Pride, Racism, and Karma in Desiree’s Baby

INTRODUCTION

 

             Kate Chopin (1850-1904), born Katherine O’Flaherty, was an American writer best known for her short stories about the inner lives of daring women. Her short stories were well received in her own time and were published by Vogue magazine. She became well known when she attracted scholars and students around the world. Her works have been translated into other languages such as Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, etc. “Desiree’s baby”, which is what I’m going to analyze, appear in countless editions and are embraced by the public for their sensitive, elegant, poetic pictures of women’s lives.

            Desiree’s Baby was first published on January 14, 1893 by Vogue magazine. It is a story about Desiree, an abandoned girl found and adopted by the Valmonde family without knowing her background. The story takes place in Louisiana before the American Civil War. It is centered around a man’s pride and prejudice. The main issue starts showing after Desiree gave birth to a baby. The baby’s skin color is different from his parents which are white. Her husband, Armand Aubigny, accused her of having black origin, as in born in slave’s blood, in her family because the Valmondes do not know her real origin. Desiree left Armand’s house with her baby after getting a letter from Madame Valmonde. Not long after that, Armand burnt all of her belongings. While doing so, Armand found a letter from his mother to his father stating that she had black origin in her blood. The ending left me quite surprised and happy particularly because the unexpected irony in the end of the story gave me a sense of good karma. Which is why I chose to analyze this part of the story.

CONTENT

            The historical background for Desiree’s Baby is slavery even though this short story was writtern in 1892, twenty-seven years after slavery was banned. The story explores the main problem of man’s pride clouding his love for his wife and baby.

 In the story, Armand, who is a slave owner of Lousiana, is portrayed as the man who had everything. “One of the oldest and proudest in Lousiana” was mentioned in the story. Wielding a well-known name in Louisiana, plus being a slave owner himself, made him chose pride over everything. He felt like he had to keep his family’s name and history clean. For this reason, he did not want anything to taint his name, not even his own wife, Desiree, and son. After finding out the baby’s skin color is not the same as both the parents, he accused Desiree of having black skin origin and told her to leave, resulting in Desiree and her son’s death. Armand did not want people to frown upon him and his name or make him into a joke. Finally, Armand felt like his pride is hurt because of the shame Desiree and his son brought to his name.

Armand’s pride of his name and race is not the only thing that was brought up in this story. In the beginning of the story, where Armand and Desiree first saw their baby, they were happy because they thought they have all white heritages. But when the baby was three months old, Armand found out about the baby mixed race and told Desiree to leave with the baby. She then wrote a letter to her mother saying “My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand told me I am not white. For God’s sake, tell them it is not true. You must know it is not true. I shall die. I must die. I cannot be so unhappy and live.” From this alone we can conclude what Desiree’s thoughts on possibily being black. Her pride of having a white skinned is tainted by the fact that her child is of mixed race. Although her pride did not overcome her love for her baby, it did however kill both of them.

The irony of Desiree’s Baby comes in the last part of the story. Armand, whose pride is above all else, found out about his own origin. After everything he went through to keep his name clean, he found out that his name is already “tainted” in the first place.

CONCLUSION

          In the story “Desiree’s Baby”, there are a lot of issues that can be discussed deeper, such as gender issues, slavery, racism, etc. However, the main problem that is clearly pictured in this short story is how someone’s pride can become so overwhelming that they are blinded by it from happiness. Armand’s problem was that he put pride over love. He felt like there’s nothing more important than keeping his name clean. This problem can easily be solved by realizing that pride is not what makes us who we are. It is what we do as a human that makes our name the proudest.

RYAN DANIEL

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