“Desiree’s Baby”
“Desiree’s Baby” is a relatively short story written by Kate Chopin. The narrative mentions several significant characters, and Desiree herself is one of them. Desiree’s story may not appear to show how she pushes against boundaries imposed by society, yet it raises a considerable social issue. It is closely linked with racism and inequality. Moreover, Kate Chopin emphasizes the idea of racial discrimination being absurd and wrong. At first, Desiree is portrayed as an ordinary person who is able to live a normal life. She falls in love with Armand Aubigny, marries him, and they have a child (Levine et al., 2017). Their child grows up surrounded by love and affection, and both Armand and Desiree are proud. However, she becomes excluded from the American Dream as soon as her husband learns about her roots. It turns out that Desiree and the child are not white, and Armand becomes angry and shameful (Levine et al., 2017). Kate Chopin is mocking such a rapid change of attitude based on skin color by showing that only personality is essential. Furthermore, the absurdity of bias is emphasized by the fact that Armand also turns out not to be white.
“Gender Queer: A Memoir”
“Gender Queer Memoir” by Maia Kobabe is an autobiographic story that describes difficulties and inconveniences related to self-identity. Maia Kobabe faces a wide variety of problems and internal conflicts throughout her childhood and adolescence. Society constantly treats her as a girl, and she is not always able to talk about her feelings out loud. Some gender-related aspects that are taken “for granted” do not appear to be obvious and reasonable for Kobabe. For instance, as a child, Kobabe did not understand why she should wear a shirt (Kobabe, 2020). In her adolescent body, hair caused significant discomfort and embarrassment (Kobabe, 2020). To overcome these difficulties, she had to overcome her internal fears and uncertainty to accept herself and become happy.
References
Kobabe, M. (2020). Gender Queer: A memoir. Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group.
Levine, R. S., Elliott, M. A., Gustafson, S. M., Hungerford, A., & Loeffelholz, M. (2017). The Norton anthology of American literature. W.W. Norton & Company.