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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A comparison between the themes and characters in Chopin's Desiree's Baby and Bass's Antlers, with particular reference to the exploration of gender roles and sexual morality in the two societies depicted. Bibliography lists four sources.
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4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: JL5_JLantlers.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
might assume that there is little in common between the two stories, Chopins "Desirees Baby" and Basss "Antlers", but a closer investigation of the texts shows that there are indeed
some themes common to the two narratives. Both are concerned with community values, both deal with issues of sexuality and sexual behaviour in relation to those values, and both consider
the importance of traditional gender roles in the course of exploring those themes.
In Chopins tale, we are given an insight into the issues of racism, segregation and miscegenation; racial purity is an essential element of the
society in which Arnaud and Desiree live, and the feelings of one human being for another are seen as subordinate to the preservation of that purity, as Arnaud shows when
he sends Desiree away on discovering what he thinks is her Black ancestry. The ironic twist in the tale, of course, is that Arnaud then discovers it is he who
has such ancestry, not his wife: we are left to speculate how he will deal with this revelation, and our anger at him for his intolerance is compounded by the
knowledge that Desiree has gone to her death, even though Arnaud will have to cope with a revelation that shakes the foundations of his world.
As Elfenbein (1989) points out, the perception of men as
having a superior social position to women in this society is clear, however: we cannot imagine Desiree having either the inclination or the socio-cultural power to reject her husband had
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