novels
"Desiree's Baby" is a story of love, prejudice and rejection, a story with noble beginnings that slowly turns to reveal an uglier side of human relations. Armand, a wealthy landowner of the plantation L'Abri in the ante-bellum south of Louisiana, is confronted by a family secret that has been hidden from him, even into adulthood. The secret is scandalous for its day, and its consequences run deep into the fabric of society. No one told Armand of this secret. He discovers it by chance at the end of the story, when he finds the remnants of an old letter written by his mother to his father, the significance of which, and its revelations, makes us focus on the many tragic and ironic decisions made by him during this story.In the old south, bloodlines are very important to the status of a family and their social placement, so the "purity" of the family must be kept. This "purity" does not accommodate marriages of mixed race. Knowing this, Armand marries an old friend who he had known since he was eight when he moved to Louisiana from France with his father after his mother had died. She was a girl of no distinction, who had no history or reputation of family name like that of Armand, but despite this he fell in lo
She writes to her adopted mother and tells her of what is happening. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana. Here the story ends, and its tragic irony comes to light. "He was reminded that she was nameless. Too, was the undeniable fact that his father had overcome similar odds and accepted the love of his mother even though she was black. The irony is that the letter read by Armand from his mother reveals to him that it is he who is of mixed blood and not Desiree. Ironically, in the letter Armand finds from his mother, she is praising God for having "arranged" their lives so as to be married in a racist world and to have a beautiful child such as Armand. Armand makes this mistake when he can see no other cause for his anguish and blames God for what he sees as a cruel injustice placed upon him. We can only imagine the heart wrenching turmoil he must have felt at that moment. Others had warned Armand against marrying her, but he did not care for he was so swept away by her beauty. "It is a lie it is not true, I am white Look at my hair, it is brown and my eyes are gray, Armand you know they are gray. "He thought Almighty God had dealt cruelly and unjustly with him and felt, somehow that he was paying him back in kind when he stabbed thus into his wife's soul (319). Paradoxically, it is also this arrangement that is the root of his present day problems.
Common topics in this essay:
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Desiree Placing,
Knowing Armand,
armand mother,
family name,
family secret,
mother tells,
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wife child,
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mixed blood,
name armand,
arranged lives,
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Acceptance Essays
