Out of all the characters in Desiree's Baby, it can be argued that Armand Aubigny is the real loser in this situation - Do you think this is a correct interpretation of this short story?

Out of all the characters in Desiree's Baby, it can be argued that Armand Aubigny is the real loser in this situation. Do you think this is a correct interpretation of this short story? The story of Desiree's Baby, by Kate Chopin, is one of bitter irony and leaves you unsure as to which character has reached a happy ending, or indeed if any characters have at all? It can be argued that all the characters come to an unhappy conclusion, but another view is that Armand Aubigny is the `loser' of the tale. It tells the tale of a woman, Desiree, whose origins are unknown, and the scandal and heartbreak that follows when her child is born and is obviously of black descent. Despite her determined protests her husband, Armand, disowns her, and she drowns herself with the baby in her arms. The bitter irony comes from the discovery at the end, when her husband discovers that it was he that is of black descent, and not Desiree. It is set in the 1800's, before the American civil war; a fact we can learn from the use of slaves on the plantation the story is set in. At this time Black people were regarded as lower class citizens and inter-racial marriages were frowned upon. It is also set in the deep south of America where the slaves were a major factor of every day life. When the descent of the baby was realized, Armand felt that Desiree had brought shame upon his

  • Word count: 689
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Discuss the attitudes to marriage and women in pre 1900 prose - Do this with reference to at least 3 stories you have read.

Pre 1900 Prose Coursework Discuss the attitudes to marriage and women in pre 1900 prose. Do this with reference to at least 3 stories you have read. The attitude to marriage and women in pre 1900 prose very much reflect the societes in which the stories were created. Owing to the way that society was constructed much of the power and authority rested with men. Women had fewer rights and privileges than they do now and far less independence. Women did not have the right to vote and when they married their husbands assumed control of all property and money. However, the late 1800s were a period of great social change and upheaval. With the industrial revolution, towns and cities had grown rapidly. This radically changed people's lives and the way they thought; with the result they began to challenge the norms of society. This is clearly demonstrated by the literature produced in this period. An example of this is Charlotte Perkin Gilman's, 'The Yellow Wallpaper'. It is about a woman who is forced to move to a summer house and is confined to a bedroom that is plastered with yellow wallpaper and has a fixed-down bed and metal bars at the window. She is bedroom bound, not allowed to go anywhere on her own. Her husband, John and Jennie her Nurse, moved her to the summer house because she is ill and Jennie and John are there to provent her from doing anything and to help her get

  • Word count: 864
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Other Cultures and Traditions Assignment

Other Cultures and Traditions Assignment I am going to write about a poem called "Nothing's Changed" by Tatamkhulu Afrika and a story called "Desiree's Baby" by Kate Chopin. Both the stories contain prejudice, oppression and injustice. "Nothing's Changed" is set in Africa in a place called Cape Town. Desiree's Baby is an old story set in the late 1800s, this story is set in America while the slave trade was taking place. When the South African goes back to district six it's all overgrown. He steps through the rubbish and weeds. It says the weeds are 'amiable' which means friendly, as if the weeds don't know what he knows. He knows in his bones this is where he used to live. It's as if the feeling starts in his feet and works its way up through him, and he gets hotter and more intense, until he suddenly sees this 'brash' new building. 'Squats' makes you think of a toad, or something heavy and solid, and also squatting is when you live somewhere illegal, like the inn shouldn't ever have been there. When he peers in through the glass it's all cool and elegant inside, not the sort of place they would let in anyone. He says 'we know where we belong', meaning outside looking in. So although it no longer says 'Whites Only' on a board, like it used to, only rich white people would feel they had the right to be there. The "up-market" inn is meant for white customers only. No sign

  • Word count: 1923
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Beautiful Death.

Beautiful Death The Story of an Hour focuses attention to the role women assumed in the nineteenth century. Men almost dominated women and limited the wives to the boring repetitious duties of cleaning and cooking. The main character of the story, Mrs. Mallard, bears the same cross. However, Chopin writes, "And yet she had loved him - sometimes"(186), revealing Mrs. Mallard's love her husband despite oppression. Chopin writes regarding Mr. Mallard's feelings, "The face that had never looked save with love upon her"(186), displaying Mr. Mallard's love for his spouse. The main conflict did not center on Mr. Mallard, rather Mrs. Mallard's oppression by the institution of marriage and all the responsibilities it ensues. The only way Mrs. Mallard can reach the freedom she longs for arrives though her own ironic death. Mrs. Mallard yearned to break through the repetitious and oppressive life enslaving her. Chopin writes, "pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul"(185). This passage relays the message of Mrs. Mallard leading a life controlled by her husband. She strained herself with too much work and reached a state of physical exhaustion in marriage, becoming pressed down, unable to move, unable to think for herself due to the control of her husband and restraint of marriage. This oppression of marriage haunted her

  • Word count: 1583
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Visionary Characters in late 19th Century American Literature: Henry Jamess Daisy Miller & Edna Pointellier of Kate Chopins The Awakening

Visionary Characters in late 19th Century American Literature: Henry James's "Daisy Miller" & Edna Pointellier of Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" Alexandria Doran ENG2042: Survey of American Lit II Professor James Tate Spring 2005 - Midterm Two seemingly disturbing novellas, Henry James' Daisy Miller and Kate Chopin's The Awakening, are really rather the opposite; they are encouraging portraits of the new American woman. Embedded in both stories are the controversies that crossed classes and cultures in the Late Nineteenth Century and the seemingly small characters emerge as larger than life heroines as a result if their struggles. True to the Realism and Naturalism many writers chose as the genre for their medium, Daisy Miller and Edna Pointellier expose the vulnerability and oppression of ordinary life for American women at home and abroad. In the end we remember that these fearless spirited women broke the rules at all costs, in order to find and be themselves. The rise of Realism can be attributed to the need to capture, report, and interpret the changing face of America. Cities were developing rapidly as was the new American culture. The close of the Civil War in 1865 affected various elements of American society: conflicts such as the ethical need to abolish slavery and giving black people the right to be full citizens were undoubtedly a sore subject and

  • Word count: 1538
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Compare 'The Woman's Rose', 'The Story Of An Hour' and 'The Necklace'.

GCSE Coursework Pre Twentieth Century Prose Compare 'The Woman's Rose', 'The Story Of An Hour' and 'The Necklace'. In this essay I am going to compare 'The Woman's Rose', by Olive Schreiner, 'The Story of an Hour' by Kate Chopin and 'The Necklace' by Guy de Maupassant. In these three stories there are many similarities and differences. The three stories are set in the patriarchal nineteenth century. All three poems contain a hint of women gaining independence, having a certain time of happiness when they are 'free'. In the nineteenth century women had a low status and the husbands during that time were dominant, the women were weak in power and they were forced to be dependent on their husband's. As the women were dependent they often felt isolated and unhappy as they could not make the decisions. Kate Chopin and Olive Schreiner were voicing their unhappiness in their stories. "The flowers were damp; they made mildew marks..." here Schreiner includes the use if flowers which represent love and happiness, but by using just the one word 'damp' it gives the readers the feeling of discontent making us feel sympathetic towards the woman in the story, who is not named making it feel as if Olive Schreiner is narrating. In the nineteenth century it was thought that women were not supposed to be successful, and they were to stay at home and look after the children and the house. So

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Other Cultures and Traditions

Other Cultures and Traditions For this piece of coursework I will be comparing a poem and a story. The poem is called 'Nothing's Changed' and is written by Tatumkhulu Afrika. The poem is set in Cape Town's District Six in South Africa. This is where Tatumkhulu Afrika used to live. The poem is an autobiographical piece expressing the poet's feelings and views of District Six. The story is called 'Desiree's Baby' which is written by Kate Chopin. This story is set in Louisiana, America. Both poem and story have a similar theme, where black people are looked down and are frowned upon. White people were treated better than the blacks and coloured people. Both poem and story show forms of prejudice against black people. Black people were not allowed to mix with white people. Black and white people had been segregated from each other in the 1960's. District Six had become a whites only area. Another example of this comes from the story. We are told that Armand is always cruel to the black people working on his plantation, he is known for punishing them. White people live in luxury and black people live in poverty. This is the way that the authors have presented the relationship between black and white people. Desiree tells Madam Valmonde "he hasn't punished one of them, not one of them, since baby is born" Before the segregation Afrika lived in Cape Town's

  • Word count: 1951
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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The Theme of Escape in Two Nineteenth Century Short Stories - Unexpected and Poor Relations

The Theme of Escape in Two Nineteenth Century Short Stories In the nineteenth century many people suffered from injustice and inequality. In Victorian time the society was patriarchal this meant that women were subservient to men and the only choice they had was marriage. The story of the Unexpected by Kate Chopin is the story of a woman who escapes the way of living in which she is controlled by men and goes on to challenge society and the way women are treated in the nineteenth century. Dorothea is struggling to live her own life. Randall to whom she belongs and through whom she lives her life parts from her at the beginning of the story, as he is ill. Dorothea loves him and when they part from one another Kate Chopin describes it as "lingering kisses and sighs." This shows a lot of passion and affection between the couple, which surprises the reader as you would not expect this explicit behaviour in Victorian times. Dorothea could not bear to be apart from Randall. She uses word like "torture" and "impatient" which shows how Chopin has expressed how Dorothea is feeling. Randall gets quite ill so Dorothea is not allowed to see him. When he does return Dorothea's feelings have changed. Kate Chopin illustrates this by stating, "this was not the man that went away" Straight away this tells us that she could be feeling different. "The man she loved and promised to marry." She

  • Word count: 1965
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Essay On the Comparison Between the Two Women In the Necklace and Desiree’S Baby, How They Are Presented By the Author, How Sympathetic I Feel Towards Them and the Role Played By Fate In the Two Stories

TELLING TALES: Essay on the comparison between the two women in The Necklace and Desiree's Baby, how they are presented by the author, how sympathetic I feel towards them and the role played by fate in the two stories The main character in The Necklace, written by Guy de Maupassant, is a woman named Mathilde. In Desiree's Baby, written by Kate Chopin, the main character is, not surprisingly, Desiree. Both central characters are female. In this essay I will compare these two characters and show to you how fate, a theme of both stories, has affected their lives. I will also try and explain how sympathetic I feel towards the characters because I believe that this affects how large the role of fate played in their lives is. For example, if the author doesn't try to induce that many feelings of sympathy for a character the reader is less likely to feel sorry for the character or like them and thus blame their misfortune less on fate and more on the character bringing it upon itself. Class and culture play an important part in both stories, class more so in The Necklace and culture more so in Desiree's Baby. This is because Mathilde is a malcontent, a quality of her character that I have deduced from the fact that the whole of the third, fourth and fifth paragraphs are about the false dreams and aspirations she has. I know they were false because The Necklace not being real

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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In the short-short story "The Story of an Hour" the author Kate Chopin expresses a central theme that the freedom to live a life of happiness can be a joy that kills when it is taken away.

In the short-short story "The Story of an Hour" the author Kate Chopin expresses a central theme that the freedom to live a life of happiness can be a joy that kills when it is taken away. With the use of symbolism, irony, and characterization, the author allows readers to follow the transition of the protagonist as it happens. The length of the story, at first glance, may be deceiving; however, after an in-depth examination, the complexity incorporated in Chopin's writing style comes to life. Characterization of Mrs. Mallard initiates the story with Chopin's direct illustration of Mrs. Mallard's physical health. A simple description of the health problem she faces makes up the first line, "Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death" (470). This is only a small feature of Mrs. Mallard's character; however, the presence of this detail in the first sentence gives the reader a base to project an image early on in the story. The reader is not left waiting for long in seeking further illustration of Mrs. Mallard. In the line "She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance," Chopin uses a general comparison to show the difference between the main character's reaction and a reaction that would be

  • Word count: 1661
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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