Themes and Meanings
Kate Chopin clearly sympathizes with the plight of people of mixed blood and points out the evils of a slave system that at once creates and condemns miscegenation. Her chief concern, however, is not with the South’s “peculiar institution,” a topic she rarely treated in her fiction. Rather, she concerns herself with her characters’ inner lives.
Certainly these lives confront external constraints. Désirée and Armand live in a world that values racial purity. To be Black is to be condemned to a life of subservience; to be white is to inherit mastery. No matter how beautiful or how fair one may be, blood rules. Armand spends much time in the cottage of a slave named La Blanche, whose name suggests her skin color. Still, she is of mixed race, so she is a slave, and the quadroon boy who fans Désirée’s baby is probably the son of Armand and La Blanche. The most such a woman can hope for is to be treated well by her master and to be his concubine because she will never be his wife. Among Creoles, who pride themselves not only on their racial purity but also on their French heritage, the proper pedigree is especially important.
The characters’ world is also one in which women, like Blacks, are second-class citizens. Women have certain fixed roles—daughter, wife, mother. Désirée’s world is small, moving between the neighboring plantations of her foster parents and her husband. She passes her days inside, and Armand is free to come and go as he pleases. Once her husband rejects her, Désirée must choose between disgrace and death; despite Madame Valmonde’s offer of sanctuary, Désirée would remain an outcast.
Still, “Désirée’s Baby” might have ended differently. The code of the outside world impinges on Armand but does not force him to act as he does. When he married Désirée he claimed indifference to her status as a foundling, but he is not, in fact, strong enough to reject the prejudices of the world. Indeed, he stands for those very attitudes that he seems to ignore: He defines himself by his pedigree and by his role as master of his slaves and his wife. Désirée is desirable only so long as she appears to be a valuable possession. Once he believes that she is not “authentic,” he loses interest, for he never regards her as a fellow human being with needs of her own. She is there, he believes, to satisfy him; when she no longer does so, he discards her.
In her poem “Because,” Chopin writes, “Tis only man/ That does because he can/ And knowing good from ill,/ Chooses because he will.” Armand has a choice: He can love Désirée for what she is (or thinks she is) as his father loved his Black mother, or he can let his pride overrule that love. Chopin admires the character who defies convention, who is sufficiently strong to reject the false standards of his time and place. Armand’s inability to surmount prejudice leads to the tragedy of the story.
Analysis
Setting and Local Color
When Bayou Folk was published, which included the reprint of ‘‘Désirée's Baby,’’ Kate Chopin was mainly recognized as a local colorist. This was largely because she wrote about the Cajuns and Creoles of Louisiana. This community, with its unique cultural characteristics, was relatively unfamiliar to people in the North and even to other Southerners. The Cajuns are descendants of French settlers who originally lived in Acadia, Canada. They were expelled from Canada in the 1600s and eventually settled in Louisiana, where their name—Acadians—was altered to the name they are known by today—Cajuns. Creoles are white people descended from early French and Spanish settlers, or individuals of mixed French or Spanish and Black heritage.
The dominant French influence is evident in the story. All the characters are of French descent, as indicated by their first and last names. Désirée, whose name is also French, grows up in a household where ‘‘French was the language spoken,’’ and Chopin incorporates relevant French expressions. Armand's plantation is named L'Abri, derived from the French word for shelter. Armand himself spent his first eight years in Paris. These elements contribute to the isolated world of the Louisiana bayous.
Trick Ending
Some critics of ‘‘Désirée's Baby’’ have argued that the ending is a trick ending, or an O. Henry ending, named after the short story writer known for his unexpected conclusions. It is clear that Chopin was familiar with the concept of a surprise ending. She admired the works of Guy de Maupassant, whose story ‘‘The Necklace’’ also employs a surprise ending with tragic consequences. Similarly, ''Désirée's Baby'' ends in tragedy for all the characters involved. Désirée and her child face certain death, while Armand learns that the ‘‘African American blood'' seen in their baby originates from him. Many critics, however, dispute the idea that the story’s ending is contrived. As Cynthia Griffin Wolff notes in The Southern Literary Journal, ‘‘it is also the case that a 'trick' or 'surprise' conclusion is almost never a sufficient means by which to evoke a powerful and poignant reaction from the reader.’’ The ending actually highlights the irony and the complex nature of racism.
Foreshadowing
Numerous critics have noted that the conclusion of ‘‘Désirée's Baby’’ might not surprise astute readers, as Chopin employs subtle hints to foreshadow the revelation about Armand's heritage. Désirée is depicted with fair skin and gray eyes, often adorned in ‘‘soft white muslins and laces.’’ When she stands before her husband with her mother's letter, she is described as ‘‘silent, white, motionless.’’ As she departs from her home for the final time, dressed in a white garment, the sunlight highlights a ''golden gleam'' in her brown hair. In stark contrast, Armand is characterized as "dark." Armand's racial background is hinted at through Chopin's recurring use of the color yellow. His plantation house is yellow, and so is the baby's nurse. Notably, none of Armand's slaves are explicitly described as Black. One slave is referred to as La Blanche (the white woman), while the young slave who fans the baby is a quadroon (a person with one-quarter African ancestry). It is the appearance of the quadroon boy that triggers Désirée's realization about her child's racial heritage.
The violence and destruction inherent in Armand's desire for Désirée are also foreshadowed through various similes in the narrative. Upon seeing Désirée at the gate of her home, Armand falls in love with her instantly, ‘‘as if struck by a pistol shot.’’ The passion ignited that day ‘‘swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives headlong over all obstacles.’’ Even the description of Armand's house—with a roof ‘‘black like a cowl’’ and surrounded by ‘‘[B]ig, solemn oaks ... [which] shadowed it like a pall’’—evokes a funereal atmosphere, foreshadowing the eventual deaths of Désirée and her baby.
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