Themes is Desirees Baby
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"Desiree's Baby," written by Kate Chopin, is a short story that ventures back into the early 1800's. The major events of Desiree's life, found in the three and half page story, provides the audience with three powerful themes based upon race, gender, and slavery. Kate Chopin uses Desiree's life to show that race conquers love, females are dependent on others, and slavery enables insecure people to feel powerful.
Unfortunately, "Desiree's Baby" is not a love story that ends "happily ever after." Actually, it is the exact opposite. Desiree learns that love doesn't conquer all, instead, race does. This is evident through Armand's character. In the beginning of the story, Armand describes his love for Desiree as a "passion that awoke in himswept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives headlong over all obstacles" (Chopin 28). Even when Monsieur Valmonde wants to know Desiree's true origin, Armand does not care. In addition, when the baby is first born, Desiree describes Armand as "the proudest father in the parish" (29)...