"DÉSIRÉE'S BABY" BY KATE CHOPIN

[excerpted and adapted]

Désirée sat in her room one hot afternoon. The baby lay asleep upon her own great mahogany¹ bed. One of the slaves stood fanning the child. Désirée's eyes had been fixed absently and sadly upon the baby. She looked from her child to the boy who stood beside him and back again. "Ah!" It was a cry that she could not help, and she was not conscious of having made the utterance. The blood turned like ice in her veins, and moisture gathered upon her face. She stayed motionless², with her eyes riveted upon her child and her face full of fear.

Presently, her husband entered the room and without noticing her, went to a table and began to search among some papers. "Armand,” she called to him. But he did not notice. "Armand," she said again. Then she rose and tottered³ toward him. "Armand," she cried once more, grasping his arm, "look at our child. What does it mean? Tell me."

"It means," he answered lightly, "that the child is not white; it means that you are not white."

When she could hold a pen in her hand, she sent a despairing⁴ letter to her mother, Madame Valmondé.

"My mother, they tell me I am not white. For God's sake, tell them it is not true. I will die. I must die. I cannot be so unhappy and live."

The answer that came was brief:

"My own Désirée: Come home to Valmondé, back to your mother who loves you. Come with your child.” 

When the letter reached Désirée, she went with it to her husband's study, and laid it open upon the desk before which he sat. 

He said nothing. "Shall I go, Armand?" she asked in a voice sharp with agonized⁵ suspense⁶.

"Yes, go."

"Do you want me to go?"

"Yes, I want you to go."

She turned away as if stunned by a blow and walked slowly toward the door, hoping he would call her back. 

"Good-bye, Armand," she moaned.

He did not answer her.

Désirée went in search of her child. The nurse, Zandrine, was walking around the gallery with the baby. She took the little one from the nurse's arms and, descending the steps, walked away.

Désirée had not changed the thin white dress nor the slippers which she wore. She did not take the broad road which led to the far-off plantation of Valmondé. She walked across a deserted field, where the stubble bruised her tender⁷ feet and tore her white gown to shreds⁸. She disappeared among the grasses that grew thick along the banks; and she did not come back again.

Several weeks later there was an unusual scene at the house. In the center of the backyard was a great bonfire⁹. Armand Aubigny sat in the wide hallway that offered a view of the sight; and it was he who handed out to a half-dozen slaves the material that kept this fire burning.

The last thing to go into the fire was a tiny bundle of letters that Désirée had sent to him during the days before their marriage. There was the remnant¹⁰ of one back in the drawer from which he took them. But it was not Désirée's; it was part of an old letter from his mother to his father. He read it. She was thanking God for the blessing of her husband's love:

"But above all," she wrote, "I thank the good God for having arranged our lives so that our dear Armand will never know that his mother belongs to the race that is cursed¹¹ with the brand¹² of slavery."

• grasp
• plantation
• utterance
• vein
• conscious
• slavery

Master or Slave?

"Désirée's Baby" was one of Kate Chopin's (1851-1904) first and most famous short stories. In this story, Chopin explores the theme of race more strongly than in any of her other works.

Désirée is married to Armand, who owns a plantation and the many African-American slaves that work on it. This was typical in the southern United States at that time. Black people were brought to America, primarily from Africa, as slaves and then bought and sold like property. White people viewed African Americans as an inferior race, and it was shameful for a white person to have "mixed blood," as would result from having parents of different races.

This explains Désirée's concern after realizing that her son had black features. When Armand told Désirée that "the child is not white" and that "you are not white," he was referring to more than skin color. He meant that his wife and child were inferior and were no longer acceptable to him.

This rejection was more than Désirée could bear, and she felt it was better to die than to live in such disgrace. When she walked away, the bushes tore her white dress, symbolizing that she was no longer a white person.

When Armand discovered the baby's mixed blood came not through Désirée but through his own mother, he had already lost his wife and son, and his life was destroyed.

One critic noted that Armand was as much a slave to his racial views as the real slaves that he controlled. "No real distinction based on color can be made between slave and master."