Home > Desiree's Baby Summary & Study Guide > Essays and Criticism > The Fiction of Limits: 'Désirée's Baby'

Desiree's Baby | The Fiction of Limits: 'Désirée's Baby'

In the following essay, Wolff addresses enigmatic elements in ''Désirée's Baby,'' defining ''ways in which it articulates and develops themes that are central to other of Chopin's works.''

For many years, ‘‘Désirée's Baby’’ was the one piece of Chopin's fiction most likely to be known; even today, despite the wide respect that her second novel has won, there are still readers whose acquaintance with Chopin's work is restricted to this one, widely-anthologized short story. Rankin, who did not feel the need to reprint ‘‘Désirée's Baby’’ in Kate Chopin and Her Creole Tales, nonetheless judged it ''perhaps ... one of the world's best short stories.’’ Unfortunately, Rankin left future critics a terminology with which to describe the value of this...

[The entire page is 3489 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

Summary and Analysis – Themes – Characters – And much more...