‘Desiree’s baby’ and ‘The necklace’

‘Desiree’s baby’ and ‘the necklace’ are both pre-1900 Short stories with a twist. ‘Desire’s baby’ is a short story with a twist in the tale; Madame Valmonde is visiting her adopted daughter Desiree who was discovered by her husband 18 years before. Nobody knew where the toddler had come from, the couple adopted her. The baby seems to have grown astoningishly. The baby would appear to have some Negro blood and it is now obvious to all. She promptly drowns herself in the river. Armand then finds a letter from his mother to his father. In the letter it says that she thanks god that her son will never discover that she herself has slave roots.

Madame Loisel lives in gentle poverty with her civil servant husband, dreaming of a better life. She and her husband go to a ball and so she borrows a magnificent necklace from a wealthy friend, on arriving home that night after the ball she finds that she has misplaced the necklace she borrowed from her wealthy friend and can not be found anywhere. They have to use all their savings to buy a replica of the necklace she lost, after 10 years of agonizing struggling she feels she must tell her friend the truth about the necklace she has been paying off for the last 10 years and only to discover that the precious jewels she worn and lost hat night were merely just imitations.

Desiree is described as a fairytale princess “for the girl grew to be beautiful and gentle, they idol of valmonde”. Also Desiree doesn’t see that there is anything wrong with the baby at first and she is clearly very proud of him “the little cochonde laid! …….. Real fingernails”.

As well as this Desiree has deep feelings for her husband but also seems a bit afraid of him “she loved him desperately, when he frowned she trembled, but loved him”.

Desiree finally realises that something is wrong when the baby is three months old “he woke one day to the conviction that there was something menacing in the air disturbing the peace”

When Desiree compares her baby with the little quadroon boy she is clearly horrified “it was a cry that she could not help, which she was not conscious of having uttered. The blood turned like ice in her veins”

We see that Madame loisel is unhappy with her current life before this terrible event because in the text it says, “she had been born to enjoy every refinement and luxury, depressed by her humble surroundings”, but her husband had a different outlook on life “Pot-au-feu! How splendid! My favourite soup, but her own thoughts were dallying the idea of exclusive diners” so we see that her husband is happy with his current life even though his wife might not be.

There is a twist in desires which makes the story shocking, the twist in desirees baby is towards the end where we see that there is actually a mixed race connection with the baby, this gives the story an ironic twist.