Desiree's Baby

Foreshadowing is the purposeful inclusion of hints by the author as to what’s coming. It allows readers to form an expectation and to feel a sense of suspense or tension in knowing, or suspecting, what will happen to the characters in the story. Chopin employs foreshadowing when she includes how Désirée’s adoptive father felt it was important to learn where Désirée came from before she got married, but how Armand differed in opinion: “Monsieur Valmondé grew practical and wanted things well considered: that is, the girl’s obscure origin. Armand looked into her eyes and did not care” (Paragraph 5). Chopin also uses foreshadowing in Paragraph 6, when the mere sight of Armand’s house makes a formerly joyful Madame Valmondé shiver. A third instance of foreshadowing comes in a paradoxical statement from Désirée in the weeks after childbirth: she says, “I’m so happy; it frightens me” (Paragraph 16), and though the character doesn't know it, Chopin is indicating there’s something to be frightened about.

Flash-forward, or “prolepsis,” happens when the narrative jumps forward in time, leaving out the description of the interval between the two sections. In “Désirée’s Baby,” Chopin utilizes a few flash-forwards, the most notable one coming at the end of the story, in between Désirée’s exile from L’Abri and Armand’s discovery that it’s his bloodline, and not hers, that includes mixed-race relatives. The effect of this flash-forward is to heighten the drama of the situation: by the time Armand learns the truth, Désirée is long gone.

Pathetic fallacy is the attribution of human qualities to inanimate, natural objects. Chopin employs this device in describing trees: “Big, solemn oaks grew close to it, and their thick-leaved, far-reaching branches shadowed it like a pall” (Paragraph 6). Describing a tree as “solemn” parallels the unpleasant, ominous feeling Madame Valmondé gets upon her arrival at L’Abri.