Kate Chopin’s Short Story Reflection Paper
Humanities
1-2 pages
the prompt is : “Chopin has been noted for her exploration of a woman’s search for identity. Do you find evidence of such investigation in “Désirée’s Baby”? Why, or why not?”
This week we begin looking at “argument” and the technicalities of argument.
Is argument a good thing or a bad thing?
The answer to this question is that argument is a “good” thing but only if it is presented in a logical and intelligent manner.
In this course you will learn the many techniques of building an “argument” and writing an arguable “claim.”
What is a Claim? This is the one sentence in your essay that presents your stance in any argument. Your claim is your argument that you will support through the rest of your essay.
According to Aristotle, there are three ways to build a persuasive argument: Ethos, Pathos and Logos.
Go to the link below and read about these three types of arguments:
Although we are moving towards a change in American society you will be reading a short story this week by Kate Chopin. This story will take you back into slavery just for a short while.
The name of the story is “Desiree’s Baby.”
Here is the link for the story and you can also find it as a link below:
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/D…
The setting of this story is in Louisiana before the Civil War. Interestingly, the story was written in 1892 and published in 1893. Why would Chopin write a pre-Civil War story at the end of the nineteenth-century? Think about this question.
When we discuss issue like racism and other problems in our culture that continue to stifle our growth as a nation, do we consider the impact of literature on a culture. Chopin wrote this story because she saw some form of intolerance and lack of acceptance in the 1890s as well.
Your textbook talks about the Ku Klux Klan revival in the 1920s. Be sure to consider all these things before writing about “Desiree’s Baby.”
