Chopin, Kate - Roslyn Reso Foy (essay date summer 1991)
Roslyn Reso Foy (essay date summer 1991)
SOURCE: Foy, Roslyn Reso. “Chopin's ‘Désirée's Baby’.” The Explicator 49, no. 4 (summer 1991): 222-23.
[In the following essay, Foy asserts that “Désirée's Baby” is an exploration of the dark side of the protagonist's personality.]
In Kate Chopin's “Désirée's Baby,” Armand's ruthlessness is more psychologically complicated than it appears on first reading. His cruelty toward the slaves, and ultimately toward his wife and child, is not simply a product of nineteenth-century racism. The story transcends its social implications to explore the dark side of personality.
Armand is a man who must deal with a demanding social climate, uphold a position of noblesse oblige, and eventually come to terms with his own heritage. Early in the story, Chopin reveals that Armand was eight years old at the crucial turning point in his life when his mother died and he left Paris...
[The entire page is 645 words long]
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