Questions on Kate Chopin’s short story “Desiree’s Baby”
1. How do M and Mme Valmonde come to be the parents of Desiree?
2. What happens when Desiree is eighteen?
3. Where does Armand live for the first eight years of his life? Why?
4. How does Armand respond when M Valmonde reminds him of Desiree’s unknown origins?
5. How does Mme Valmonde feel about L’Abri, Armand’s home/plantation? Why?
6. How does Armand treat his slaves? How do they react?
7. The nurse woman is described as “yellow.” Explain.
8. How does Mme Valmonde react upon seeing Desiree’s baby for the first time in four weeks?
9. How does Desiree respond? Why?
10. How has Armand changed since the birth of his son?
11. When the baby is three months old, how does the behavior of the blacks and neighbors make Desiree feel uneasy?
12. How does Armand’s behavior toward Desiree and the baby change?
13. What does Desiree realize when she sits looking at her baby and then looking at the slave child fanning him?
14. How does Armand treat Desiree when she tries to talk to him?
15. What does Desiree say about her hand and Armand’s?
16. Desiree writes her step-mother and asks her to tell her/Armand/everyone that she, Desiree, is white. How does Mme Valmonde respond? Why?
17. How does Armand respond when Desiree shows him her mother’s letter?
18. Why does Armand no longer love Desiree? (find quote)
19. What is Armand’s “last blow at fate”?
20. Where does Desiree go? What are you to assume happens to her and her baby?
21. What does Armand do several weeks later?
22. What does Armand learn when he finds and reads an old letter from his mother to his father?