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.
In a pivotal moment near the end of the short story, Désirée realizes, through observation, that her child is not white. Her shock in this moment is described using a simile that makes use of rich sensory details:
“The blood turned like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture gathered upon her face.”
In this passage, Chopin emphasizes the importance of Désirée's realization by suggesting that her blood feels as if it's freezing inside her very veins—a simile that conveys just how chilling it is for her to consider the unfortunate consequences of having a mixed-race child in the highly racist environment of the South during slavery.
This simile also makes use of some tactile imagery, appealing to the reader’s sense of touch and feeling by focusing specifically on temperature. One of the reasons that this description is so vivid and striking is that Désirée's realization is a major turning point in the story, so this moment is appropriately heightened and dramatic. After all, once she comes to this realization, her entire life transforms, since Armand disowns her and their baby based on the assumption that she isn't fully white. By taking the time to describe the feeling in Désirée’s body, then, Chopin forces the reader to focus on the sensation of shock and horror that precedes the story’s conclusion.
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.
