If I could do this piece over again, I would proably try to analyze everything a little more indepth. I really liked the story and thought that it was a piece that was understanding with something that people still have to deal with in today's society. I think that maybe I could have took some help from our society today to maybe have wrote a better paper. A paper that would have had a better flow to it.
Mamie Sellers
Literary Analysis 1
December 8, 2006
In "Desiree’s Baby," Kate Chopin uses irony throughout the whole story. She used irony without the reader actually knowing what was going on, so that she could build up to the end and then you could understand the true irony in the situation. It’s in the end when we learn the fact that with his deep hatred of the slaves, that he too is part "of the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery", along with Desiree and their child (Chopin, 363).
Our first example comes through the eyes of Desiree’s mother when she is coming for visit. "When she reached L’Abri she shuddered at the first sight of it, as she always did. It was a sad looking place — 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" (Chopin, 360). The irony in this situation is he himself, being more of the Negro race than his own father, treated the slaves much worse than his father had. His father was a man who was more easy going and as we know, had a love affair with a woman of the Negro race. Armand himself had a great hatred for the salves and was extremely cruel to them. The slave’s that were there under Armand’s rule were also there under his father’s rule. They all probably knew that his father had the love affair with one of the slaves and they could look at Armand and tell that he had the Negro race in him. It was as if whenever he looked at them it would stir some deep hatred in him that he probably could not understand. This feeling that he had made him despise them even more.
Another example is when Desiree’s mother comes to visit and she is describing what the situation has been like, in the house and on the plantation, since the baby was born. Desiree says,’Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe chiefly because it is a boy who can carry on his name.—And mama, "She adding drawing Madame Valmonde’s head down to her, and speaking in a whisper, he hasn’t punished one of them since baby is born"(Chopin, 360). When Armand’s baby boy was born it softened his heart and made him not have so much hatred for the race he so despised. It was almost as if his conscious were telling him that if you love this baby so much and he is of the same race, then it would be okay to not hate them so much.
The next example we find is when the baby is three months old and Desiree starts noticing a change in Armand’s behavior. The once soft hearted man, who had always held the deepest love for her, started avoiding her and the child. This was after she noticed "an air of mystery among the blacks; unexpected visits from far off neighbors who could hardly account for their coming"(Chopin, 361). It is also then that she notices that, "The very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly have taken over him in his dealings with the slaves"(Chopin 361). This is when Armand comes to the realization, because the visitors and even his own slaves start talking about the child having Negro blood in him. When Armand actually has to face the fact tat he has a baby that has Negro blood, it is then that he decides that it is all Desiree’s fault. He decides that she is the one who brought the same upon him. At one point, she is looking at the baby and cries,’Tell me what it means!, and he answers, It means that you are not white’ (Chopin, 361). This destroys Desiree, who immediately confirms this with her mother. When Desiree goes to ask Armand if he wants them to leave, she says yes and never wavers or even shows a glimpse of remorse. Armand sends his wife, who is the love of his life, and his only son, who brought him so much joy to his life, because everyone starts talking about the baby having Negro blood in him. He knows that is could not possibly be him, so it has to be Desiree who is of the Negro race.
When Armand starts burning all the reminders of the disgrace that was brought upon him, it is then that he finds out the truth. Armand finds a letter that was mixed in with Desiree’s that was written a long time before. It was a letter that to his father from his mother. In this letter, "She was thanking God for the blessing of her husband’s love:– But, above all "she wrote, "night and day, I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery" (Chopin, pg. 363). It is then that he can no longer deny that he is part of the race that he has hated so much and that he sent his wife and son away for being not 100% white when he himself is not. It is now when his fears are confirmed that he realizes that he sent away the love in his life and he has nothing left.
"Desiree’s Baby" was about a man who could never truly grasp what and who he truly was. I think he was somewhat different but he could never fully grasp what it actually meant. In the end he lost his wife and his family to finally understand what he truly was and is , a member of the Negro race. However, the irony of the whole situation he finds this out after he has sent away the love of his life and his own flesh and blood. He sent them away because they had Negro blood in them when all along he was the same as they were.
Works Cited
"Desirees Baby". Chopin, Kate. Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. 5th Edition. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.2006. Pg. 357-363.
