Desiree
"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 love
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. Armand has made the decision to lose his family in order to save his name and it's too late to bring Desiree back. Additionally, he accuses Desiree of not being white (a crime against his family's "purity") which she adamantly denies. Had he known of his "heritage" before hand, chances are he would have approached life differently, but we have to assume this was hidden from him to protect him from the society in which he lived. It turns out the baby is of mixed blood and because of this, he shuns his wife and the child he was so proud of only days before. Paradoxically, it is also this arrangement that is the root of his present day problems. "He was reminded that she was nameless. Tragedy comes early in the marriage with the birth of their first child. Although no one seemed to notice at first, by the time the child was three months old, neighbors and Armand himself noticed a change in the child. Armand was "the proudest father in the parish. Placing blame on outside forces can also be a tragic and misguided reaction to events that people encounter. Lying before him was proof that it was not Desiree who had colored blood but him. "He absented himself from home and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse.
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Acceptance Essays
