Level: upper
Reading task: Students read the questions about Kate Chopin short story: Désire's Baby.
Some questions are related to slavery and others to narrative techniques.
Questions about Kate Chopin's Désirée's Baby
- In the first half of the story, a lazy mood prevails. How is this idea transmitted?
- Note the similes as you read. Can you spot some of them?
- Do you think the narrative voice is critical or sympathetic towards the characters of the story?
- Armand Augbigny is the villain of the story. What are the devices used to present him as the villain?
- Can you find images that hint at the impending doom or expressions of negative feelings that anticipate an unhappy end?
- How do you feel about the clever twist? Did it reverse your expectations?
- Do you think race and origin are still causes of inequality in the areas of the world where you live?
Questions based on American Literature to 1900 by Teresa Gibert. Editorial Ramón Areces, Uned. 2009, pp. 464 -468
To know more about the life and work of Kate Chopin: HERE
Link to Désir´e's Baby Short Story: HERE
KEY/ Answers: HERE
13 comments:
I liked the text i though the plot twist at the end was cool
I didn't expect that plot twist at the end. I was so immersed in the lecture that this possibility didn't come to my mind. I really like how it turns out at the end.
I didn't expect that plot twist at the end. I was so immersed in the lecture that this possibility didn't come to my mind. I really like how it turns out at the end.
(I've reposted the comment with my name cause I accidentally put it anonymus)
I do think that race and origin still causes inequality in the world we live in, i think it's a very obvious question, and not only in certain areas but all over it.
You can see this inequality anywhere you look at, schools, workplaces, politics, and even in the streets. There has been different movements and protests against racial inequalities, and the best example I can think of is the BLM (Black Lives Matter) movement, started on 2013 and still going on currently. The BLM is a peaceful protest about affirming that black people should be equal to white people, and that race doesn't matter.
-Lola McIver
I honestly thought the story was OK, but pretty poorly executed. The writing at times shifted from easy, practical grammar to pretentious, overcomplicated and lengthy. The pacing was also a bit shoddy, shifting from moment to moment without allowing us to really take it all in part by part. In general the writing was at times confusing, the characters and the setting felt like they needed a bit more context and the plot twist at the end was far too short-lived.
Again, the story itself was OK, but I felt like it needed a bit more context, more consisteng writing and a bit more depth for me to really get into it.
I didn't really enjoy this. The story itself is fine, kinda, because some things are a bit "I'll believe this because if not the story wouldn't make sense, so, even if I know there's something wrong with it, I'll just continue reading without asking many questions". Apart from that, the way it's written is so pretentious and it goes from super sophisticated writing to a bunch of random clarifications written for 3 year old children. Also, the vocabulary is kinda bad. Too much specific vocabulary and adjectives that have two interpretations. And, finally, the "plot twist". Well, how to say it, maybe it was because of how badly written it was but, there's a part where you can actually misinterpret the adjectives, making the guy look like he was black since the beginning. Is this phrase:"Armand's dark, handsome face". I thought he was black because of the choosing of words. Also, the plot twist is kinda obvious. So yeah, I really didn't like it. I did prefer the audios much more than this, to be honest.
CB: I liked the story, it wasn’t tedious to read, and I learned some new vocabulary. To start off, from the very first moment Madame Valmonde saw something different opon de baby I suspected. But, what I didn’t expect was how hard Armand was on that matter. It was really sad that he didn’t accept her, how fast he went from loving and adoring her to hating and despising her, when at the beginning he affirmed that her obscure or unclear origin didn’t matter to him. And the little plot twist at the end I think it was clever because you just don't end up a story, it gives you another insight. Maybe what we judge on others is what we don't accept about us, it gives us something to reflect on. About the narrative in my opinion describes many things about the scene, but at some points it’s a little bit poor. I assume it's because it may be a short adaptation from one of Kate Chopin’s books, so it left me wanting to read more about the story to know some why’s. Finally referring to the last question, unfortunately yes, more than what some people want to think.
This story for me has been quite disturbing, since in some parts I did not understand the logic of the story very well. But in the end I have been able to understand it. Today there are still many cases of racism. However, it can be observed that there are places where there are more cases of racism (for example in the United States) than in others. These differences are due to historical events that occurred long ago, for example, the colonizations of the English in new unknown lands, thus marking cultural, ethnic, cultural differences, etc. where some were imposed on others, thus believing to be superior.
In Spain, unfortunately there are still cases of racism.
Lisa Campos
The story was interesting, but I didn’t enjoy it, as for Madame Valmonde and the baby, from that moment I felt that there was something wrong within the text, then the twist was the straw that broke the camel's back, the writing was not that good, and we can misinterpret many parts of it.
This activity was not bad yet listening specially ted talks are the best for me.
After reading the text I can assure I prefer listening to ted talks. Answering to the question, yes, obviously there's still racism, not only in Spain but all over the world. As you may know, recently the Black Lives Matter movement has gained strenght after George Floyd's murder and several other racist agressions in the USA specifically. A couple of days ago, the social media site Twitter was flooded with hashtags like "RACISM IS NOT AN OPINION" as people were speaking up against racism to asian communities, which has been pretty powerful since COVID-19.The "movement" started after a german radio host made racist remarks about the korean global music group BTS. Overall, this just proves that racism is still present in today's society even if classic slavery is over or marginalized communities apparently have the same rights as non-marginalized ones. Racism is very much alive nowadays unfortunately and for it to stop we should analyze ourselves and our internalized racism and speak up against discrimination.
Ingrid Masip
Racism is all around the world unfortunately, we constantly see it on the news or in different platforms like social media. In Barcelona, which is the city I live in, I've seen and heard a lot of racism in the streets, on the news and in politics, in my opinion there's a lot of racism to the Muslim people. It is really disturbing that in 2021 people still think that just because their skin is a different shade or because of their beliefs, that they are superior to other people, and it is really sad that we still need to fight to have equality all around the world.
-Mora Kiara
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Before watching the video, like most of the population, I assumed that happiness and pleasure were synonyms. But after watching it I've come to my senses and realized how different they are. Henceforth I'd like to share some realizations I made.
Firstly I found interesting the fact that these two emotions were caused by hormones entering brain cells receptors. Moreover I was shocked to learn that whilst pleasure caused addiction happiness didn’t. But i didn’t agree with everything he said, for example, i find it hard to believe that pleasure can only be acquired by ”taking” it and the same goes for how happiness is obtained. Based on my personal experience there have been times where I ”took” happiness and I felt pleasure by giving it. And finally I also disagreed with the thought that happiness is achieved only in groups and pleasure is achieved alone. Because as the majority of people would say they have felt both in company and alone.
To conclude this video has teached me things which I didn't know and was very interesting. But I didn't agree with everything he was saying, as I said before
Laia Moliner Martinez
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