Significance Of The Baby The Mother And The Father

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Significances of the Baby: In Both the Mother and the Father The significance of the “Baby” part of the title Desiree’s Baby rather than the “Desiree’s” part of the title presents very interesting symbolic representations. For Desiree; the baby symbolizes joy and happiness, new beginnings and fresh starts, innocence and purity, warmth, and vulnerability. But for Armand; the baby symbolizes pride and superiority, continuance and perpetuation, shame and embarrassment, as well as denial. Desiree is happy and very much in love when she marries her husband Armand. She then gives birth to her son which makes her the happiest woman in the world. The baby represents the joy and happiness in Desiree because she was once a baby and a child but she was left on the side of a road and adopted by the Valmonde family. She is happy because she can give her child much more than that; a biological mother and father. Desiree is happier than she ever could be and the baby is just more of a boost to what she imagines her and Armand’s love to be. Armand comes from a family of a big and well-known name. When he wants to marry Desiree, he doesn’t care about her “obscure origin” or the fact that she was “nameless” (pg. 242). He states that “what did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana?” (pg. 242). That’s exactly what Armand is; proud; nothing more, nothing less. When Desiree gives birth to their son, he becomes much honored to have this boy that is going to carry on his famous name. Desiree states, “Oh Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe, chiefly because it is a boy, to bear his name; though he says not…” (pg. 243). The baby represents pride and superiority because while Desiree’s whole world is filled with joy and happiness because of the birth of their son, Armand’s imposing reaction to it is more proud

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