Desiree's Baby Analysis

The light in someone’s life could always be turned to darkness in the snap of a finger and destroy all elation. In the story “Desiree’s Baby”, Kate Chopin uses visual imagery to convey the happiness in life being torn apart by a darkness within the presence of a home. The delight that Désirée was able to find was with a little baby and a man she fell in love with. As the mother of Désirée begins to speak about the baby and how he has changed “Désirée’s face became suffused with a glow that was happiness itself” (243), and what this shows how delighted she feels with her baby. Another time she shows joyousness in the story is when it states “This is what made the gentle Désirée so happy, for she loved him desperately” (243), when stating this it is showing how having the baby has made her husband a kinder person which makes her happy. When the baby was born Desiree’s husband became happier “Oh mamma, I’m so happy; it frightens me”(243), saying this it helps us
Happiness was soon crushed by darkness “When the baby was about three months old, Désirée awoke one day to the conviction that there was something in the air menacing her peace” (243), and when this was said you can really picture a shadowed figure in the corner of her house bringing darkness about the house. Désirée’s happiness was not crushed just with the baby, but with her husband as well “Her husband had been acting like Satan had taken a hold of him” (243), this tells us that the presence in her house had changed her husband from the kind-hearted man she once knew to a darker person she hoped he would never become. Désirée almost seemed to have given up on her jubilation with her family “The blood turned like ice in her veins, and a clammy moister gathered upon her face” (243), this shows that Désirée grew scared of the darkness that was in her house changing the people she loved and cherished the