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​East Fork:

A Journal of the Arts​​


Power Exchanges and Identity Loss in Désirée’s Baby

By. Mary Kathryn Forsyth

              Throughout the years, racism and sexism have done nothing but create divisions within society itself and within the home. It has done its best to tear people apart and make certain minority groups powerless. The separation between races and sexes during the time of slavery created a power struggle and made finding and understanding one’s identity even more complicated than it is now. For women and black slaves during this time, identity was almost nonexistent because they had no power to make choices for themselves. Instead, their identity was created by whatever their masters or husbands expected from them. Because women and slaves had very little, if any, rights at the time of slavery, they were forced to do what they were told or else they would be risking everything they had and in some cases that even meant risking their own lives. Unless you were a white male citizen during the time of slavery, you didn’t have a place in society. When Kate Chopin gives both Désirée and Armand doubts about whether they were black or white, they deny it because they know that being black will make them outcasts and take away the freedom that they have always known. Even though they both deny having any black heritage, the days that follow the accusation change Désirée’s, Armand’s, and their baby’s lives; some for the better, and some for the worse. Kate Chopin shows the harmful consequences that slavery, sexism, and racism have on Armand as he starts to lose his identity while Désirée gains the power to take her son and leave him after the initial shock of being accused of being black wears off.

              By showing that Désirée is the first to be blamed for her baby not being white, Kate Chopin conveys the lack of power that women, specifically women of color, had during the time of slavery. Before Désirée and Armand are married, it does not matter to him that no one knows where she comes from or who her real parents are. When he is told that no one knows where she comes from and that she does not have a name, he doesn’t care because he can give her his own name. Chopin says, “Armand looked into her eyes and did not care. He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana?” (Chopin 539). Namelessness is a sign of someone with a lack of power, but since Armand does not expect a woman to have power anyway, it doesn’t matter if his wife’s lack of a name makes her powerless. Author and scholar, Ellen Peel, says, “Namelessness connotes not only femaleness but also blackness in antebellum society, where white masters can deprive black slaves of their names. Although Desiree's namelessness literally results only from her status as a foundling and a married woman, her lack of a name could serve figuratively as a warning to Armand that she might be black” (Peel 226). Even though Désirée lacks her own name, Armand does not care about her lack of an identity until she has a baby. Because Désirée absorbs his identity, it is not until she produces a child who he believes is black because of her, that he cares about who she is. When Désirée asks Armand what it means that her baby is the same color as the slave woman’s baby, Armand simply says that he isn’t white because Désirée isn’t white. There is no conversation about it and when she tries to defend herself he brushes her off and leaves. It doesn’t make a difference to him that she has lighter skin than him because in his mind, there is no way that he, a well-respected man, could pass on such a shameful gene. It is simply her fault because she is powerless in his eyes.Because Armand knows that Désirée doesn’t have any power, it is easy for him to blame her and push her away.


              Through Armand’s abandonment, Désirée gains enough power to leave him and take her baby with her. During the time of slavery, women were powerless and had to do what their husbands told them to do, but after Armand tells Désirée to go, she decides that she will take her baby and go back to her mother’s house where they are accepted. Kate Chopin says, “Désirée went in search of her child...She took the little one from the nurse’s arms with no word of explanation, and descending the steps, walked away, under the live-oak branches,” (Chopin 541). Instead of asking anybody’s permission or trying to explain her actions, Désirée goes and finds her baby and takes him. This would have also been considered strange because women in divorce situations were not allowed to keep their children, especially if they had brought disgrace upon their husband’s name like Désirée was being blamed for doing. It was even more strange that Désirée got to take and leave with her baby boy because they were both considered “black” and black mothers and children were often separated because they were treated as animals instead of human beings. Désirée no longer cares about all of the rules that are placed on her both by society and her husband at this point because she knows that it is now up to her to protect herself and her baby.


               As Désirée’s power kicks in and she takes her baby back, she leaves Armand’s plantation down a path that she has chosen for herself. If a woman was kicked out by her husband, shame would be on them and they would more than likely leave and die with no other way to take care of themselves. No one would want to help them because they would be considered an outcast to society since she is an outcast to her husband. However, Désirée doesn’t leave Armand with her head held down in shame. Kate Chopin says, “Her hair was uncovered and the sun’s rays brought a golden gleam from its brown meshes. She did not take the broad, beaten road which led to the far-off plantation of Valmondé” (Chopin 541,542). While it is true that Désirée leaves because her husband tells her to, she rejects the societal norm and does not take the “broad, beaten road”. By obeying Armand’s orders, she is set free to live her life. Chopin herself never says whether or not Désirée leaves and dies or lives, although some scholars and readers assume the line, “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,” means that she kills herself when she leaves (Chopin 542). However, because Chopin leaves it open-ended, there is some hope for both Désirée and her baby that they are able to escape. Ellen Peel says, “We should turn to Desiree, who is absent from the ending. Although submissive, the young woman does have some power. Her boldest action is disappearance, but she does act. While she neither desires nor anticipates the havoc she wreaks, she does catalyze the entire plot” (Peel 232). Désirée herself most likely does not see the power that she possesses by leaving Armand, but those surrounding her can see that she has rebelled against him and also the idea of slavery because she is a “black” woman who is taking her child and walking freely away from an oppressive husband and slave owner. Since Désirée never returns to the home of Armand, she is not aware of the mess that he finds himself in after she takes her son and leaves, but the impact of her leaving, along with the note that he finds while burning her things is enough to show Armand’s power slipping away as Désirée rebels and gaines some power and freedom for herself.


               Armand’s identity begins to crumble as he comes to the realization that he is the son of a black woman just like he thought his son was before he sent Désirée and the baby away. Never in his life did Armand think that he had any black blood in his family

or in himself, which is why he is so angry when he finds out that his son clearly has some black blood. Armand thinks that Désirée has brought shame upon his family name. Chopin says, “Moreover he no longer loved her, because of the unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name” (Chopin 541). When Armand sees that his son is not completely white, color is all that he can see. It is not until Désirée leaves Armand and takes her baby with her that he finds the note from his mother. Chopin says,

“The last thing to go was a tiny bundle of letters; innocent little scribblings that Désirée had sent to him during the days of their espousal. There was the remnant 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, ‘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 542).

Until this moment in time when Armand’s world comes crashing down around him, he has no idea that he is what he has been hating his son for all along. Not only that, but he has sent his wife away for doing nothing wrong even though his father had loved his mother despite the “sin” of having black bloodlines. Armand’s identity— everything that he has always thought that him and his name embody, no longer exist because their “proud” name will be destroyed if anyone ever finds out about Armand’s heritage. Ellen Peel says, “For Armand, his wife was originally a screen onto which he could project what he desired. When he found a black mark on the screen, he rejected it. Now he has learned that the mark was a reproduction of his own blackness. The mark, which he considers a taint, moves from her to him,” and “Armand at first rejects his baby for being the child of a white man and a black woman but then finds that the description fits him” (Peel 229). These two surprises, along with the fear of being enslaved and rejected by upper class society if anyone finds out about his secret, leaves Armand alone to deal with the guilt and identity crisis that he has to face. Armand starts to lose his power when he loses his identity because as a man with black blood, he knows that he is no longer considered a first-class citizen and he no longer has a wife or a son whom he can rule over. After losing his identity, Armand loses his power and is forced to live his life alone and scared of anyone learning his secret.


               Kate Chopin works to address the idea of “passing” and what it means to pass as white even if a person isn’t, through the character’s interactions with each other in Désirée’s Baby. Because she shows the characters opinions of each other both before and after they realize that someone has black blood, the reader gets a glimpse of what it would be like to be black and have the opportunities that white citizens did as long as they looked white. She also addresses the fact that it didn’t matter if a person had white blood because the “curse” of having the tiniest bit of black blood overshadowed all white blood that they did have. Because of the amount of babies that slave masters had with slave women, the number of those who were able to pass as being white continued to increase, causing the idea of “race” to crumble. In Désirée’s Baby, not only did the idea of race crumble, but also the idea of sex and identity. Because Désirée gained enough power to fight back against Armand while he lost power because he lost identity as a white man, Kate Chopin conveys how racism and sexism disintegrate as those affected by the ideas fight back.

 


                                                                                                           Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. “Désirée’s Baby.” The Norton Anthology American Literature, edited by Julia Reidhead, W.W. Norton & Company,

             Inc., 2017, pp. 538-542.

Peel, Ellen. “Semiotic Subversion in ‘Désirée’s Baby’.”American Literature, vol. 62, no.
           2, June 1990, pp. 223-237. Duke University Press. http://www.jstor.org.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/tc/accept?       

           origin=/stable/pdf/2926914.