Analysis of the Kate Chopin's Stories Desiree's Baby and The Storm - Essay Example

The protagonists of the story also were the real people Chopin could see on the streets every day. The heroes of the first story, Desiree's Baby are Desiree, a young beautiful woman, who was found by Madame Valmonde as a toddler near the huge stone pillar. This woman raised Desiree as her own daughter, and the girl grew up to be "beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere". Desiree is a great mother, good daughter, and wife, and she's the one who encourages her husband Armand to be more tolerant towards his black slaves.

For Desiree, the well-being of her loved ones, her husband, child and her foster mother is of greater importance than her own happiness. Armand Aubigny, Desiree's husband, and her son's father is a son of a prosperous landowner, a young man who's cruel towards his slaves, and, as it turns out later, towards his loved ones. Armand really loves Desiree, as he agrees to marry her despite her vague background, but the fear that he would have to raise a mestizo kid, or that someone may find out that it is he who's racially impure, is too frightening for him, his reputation is more valuable than his family is for this man.

The protagonists of the second story, Alice and Calixta, are the two people who had shared physical attraction towards each other, but Calixta later married Bobint. Calixta is a wife and a mother of a child. It's seen from the text that she is neither happy nor unhappy in her marriage. She loves her husband and her son, but she's a little tired of being responsible for her family, thus when Alice appears she begins to show the signs of fear near Alice when the storm begins. Alice, Calixta's lover is an average man.

He remembers he desired Calxta five years before when she was still single. When a chance appears for him to get the woman he desired, Alice uses it even about thinking of the consequences. Afterward, satisfaction and pleasure are the only things Alice feels, without any drop of the blame for the fact that his lover has committed adultery.