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Foreshadowing
Genre
Explanation and Analysis:
"Désirée’s Baby’s" historical setting and careful attention to character and plot make it an excellent example of American Realism. Chopin aims to reveal the complex class, race, and gender relations in her chosen setting and focuses on ordinary life to do so. The lives of Chopin’s characters mirror what life would have looked like for real people in the American South before the Civil War.
Chopin's writing also aligns with work by her contemporaries. In the mid-19th and 20th centuries, many writers and artists embraced telling stories that were attentive to what they imagined was the everyday American experience. Realism emerged partially as a response to Romanticism, and Chopin’s brutal examination of the lives of her characters in "Désirée’s Baby" reflects this movement from the romantic to the realistic. In particular, though, Chopin focuses specifically on the lives of white, wealthy plantation owners in "Désirée's Baby"—in other words, the real, everyday life she's examining is only accurate for the people in power, and though the story does engage with issues surrounding racism and slavery, the narration closely unpacks the lived experience of enslavers, not the people they have enslaved.
The way that Chopin writes about everyday life is also reflective of her engagement with Naturalism. Like American Realism, Naturalism follows situations and conflicts that arise out of characters’ material and social circumstances. It focuses specifically on how characters are impacted by their environments, ultimately asking how the conditions of their lives affect their actions and their problems. For instance, Armand’s judgements about Désirée’s racial background are informed by his life as an enslaver. Because Chopin is clear about the pattern of Armand’s abuse of the enslaved people on his plantation, the reader can understand how his racial politics are directly informed by his life and career. This perspective—that characters' actions are the product of their environments—is indicative of Naturalism as an extension of American Realism.
"Désirée’s Baby" could also be classified as Gothic Fiction. Though classic examples of Gothic Fiction usually feature supernatural or explicitly evil antagonists, the genre has expanded beyond its origins and may apply to any story whose atmosphere encourages unease or fear in its reader. Chopin uses image-heavy language and foreshadowing to create a sense of darkness that pervades the story. The ominous setting of L’Abri and the unsettling events that lead to the story’s climax place it squarely within the tradition of Gothic Fiction.
