a family and their social placement. The "purity" of a family must be kept, and therefore did not accommodate marriages of mixed race. Knowing this, Armand marries an old friend who he had known since he was eight when he moved to Louisiana from France with his father after his mother had died. She was a girl of no distinction, who had no history or reputation of family name like that of Armand. Despite this he fell in love "as if struck by a pistol shot." Others had warned Armand against marrying her, but he did not care, for he was so swept away by her beauty. "He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana...