Aubigny’s love at First sight and Hate at not-that-Last Sight

“Désirée’s Baby” is Kate Chopin’s short story, set before the American Civil War, about a baby and a racial crisis between a husband and wife. For over half a century, it has been one of Chopin’s most popular stories.”  https://www.katechopin.org/desirees-baby/

                       

Aubigny’s love at First sight and Hate at not-that-Last Sight

(slavery analysis at Désirée’s Baby by Kate Chopin)

Désirée senses the problem before she consciously aware of it. This speaks to the theme of Love and Blindness in the story. Because Désirée loves her son, it takes her longer than everyone else to realized the truth. Armand does not confront her, but reverts to his cruel nature. This shows Armand’s immediate decision to blame his wife for their child’s appearance, as well as the way that racial issues were connected with such shame—because of the institution of slavery—that no one among the white plantation slave owners could even discuss it.

“Then a strange, an awful change in her husband’s manner, which she dared not ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old love-light seemed to have gone out. He absented himself from home; and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse. And the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his dealings with the slaves. Désirée was miserable enough to die.”

Désirée was “beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere,” Chopin says. Armand “had fallen in love with her. That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love, as if struck by a pistol shot. . . . The passion that awoke in him that day, when he saw her at the gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives headlong over all obstacles.” Nothing Désirée’s guardian warned Armand about could change his mind. Apparently he married Désirée because she was “beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere,” and when he saw her one day, he fell in love with her. https://www.katechopin.org/desirees-baby/

Désirée and her baby again appear in attitudes of extravagance and leisure. A slave boy does the work of fanning the baby. The irony of this moment—and the condemnation of the ridiculousness and tragedy of slavery—comes with Désirée’s realization that her child looks similar to a boy whose life will be one of slavery and not comfort (the similarity of the two boys also, again, suggests that Armand has had a sexual relationship with La Blanche and that this slave child might in fact be his son, and suggests that for Armand fatherhood is less important than race). The two boys, despite their similarities, are already playing their roles. Désirée’s reaction shows that she is afraid of having a child who appears black.

Young Aubigny’s rule was a strict one, too, and under it his negroes had forgotten how to be gay, as they had been during the old master’s easy-going and indulgent lifetime

“…he hasn’t punished one of them—not one of them—since baby is born. Even Négrillon, who pretended to have burnt his leg that he might rest from work—he only laughed, and said Négrillon was a great scamp. Oh, mamma, I’m so happy; it frightens me.”

But he has, it seems, a cruel character. In dealing with his slaves, Chopin tells us, his “rule was a strict one,” unlike that of his father. And Désirée says that “he has n’t punished one of [the slaves]—not one of them—since baby is born,” which means that he routinely does punish them. https://www.katechopin.org/desirees-baby/

Désirée, while the victim of Armand’s sexist assumption and unkind treatment, is equally ashamed of being grouped with the “lesser” black race. Her act of contrasting her skin color to Armand’s foreshadows the twist at the end of the short story. That Désirée and La Blanche are also equally “white” in color forwards the story’s critique of slavery and racism as nonsensical: La Blanche, the slave, is as white as her masters (and likely has had a sexual relationship with Armand just as Désirée has had), and yet because her racial heritage is known she is forced to be a slave. But as the story is showing, racial heritage in the South isn’t clear at all and so the foundation of slavery (to say nothing of the abhorrence of the practice) makes no sense.

“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. And my skin is fair,” seizing his wrist. “Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand,” she laughed hysterically. 
“As white as La Blanche’s,” he returned cruelly; and went away leaving her alone with their child.

As for why he rejects Désirée when he discovers his child is black, you might keep in mind Armand’s character and remember that this story takes place in the American South in the distant past, before the Civil War. Apparently he is trying to destroy memories of his wife and child to remove what he thinks of as the taint of their race. https://www.katechopin.org/desirees-baby/

"Armand,” she panted once more, clutching his arm, “look at our child. What does it mean? tell me.” 
He coldly but gently loosened her fingers from about his arm and thrust the hand away from him. “Tell me what it means!” she cried despairingly. 
“It means,” he answered lightly, “that the child is not white; it means that you are not white.”

The twist ending of the story makes obvious the idiocy and tragedy of this way of seeing the world, with racial background as its most important feature, since it becomes evident that one’s racial background isn’t obvious at all, and thus nothing to base assessments of oneself or of others

my source is https://www.katechopin.org/desirees-baby/

you can also see more about either Kate Chopin( The writer) or QnA about this Short Story on that link i put above. I know you guys could read in the Website, but i can not help myself to not put this on my Assignments, so here it goes:

Q: Would it be accurate to say that Désirée and the baby are victims of racism?

A: Yes. Readers usually see this as a story about racism–defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” It may, however, be worth noting that some readers understand racism as damaging  both those who are judged (Désirée and the baby) and those who are judging (Armand). So you might argue that racism victimizes everybody in the story, although not, of course, with equivalent consequences.

Dinda Almasella Rustam

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Sastra Inggris 2015