When Madame Valmondé arrives at L’Abri, the story uses a simile to help vividly depict the plantation that she sees sprawled out before her:
“The roof came down black and steep like a cowl, reaching out beyond the wide galleries that encircled the yellow stuccoed house.”
In this passage, the story compares the roof to a "cowl," which is a large hood often worn by monks. Moreover, this hood is described as "black and steep," making it seem rather ominous and foreboding. And it's not just that the house appears to be cloaked in a frightening, spooky garment, but the idea that its roof and exterior are actively hiding something, as if there are deep secrets lurking in the house itself.
This, in turn, hints at the later revelation that Armand isn't fully white, which even comes as a surprise to Armand himself. As a result of this simile, the reader's first impression of L'Abri is somewhat mysterious, as the comparison between the roof and an enshrouding hood effectively foreshadows the dramatic turn of events that will come to pass between Désirée and Armand once it becomes clear that their child is of mixed-race ancestry.
Just before Désirée decides to leave L’Abri, she goes into Armand’s office with a letter from her mother. Despite her racial ambiguity and unknown origins, she has been offered comfort and safety with her adopted family. Chopin uses an illuminating simile to describe Désirée in this pivotal moment:
She was like a stone image: silent, white, motionless after she placed it there.
In this passage, as she awaits her fate, Désirée is compared to a "stone image," rendering her immobile on the verge of a major life change. Her inability to move aligns with her situation. As a married woman in the mid-19th century, she is confined by her circumstances, and her fate is entirely in the hands of her husband and family. However, there are important details of the "stone image" that Désirée becomes in this moment. Not only is she "silent" and "motionless" (stuck in the present moment and unable to move until Armand weighs in on her fate), she is also described as "white." This description emerges at a time in the story when Désirée’s race has come into question, as it's clear that Armand thinks she's Black. Chopin thus uses this simile to subtly remind readers that, regardless of her race, Désirée looks white—a detail that ultimately foreshadows the story's later revelation that she is not, in fact, Black.
At the beginning of "Désirée's Baby," the story foreshadows the eventual drama that will arise because of the ambiguity of Désirée’s origins. Before her marriage to Armand, Valmondé tries to impress upon the young man that nobody knows where Désirée came from, but Armand brushes this off, determined to marry her:
“Monsieur Valmondé grew practical and wanted things well considered: that is, the girl’s obscure origin. Armand looked into her eyes and did not care.”
Significantly, it is Armand who overrides these concerns. He has fallen in love with Désirée and wants to marry her in spite of her adopted father’s hesitation. By introducing this potential conflict early in the short story, Chopin subtly sets up the reveal of the newlyweds’ mixed-race child. She also foreshadows Armand’s feeling of betrayal. Though he purports that Désirée’s race is of no importance to him, when she arrives at L’Abri, she discovers that he runs his plantation strictly and violently:
“Young Aubigny’s rule was a strict one, too, and under it his negroes had forgotten how to be gay, as they had been during the old master’s easy-going and indulgent lifetime.”
His enforcement of a racial hierarchy on his plantation suggests that his promise to Désirée might not hold up if tested—he is, it seems, not quite as kind and easygoing as he first seems. It is also implied that he has a relationship with Zandrine, one of the enslaved women on his plantation. His dependence on Désirée as his wife is therefore hinged on her whiteness and her ability to perform a respectable role that his enslaved lover cannot. When Désirée finally perceives that her child is not white, Armand’s poor reaction is in line with his earlier behavior. The discrepancy between his cruel behavior and his initial promise (to marry and stand by Désirée regardless of her background) ultimately foreshadow the short story’s tragic conclusion.
