Désirée’s Baby (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Kate Chopin
- First Published: 1892
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: Sometime before the American Civil War
- Setting: Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana
- Principal Characters: Désirée, Armand Aubigny, Monsieur Valmonde, Madame Valmonde
- Genres: Social realism, Short fiction
- Subjects: Slavery or slaves, Interracial relationships, Prejudices or antipathies
- Locales: Natchitoches, LA
The Story
As the story opens, Madame Valmonde is on her way to visit Désirée and her new baby. As she makes the short trip to the nearby plantation, Madame Valmonde thinks back to the time when Désirée was herself an infant. Her husband had found the child lying asleep near a pillar at the entrance to the Valmonde plantation, probably having been left there by a party of Texans who had passed by that day. Childless themselves, the Valmondes adopted Désirée.
Désirée grows into a beautiful woman, and, when she is eighteen years old, Armand Aubigny falls in love...
[The entire page is 1307 words long]
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