Both short stories by Kate Chopin center around women who have an experience that changes how they perceive their own identity. Interestingly, as the stories open, neither woman has been particularly concerned with her identity. Desiree, who was a foundling and adopted by the Valmondes, marries Armand and seems perfectly content with her new role as a mother. She is fascinated by her baby as most new mothers are, even commenting on his little fingernails....
Both short stories by Kate Chopin center around women who have an experience that changes how they perceive their own identity. Interestingly, as the stories open, neither woman has been particularly concerned with her identity. Desiree, who was a foundling and adopted by the Valmondes, marries Armand and seems perfectly content with her new role as a mother. She is fascinated by her baby as most new mothers are, even commenting on his little fingernails. She is pleased that since the birth of the baby, Armand has been kinder to the slaves. Everything seems to be going splendidly. Likewise, before Mrs. Mallard gets the news of her husband's death, she did not rebel against her life as a wife. Both she and her husband controlled each other to some degree just by virtue of being married to one another. Both Desiree and Mrs. Mallard are content in the roles and identities their societies and their situations have put them in.
As each story progresses, each woman must come to terms with a different, unfamiliar identity that is thrust upon her. Desiree notices odd changes going on at the plantation and with Armand's mood, but she does not at first think they have anything to do with her. When she recognizes the African features of her baby for the first time and asks her husband what it means, he forces a new identity on her, namely that she is of mixed race. She denies this new identity vehemently. When she appeals to her mother and her mother invites her to move back home, she asks her husband if that is what he wants her to do. Upon hearing his affirmative answer, she must decide whether she can live the rest of her life as a person of mixed race in the antebellum South or whether she can remain living in the home where her husband has made it clear she is not wanted. She rejects both those identities and walks into the swamp with her baby. Although her reasons for doing so are not stated, one can assume that she is sure in her identity as a white person and refuses to capitulate to the false identity she is being required to assume to protect what she now realizes is her husband's false identity.
Mrs. Mallard's experience is quite different. When she learns of her husband's death, she takes time to ponder what that means for her identity. She realizes that as a widow, she will have a level of unfettered freedom she has never even considered a possibility. Her heart soars at the prospect. She is excited for all the open years spreading before her when she will be able to live life based on her own desires rather than the desires of her husband. She has accepted and embraced her new identity so fully and so completely that when she finds out her husband is still alive, she dies from the shock.
While Desiree chooses death rather than live with a false identity that is forced upon her, Mrs. Mallard dies of shock when the new identity she has recently acquired is suddenly withdrawn from her.
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