Read our detailed study guide on the short story Desiree’s Baby by Kate Chopin. Our study guide covers Desiree’s Baby summary, themes, characters, and literary analysis.
Desiree’s Baby Summary
The story opens with Madame Valmonde traveling to L`Abri. She is actually visiting her step-daughter, Desiree because she has recently given birth to a baby. Madame Valmonde is visiting them to see Desiree and her baby. On her way to L`Abri, Madame Valmonde reminds how the little girl Desiree came into her family. The little girl was a youngster when Monsieur Valmonde found her in the plantation region of Valmonde.
The little girl, when he found her, was sleeping there and he could not ascertain whether someone lost her on the way or she was deliberately abandoned by someone. She took the child and brought it home because she had no child of her own. Whoever she was, Madame Valmonde believed that she was the gift of God to her.
She grows and turns into a beautiful girl. This beauty attracts many of the young boys and Armand Aubigny is one among them. He lives in a neighborhood and he was eighteen years when his mother died so he started living in the town where Monsieur Valmonde lives. He fell for Desiree deeply.
When the family got to know about the relationship between the two, Monsieur Valmonde proposed that Armand should look for the family background of Desiree but he was in such deep love with the girls that he never bothered to be concerned about her real parents. He was of the view that Armand’s family name was important which he would give to Desiree. They got married and started to live happily.
Madame Valmonde does not like the outlook of L`Abri. She thinks that the place is gloomy and does not show happiness since it has been a long time since the mother of Armand Aubigny died and afterwards, no one lived there. After the death of his mother, his father called it a gloomy place.
She reaches the house and sees that Desiree is lying on the couch and she is holding her baby in her lap. She notices that the baby is not like the other babies but she does not give Desiree any hint of that. She asks Desiree what are Armand`s thoughts about the baby.
She replies that Armand is very much happy with his child and he has shown his love for the baby. To prove that she is right Desiree tells her mother that since the child is born, Armand has not been rude to slaves, which shows he is happy about the birth of the baby.
This is the truth that Armand has changed after his marriage. He has become gentle with the people and slaves. After some months, when the baby is born, Desiree notices that the slaves have strange expressions on their faces and that the neighbors are coming more and frequently to the house to see the baby. She gets worried about all this. She also notices a change in the mood and attitude of her husband because he starts avoiding her and the baby. On that day, Armand becomes very violent and beats the slaves wildly which frightens Desiree.
One day, Desiree is combing her sleek hair and she is trying to adjust her hair. The baby is fast asleep on the couch and one of the slaves’ kids is trying to fan the baby so that he could be cool and asleep. Desiree is not easy with the attitude of the environment and the people around her as everyone is trying to have a suspicious look at the baby. Suddenly, Desiree feels that there is a stark similarity of her own baby to the kid of a slave.
Desiree is terrified by the realization and she asks the slave boy to go out of the room and starts looking at her baby with terror. Armand comes home and she calls for him because she feels panic and agonized. She pleads in front of her husband to tell her the reason as to why the child is very much similar to the slave boy. But he remains untouched by her emotions and feelings. He tells her that this simply implies that the child does not belong to a white race and it simply means that Desiree does not belong to a white race.
Desiree argues and fights with the husband that the revelation is not true and it is a white life. She claims that she, along with her baby, is white but her husband tells her that if they are white then why does the baby bear resemblance to the slave kid. He gets angry and leaves the room.
Desiree is in shock because her happiness has turned into a catastrophe for her. She writes to her mother and tells her that she is very upset and that she does not want to live anymore.
Her mother replies to her quickly and asks her to come home with her child. She holds the letter and goes to her husband and presents the letter before her. Armand reads the letter and tells her to leave the home and go to her mother`s home. His behavior towards her wife is cold and he thinks that God has done unjustly with him so by coldly treating his wife, he thinks that he is paying God back in the same coin. He does not say a goodbye to her wife because he thinks that by giving birth to such a child she embarrassed his family name. Desire collects some of her belongings and asks the maid to hand her the child. Desiree is sad and she leaves the house in despair.
Desiree leaves and the sun is about to set. She does not travel on the road rather she makes her way in the path and moves towards her mother`s house. She moves towards the swamp and is never returned afterwards.
After a few weeks, Armand burns all the belongings of Desiree and the child. He also burns all the letters which he once wrote to Desiree before their marriage had taken place. The container from which he takes out all the letters, he finds another letter which was written to his father by his mother. The letter read that she was very thankful for the kind behavior and love of Armad’s father towards her. She also thanked her husband, he had decided not to tell their son, Armand, that the truth that his mother was destined with slavery. This implied that not Desiree but actually Armand belonged to the black race.
Background of the Story
Desiree`s Baby is written by American author, Kate Chopin. It was written on 24th November 1892. It was published on 14th January 1893, in Vogue. It is the first of nineteen stories of Chopin. It appeared in the section “Character Studies” under the title of ‘The Father of Desiree’s Baby.’ It was included in Bayou Fold, which is a short story collection of Kate Chopin, published in 1894.
Overview
In “Desiree’s Baby” Chopin investigates Southern prejudice and the boundless severe dislike of the blend of races. The story centers around the life of a young lady, named Desiree, who was adopted by an opulent Louisiana family and grows up and weds a well off Louisiana person who has a business of plantation. When Desiree and her husband Armand have a kid who seems to have a dark color, Armand blames Desiree for having a blended family line.
As an embraced female, she has no capacity to contend with him. At that point, the plot takes a sudden bend and the catastrophe that outcome prompts a severe comprehension of the individual degradation that emerges from a social framework dependent on racial domination and the enslavement of ladies and minorities.
The Setting of the Story
The setting of this story is Southern Louisiana in the Antebellum period. Antebellum period means the period in the first half of the 19th century and it marks the pre-Civil War era. Louisiana became a state of the United State of America in 1812.
The action of the story takes place in Valmonde and L`Abri in Louisiana where people amassed a fortune by plantation and farming. Farming was a profitable business during the antebellum period in Louisiana. In Louisiana, the major crops were sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco and corn. Corn grew to a larger extent but in this story, Chopin refers to slaves picking up the cotton in the fields. The families involved in the Plantation business were rich families with large estates. The Aubigny family was one of the famous and influential families in Louisiana along with the Valmonde family. They both had a plantation business.
Louisiana had many cultural influences. It had two major halves; the southern and the northern halves. Both these halves were full of immigrant people coming from various regions. In the northern part, the culture of Africa, Britain and Protestant America was dominant while the southern part was dominated by Spanish, French and Catholic American cultures.
Themes in Desiree’s Baby
Racial Discrimination
Racial discrimination is one of the central themes of this story. The writer has tried to show the negatives implications of racial discrimination. The central conflict of the story is that Armand has issues with the baby born by Desiree and the issue is based on racial background. He hates the black race and thinks that the baby belongs to the black race. He also suspects that Desiree belongs to the black race and that’s why the child is black.
He never thinks that he can actually turn out to be black. He thinks that a black wife is a shame to his name and he leaves Desiree. He thinks that he has wasted all his years with his wife and now the child is a definite shame to his family name. Desiree pleads before him that it is not the truth but he does not believe her. He would have never believed but when he reads the letter he convinces himself the child had a dark complexion because he himself belongs to the black race. In the end, he is feeling guilty as what he did to Desiree but all in vain.
The Intersection of Classism, Sexism and Racism
Desiree’s Baby” delineates the manners by which the sexual orientation and monetary disparities present in mid-nineteenth century Southern culture strengthened and intermixed with the imbalances of a racist culture. Frequently these three issues are interconnected, as in the job of La Blanche, a captive of Armand’s, who additionally appears to have a sexual relationship with him. Armand’s situation as a well off, white male permitted him to practice unlimited control over a poor, dark lady.
Chopin shows that imbalances between the sexual orientations and immense incongruities of riches give rise to racism. Desiree is white but she is treated as a possession. Armand accepts that he can claim her by purchasing fine garments and presents for her. These signs of riches strengthen Armand’s status, just as arranging Desiree as a controllable article.
Then, the division of her maternal consideration obligations to others shows Desiree’s riches and position. The dark medical attendant Zandrine thinks about her child. Her lavish way of life mirrors her riches and position, which, in spite of the fact that she is as yet liable to Armand’s will as a lady, is fortified by her white skin.
The striking goals of the short story, wherein Armand has Desiree’s assets decimated in a blaze, show how class, sex, and race associate socially. Armand consumes Desiree’s assets to free him of recollections and signs of her. Since these recollections are physical articles, his activities are again decreasing Desiree to a belonging.
Besides, just a rich individual could bear the cost of the advantage of burning belongings and things like silk outfits, ribbon, caps, and gloves are characteristics of a wealthy woman. At last, Armand doesn’t consume the assets himself, yet sits and observes comfortably while the difficult work is finished by twelve of his slaves. The elimination of Desiree—a lady and a belonging—likewise exhibits Armand’s riches and his order of others on the sole distinction of the shade of his skin.
Family
What we find in the story are two limits of connection. Monsieur and Madame Valmonde eagerly take in Desiree as an infant about whom they know nothing. There were hypotheses among the townspeople that she was left by a gathering of voyaging Texans; however, that didn’t appear to have any kind of effect for the Valmondes.
She grows up to be a beautiful lady and then gets married to Armand. When Desiree acknowledged Armand’s opinion of racial background about the baby, she wrote a letter to Madame Valmonde. The Madame sends back a concise answer that my own Desiree, Come home to Valmonde and be back to your mom who cherishes her. She also tells her to bring her child. It is more than clear that paying little heed to every one of that has occurred, Valmonde eagerly advises Desiree to return home.
This is very much different from the manifestation of family displayed by the rude, racist, arrogant and uncontrollable manner of Armand. Armand renounces and ends his ties with Desiree nearly as fast as he at first fabricated them. His choices are made very fast. It is this evil natured demeanor and mindset that makes issues for Desiree and for Armand, and in the end, prompts both of their destructions.
Love
Love is a ground-breaking transformative power in Desiree’s Baby. Love essentially attempts to relax characters, permitting them to think about others comprehensively. Madame and Monsieur Valmonde are changed when they find a relinquished kid and welcome her as their own regardless of their obscured identity. Armand is relaxed by his affection for Desiree. It is out of love that he wishes to wed a young lady of strange sources; however, he pampers benevolence and lavish blessings on her.
After his love marriage, he changed in his treatment of others, especially his dark slaves. He even giggles when one man claims to be harmed to avoid work, as Desiree reports to her mother. Indeed, even Armand’s physical highlights change affected by his adoration for Desiree and his face is helped and he grins as opposed to scowling.
Love has another, increasingly rebellious, a transformative force that is uncovered through Desiree’s character. Desiree’s love for Armand makes her disregard his deficiencies and his pitilessness. When Armand is angry Desiree is afraid of him yet she loves him. Desiree’s blindness takes a progressively outrageous structure as for her infant.
Despite the fact that Armand and he belong to a dark race, Desiree is blind to all these traits. While blindness is commonly viewed as a negative thing, in Desiree’s Baby one may really think of it as a positive. Since it is when love isn’t sufficient to cause blindness that catastrophe unfurls. Armand’s parents hide their own legacy from Armand because they love him.
This makes Armand to have faith in the generalizations and chains of importance that cause him to desert his wife. In all these events, Madame Valmonde remains as a model of adoration and love, revealing to her little girl to get back home because she loves her daughter regardless of the fact that she might belong to the dark race. But such love in the bigot Southern universe of the story isn’t sufficient.
Characters Analysis
Desiree
Desiree is the central character and the protagonist of the story. She is an orphaned girl found by Valmonde. He brings her to homes and looks after her. Valmonde and his wife consider her to be the gift of God because they do not have children of their own. She turns out to be a beautiful girl. Armand falls in love with her and he eventually succeeds to marry her.
They both start their life happily and then they are blessed with a baby boy. The boy turns out to be a mixed-raced boy. He grows to be a dark-colored boy. Armand is unhappy with her wife and considers her a dark race woman as well. Desiree is upset with the situation and leaves home with her baby. She goes towards swamps and then never returns from it.
Madame Valmonde
She is the stepmother of the protagonist. She nurses Desiree as her own daughter. She is the epitome of love throughout the story. When she hears about the birth of the baby boy, she goes to see Desiree and her baby boy. There she notices that the boy is a mixed-race but she does not say anything to her daughter. When Desiree writes her a letter that her husband is treating her well and she wants to leave the house, Madame Valmonde tells her to come back to her because she loves her more than everything.
Monsieur Valmonde
He is the stepfather of Desiree and he is the man who brings the little girl to his home. He raises the little girl and then marries her off with Armand who loves the beautiful girl.
Armand Aubigny
He is a wealthy businessman. He was eight years old when his mother died in Paris. After the death of his mother, he moved to L`Abri along with his father. He falls in love with Desiree when he is only eighteen. He is in deep love with the girl and wants to marry her at any cost. Before the marriage, Valmonde tells him to see the family background of Desiree but he is so blindfolded by his love that he does not even bother to look for that.
He marries her but when a child gets born, he develops a hate for his wife. The boy is a dark race and he considers his wife to be a dark race woman. He permits her to leave because he is unable to live with her. When she leaves, he burns all her belongings. He even burns the letter which he sent Desiree before the marriage. In those letters, he finds another letter, which his mother sends to his father.
In the letter, his mother has clearly told his father that she is thankful that his father has not told Armand that she belongs to an African origin. This unfolds that not Desiree but Armand himself belongs to an African origin.
Le Blanche
Le Blanche is the servant of Armand Aubigny. Indirectly, it is stated in the story that she had a sexual relationship with Armand Aubigny. She has her children and one of the kids is a mixed race. The boy is dark and the baby boy of Desiree, too, is dark. This clearly indicates that Armand belonged to African origin and that he had an illicit relationship with Le Blanche.
Baby
This baby boy is the son of Desiree and Armand. The boy has a dark complexion and this becomes the central conflict of the story. It is because of this conflict that Desiree is dead. It later turns out his dark complexion is because of his father`s African origin.
Mrs. Aubigny
She is the mother of Armand. She is dead a long way before the action of the story happens. She is a woman who belonged to African heritage. She lived in Paris with Armand`s father because inter-racial marriages were socially acceptable in Paris. Armand gets to know the truth towards the end of the story when all is gone and he leaves in despair.
Literary Analysis
All through this short story, the writer portrays a community in which the property and social status keep individuals from talking reality with regards to race, gender and bondage. For instance, Madame Valmondé’s underlying reaction to Desiree’s son shows her anxiety with the infant’s dark traits. She doesn’t obviously voice her doubts on the grounds that to uncover the racial discriminations of this kid is to uncover something the general public evaded because it could bring serious repercussions.
Afterwards Desire, in her conversation with her mother, remarks that Armand is regularly going to La Blanche’s lodge and uncovers her total honesty in regards to Armand`s sexual bond with the servant La Blanche. This indication of Desiree’s numbness, Chopin delineates a portion of the impacts of her general public’s decision to select some matters unthinkable in an amiable discussion.
Armand faces less ramifications for his activities until his wife gets the idea of what’s going on. Desiree is in more of a situation to be harmed by Armand’s activities as long as she does not get an idea of these activities. When Desiree finds that her son is similar to the son of the maid, her acknowledgement is done through two different dimensions. She sees not just the cultural heritage, the two kids share, but their physical posture is of common parentage too. Her question, “what does this mean?” isn’t just an inquiry with respect to race but about the constancy of Armand.
Chopin analyzes society’s presumptions about individuals dependent on riches and economic well being. She features the lack of definition of Desiree’s starting points and builds up Armand as a ground-breaking and all around regarded individual from his general public. Desiree is a girl whose parents are unknown.
The storyteller specifies a few times that Armand`s mother is Frenchwoman and he experienced childhood in France. Desiree`s mother trusts Armand’s mom cherished her own territory too well which is a conviction that likely mirrors the convictions of the individuals in her groups of friends. Just in the last sentence it is uncovered that Armand’s mother belonged to African race.
Chopin organizes this data cautiously, managing the readers to limit Armand as the conceivable wellspring of the African American features attributes people see in the child. Indeed, even present-day readers, whose mentalities toward race might be universes not the same as the perspectives of Chopin’s peers, are probably going to expect Armand is unadulterated white to the very last paragraph of the story.
Title
The title of the story is Desiree`s Baby. This title very clearly demonstrates that the story is going to revolve around Desiree. The title is not indicating the name of the baby which means that it is Desiree who is the center of the conflict and not the baby. It also states the innocence of Desiree`s because it is Desiree who is the victim but she is made to suffer because of her son. She is asked to leave because of the color of the skin. Thus, this title holds the significance that she is innocent.
Point of View
The story is told from the perspective of a third person who is narrating the story to his audience or readers. The third person narrator in this short story holds a significant role because this point of view is not partial. It is a clear narration that is revealing the truth and the actual circumstances of the actions happened.
Genre
This short story belongs to the genre of Historical Realism.
Tone
The tone is now and again inauspicious, indicating inconvenience that lies ahead, especially because of the choices that Armand Aubigny makes which are very ill-advised and hurried in nature. Otherwise, the joy with which Desiree communicates her adoration for Armand and fervor for her infant fill in as lighter minutes in the story.
Slavery
The story does not provide any concise views of slavery and racism because there are a number of ambiguities and weaknesses in the plot of this story. Chopin`s contemporaries did not present slavery in the true spirit but Chopin presented the ugliness of slavery. Chopin`s Armand Aubigny shows the cruel side of the slavery, he not only beats the slaves but sexually abuses them as well, This is clear when Desiree makes a comment to her mother that Armand listens to the cry of the baby as far as Le Blanch`s cabin. It is a clear indication that he goes to the cabin of the servant. This case proves to be strong because the baby boy of the servant had strong similarities with the baby of Desiree`s.
Racism
Chopin also talks about the implications of racism in her society. The reactions of people towards the baby of Desiree show that people had racist attitudes towards each and everyone and that it had been inculcated into their minds. Madame Valmonde senses that the baby does not belong to the pure white race but she does not say anything. She gets to know that the baby would be suffering in future because of the cultural heritage and this comes true just after three months of his birth.
Armand, the father of the baby, reacts coldly towards the baby. He grows violent and then he starts neglecting the baby and Desiree. He hates her due to the cultural heritage and permits her to go out of his house because of this reason.
These reactions of people, Armand, the worry of Madame Valmonde show that society was obsessed with the concept of racism.
Desiree’s correspondence with Armand demonstrates the powerlessness of Desiree by the hands of Armand. This is clear when Desiree understands her child is not white she can refuse the claim of her husband but she does not. This provides him the strength to overlook his own cultural heritage and pass judgment on Desiree`s cultural background. His comments are a racist comment when he says that It implies that the youngster isn’t white; it implies that you (Desiree) are not white. Both Armand and Desiree are the guardians of the child, yet just Desiree is straightforwardly blamed for nonwhite legacy.
Until the encounter with Armand, Desiree has appeared to be fundamentally substance to live inside the requirements of her community. She experienced passionate feelings for the man who chose to wed her, and she acknowledged his furious nature as an unchangeable unavoidable truth. In any case, when Armand discloses to Desiree she is not white, she conflicts with her tendency and contends with him. She does not retaliate rather she accepts the claim as a submissive and oppressive lady of the society
Desiree doesn’t blame Armand for having a nonwhite legacy and this is indistinct whether she speculates it. Maybe she makes an unpretentious allegation when she brings up and claims the color of her skin is more white than Armand`s. Armand closes her down effectively, saying her skin and the skin of La Blanche is similarly white. La Blanche, whose name signifies the white one, will be one of the slaves at L’Abri. A few insights in the story recommend that Armand has fathered at least one of her kids. The storyteller says that Armand is talking remorselessly when he analyzes Desiree and the maid at the same level. This might be on the grounds that he is comparing Desiree with the maid or in light of the fact that he is helping his wife to remember that only he has got the ability to do to ladies like La Blanche.
The narrator doesn’t uncover any of Desiree’s contemplations when she strolls into the swamp with her infant, so it is difficult to know her precise purposes behind evidently deciding to murder herself and her kid. Her husband had expelled her on the doubt that she and her kid were not white.
In their white-commanded, male-overwhelmed society, individuals are probably going to acknowledge the perception of people. Indeed, even Madame Valmonde, who composes that she despite everything cherishes and acknowledges Desiree, doesn’t repudiate the end that she has African American legacy. This implies Desiree never again has a place with the white community Desiree has constantly known and that she and her child would confront a perspective of the future as normal members of the society.
The portrayals of Desiree’s appearance all through the story supports the idea of Desiree being white. For instance, when she inquires as to whether he wants Desiree to leave his house, she remains quiet, white, and still. She, then, strolls toward the inlet, the storyteller underscores the brilliant sparkle of Desiree`s hair. Nonetheless, it is imperative to take note of Desiree`s African legacy. As the story clarifies, there would be no simple method for characterizing racial highlights. One the moral message in this story is that it is difficult to understand the realities about anybody’s legacy and that putting a lot of significance on that legacy could prompt disaster.
A man like Augbiny is a victim of society and its organizations like servitude. A man invests his energy to developing slavery and racism and at last, these two things swallow their lives into the obscure. Slavery and racism are intended to serve the enthusiasm of whites however it is amusing that they again devastate him particularly when Augbiny finds that he also is dark. Augbiny anticipates that his dreams should be genuine therefore lays every one of his expectations in shading. In the event that it is currently white, he doesn’t need anything to do with it. He erroneously expects that society will acknowledge him since he has a discarded family just to find that he also is dark.
The ethical issues of wickedness, misunderstanding and deception emerge in this story. Individuals shiver at the idea of being dark. Augbiny doesn’t comprehend that the color and birthplace of a person can neither be changed nor be disposed of. Desiree disposes of her color, that of her child and her background in death. This infers subjection and prejudice are things that are extremely insidious in the public arena and ought to be disposed of or they will eat into the human spirit. Blacks are people and color is quite shallow and is directed by their qualities; things that none can stifle or change . Madame Valmonde acknowledges her little girl and child. She is that piece of society that grasps what the elites have dismissed. Madame Valmonde’s letter to her little girl shows humankind, an acknowledgment that can be found in the core of mankind.
The mischievousness of the establishment of slavery and racism is obviously delineated in the plot of this story. Augbiny’s mother implores that her child ought to never find that he has a dark mother. It plainly shows the manner in which whites deny that blacks are people and a piece of society. Death is exceptionally wicked in light of the fact that it grasps even the honest like Desiree’s child. It doesn’t separate between the uninformed, rich or colored. It just takes everything that goes ahead of its way.