Desiree's Baby

Chelsey Wilkins


“Desiree’s Baby”

Kate Choplin wrote a very emotional short story about the difficulties that can occur in an once happy home. The presence of slavery set a time frame from maybe the seventeenth or eighteenth century, which also made me aware of the role of women during that time. Choplin appealed to the rhetoric triangle mostly through emotion and figurative language.

To begin, Choplin’s diction gave infinite meaning to the ideas she was trying to express without exaggerating the short story. Some of the vagueness she used showed either the need for no explanation or maybe just how formal they were during this era of the story. At first I wasn’t even aware if Madame Valmonde was a mother, grandmother, godmother, sister, or even just a friend on the account of she was rarely referred to as mother rather than Madame Valmonde. I also noticed that the quote on quote “baby” never really received a formal name. The little boy was just referred to as the baby which kind of foreshadowed to me that maybe this baby isn’t going to stick around too long. This related right back to Choplin’s choices in vague diction that yet explained a lot.
“The roof came down steep and black like a cowl, reaching out beyond the wide galleries that encircled the yellow stuccoed house.” This sentence applied to a different part of the rhetoric triangle, figurative language. The sentence is an obvious simile comparing the roof with an untamed animal. This of many similes used in the piece give an extra piece of imagery to the short story. The quote “the blood turned like ice in her veins, and clammy moisture gathered upon her face,” is another example of a simile used is this work comparing how her tears gathered on her face to ice in her veins. Choplin’s use of figurative language gave a fiercer mind- grabbing thought of how hurt she felt.

Above all, Choplin appealed to pathos. There was no limited amount of pathos in the short story; throughout the whole short story Choplin expressed an infinite amount of emotion. Choplin showed how dedicated and committed Desiree was to her husband. Choplin also noted the love to “the baby” because she used vivid imagery expressing hoe Desiree would sleep or even rest with the baby right in her arms prompt against her chest. On account of the pathos shown, Desiree’s lean toward suicide was not surprising yet unexpected. It made me think about how her need for no life if the one she lived for didn’t accept or love her any more.

To conclude, Kate Choplin wrote a mind-grabbing short story about what love can do to a person. It most likely took place in the seventeenth or eighteenth century. The short storey appealed to many parts of the rhetoric triangle mainly including pathos. I thought this short story was very interesting unlike most of our other essays. It kind of opened my eyes like hey don’t fall in love that much that’s just too far for me.