Assumptions Can Be Deadly in Desiree’s Baby by Kate Chopin

The death of a child with her mother is a horrendous thing to happen. Why would a mother choose this as the only option for her and her child? Was it out of love or was it out of being so scared that she had no idea what to do anymore? Was it really her only option or were there other things she could have done. Desiree made the choice that set part of the irony in Desiree’s Baby by Kate Chopin.

Armand meets Desiree and they instantly fall in love and get married. Armand loves her; it was shown because she was “a woman who is able to suddenly entice Armand’s passion despite her obscure origin and lack of prestigious name.” Desiree gets pregnant and gives birth to a black baby. She does not realize this until she sees “the resemblance between one of La Blanche’s little quadroon boys and her own child.” She realizes something is very wrong and watches as her husband changes. Armand starts treating the slaves bad again and he stops giving attention the Desiree. When Desiree tries to talk to Armand about it he tells her, “the child is not white; it means that you are not white.”

She tries to prove to Armand that she is white, “whiter than you.” With this discovery she instantly sends a letter to her mother. When the letter returns, Desiree learns that she is adopted and cannot prove that she is white. Her mother tells her to come home to her and that she will treat her no different than before. Desiree then realizes what is to happen and that she must protect her son. She knew there was only one option for her, so she took her baby to die with her, she “disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the banks of the deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come back again.”

Her option was to kill herself and her so...

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... lives and not dies. The memories will forever be going through Armand’s hear and he will never be able to fix it. It is his problem and he will just have to live with it, which is more than he can say about his family, who had died for his sake.

Bibliography

Chopin, Kate. "Desiree's Baby." In An Introduction to Literature, by William Burto, and William E. Cain Sylvan Barnet, 82-86. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006.

Mayer, Gary H. "A matter of behavior: A semantic Analysis of Five Kate Chopin stories." et Cetera, 2010: 94-100.

Nerad, Michael J. Duvall and Julie Cary. ""Suddenly and Shockingly Black": The atavistic Child in Turn-into-the-twentieth-Century American Fiction." African American Review, 2007: 51-66.

Pegues, Dagmar. "Fear and Despire: Regional Aesthetics and Colonial Desire in Kate Chopin's Portrayals of the Tragic Mulatta Stereotype." UNC Press, 2010: 1-1