The topic of stereotypes is also explored through literature. For example, in the poem,
“Labels”, the speaker describes how she is like a chunk-style vegetable soup; she is made up of many different parts. The speaker is not able to fit under just one label because she isn’t just one thing. But remember not to judge people like you might judge a vegetable soup, just by looking at it, people are more than they appear to be. The poet writes, “Grouping folks together / is an individual waste. / You can’t know me by just a look, / you have to take a taste.” (Holbrook). This quote supports the definition of stereotypes by the speaker expressing through figurative language that people are not just their appearance, they aren’t always what they may …show more content…
In addition, in the story, “Desiree’s Baby” The story begins with Desiree, a young girl who is married to the slave master, Armand, and her baby. Desiree’s adoptive mother, Madame Valmonde, sees something in the baby that she was unable to see. Desiree finally realizes what is “wrong” with the baby, the baby is of mixed race. Armand is extremely unhappy with this and he assumes that she is the reason and he wants both Desiree and the baby to leave. Desiree and the baby wade into the swamp, never to return while Armand discovers that it is him who is of mixed race. Armand was so prejudiced against African Americans that he sent his own wife and child away, the bitterness he held destroyed all of the love in his heart. The extreme intolerance even for his wife and child is evident when the author writes, “Moreover he no longer loved her, because of the unconscious injury she had brought upon him home and his name.” (Chopin). This quote supports the definition of stereotype through the fact that even though Armand loved his wife an child for who they were before he found out that his child was bi-racial and supposedly his wife was too, the stigma that surrounded people of that