Desiree's Baby
Kate Chopin's short story, "Desiree's Baby," begins by explaining howDesiree comes to live with Monsieur and Madame Valmonde-Monsieur Valmondefinds her as a child sleeping on his property, and he and his wife decideto raise her. When Desiree grows up, Armand Aubigny falls in love withher, and despite Monsieur Valmonde's warnings that Desiree's origins areunknown, Armand marries her and they have a baby boy. At first, they areboth extremely proud and happy, and Armand even treats his Negro slaveskindly because he is in such a joyful state of mind. However, Armand'smanner changes when the baby is three months old: he stops looking intoDesiree's eyes when he speaks to her, he treats the slaves awfully, and heseems to fall out of love with Desiree. Desiree is miserable and cannotunderstand why her husband has changed. One day she is in her room lookingat her sleeping child and she notices that his skin color is darker than"normal;" she asks Armand what it means, and he tells her that the child isnot white, so therefore she must not be white, and he sends her away andburns all of her things, only to read an old letter that reveals it was hisown mother who was black. The moment Armand presumed
Themain part of the story occurs at Armand's estate, L'Abri, which isdescribed through the eyes of Madame Valmonde as a "sad looking place,which for many years had not known the gentle presences of a mistress. She writesfrom a limited point of view, because even though she knows and tells usall that is going on, she can only show us how the characters feel butcannot tell us their actual thoughts. Madame Valmonde is also very meaningful to the story. Desiree takes her baby and never comes back, and we don't findout what happens after Armand discovers his mother's true background. And that is how she raises Desiree-as if sheis Madame Valmonde's own child. When Madame Valmonde visits Desiree and her baby, she immediatelynotices the skin color of the baby. " This sentence also gives usinsight to Armand's father-we can see that his Negroes were happy under hisrule, so he must not have treated them cruelly, and this makes even moresense after reading Armand's mother's letter. The central character in this story is Desiree, who grows up to be a"beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere" woman with a faircomplexion and long, silky brown hair. Thiscontributes to the theme because we see how Armand feels about Negros; hewill be nice to them if he is in a good mood, but if not, then he treatsthem like the inferior people he believes they are. Desiree and Madame Valmonde relate to one another because Madame raisedDesiree with the same values the she believes in; if Desiree knew that itwas her husband who was part negro, she would never leave him or her childbecause she loves them both unconditionally and would rather die than liveunhappily without them. "The conditions surrounding this setting are that slavery is in full effectand is thus acceptable and standard in the eyes of southern society. Armand makes an assumption and does something that hecan never take back, all the while thinking it's because of her when reallyit's because of him. For instance, we get some true insight into Armand's characterand why he so adamantly believes in this notion white superiority after hetells Desiree to leave: "He thought Almighty God has dealt cruelly andunjustly with him; and felt, somehow, that he was paying Him back in kindwhen he stabbed thus into his wife's soul. " However, Desiree never stops loving her child or her husbandbecause her son is partly Negro, and this enhances the theme that judgingsomeone based on skin color is wrong.
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Acceptance Essays
