by Mary Ramsey Evans…
While Kate Chopin is most often remembered for her controversial novel, The Awakening (1898), she also wrote almost one hundred short stories, many of them published in contemporary magazines like Vogue and Atlantic Monthly. These stories, like The Awakening, focused on women and/or people of color in a patriarchal society that dictated not only their place but the very course of their lives. Both were expected to “know their place,” i.e., women were confined in the home with the expectation that they would be obedient wives and mothers, and people of color were confined to either slavery (in the Antebellum South), or the lowest social class with no opportunity for advancement. An overarching theme for both was repression and its deadly consequences.
The RVA Classic Book Club recently met for a discussion of Chopin’s short story, Desiree’s Baby, which challenges readers to think about how we define race and gender dynamics and why they continue to have such powerful effects on the lives of individuals. The story begins with a lost toddler who is found abandoned at the gates of a great plantation in Southern Louisiana. No one knows where she comes from or who her parents are. She is taken in and raised by the plantation mistress who loves her as the “child of her affection.”
In the Antebellum South of Chopin’s story, one’s race determined his/her place in society. Being black was defined by the presence of even one drop of black blood. Anyone determined to have black blood was a slave, thus emphasizing the importance of this determination. In Desiree’s Baby, Chopin doesn’t necessarily challenge this definition of race, but rather she questions the consequences suffered by individuals because of this determination. What, she seems to ask, makes one black and another white? Is it one’s appearance? In this story, she gives readers clues, but they must answer these questions for themselves. Several characters seem to have something questionable in their background and/or appearance that could determine how they are racially defined. Chopin describes Desiree as appearing to be white with “long, silky brown hair,” “skin [that] is fair, and a hand that is “whiter than [Armand’s].” But her origins are unknown, leaving readers uncertain of her race in a time when white skin did not guarantee that one was considered white. Indeed, La Blanche is a maid at L’Abri, the ancestral home of Armand Aubigny. Her name alone indicates that she appears to be white (blanche being the French word for white), and yet she is a slave. Her child is described as a “quadroon” (a person who is one-quarter black by descent). Desiree’s baby is never directly described, but Chopin tells readers that she (Desiree) soon notices that her son and La Blanche’s share something she struggles to name. She writes, “She looked from her child to the boy who stood beside him, and back again; over and over. ‘Ah!’ It was a cry that she could not help . . . The blood turned like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture gathered upon her face.” And later, when Desiree asks Armand what this means he says, “It means . . That the child is not white. . . It means that you are not white.” But what does Chopin tell readers about Armand Aubigny? That he is the father of Desiree’s baby and the master of L’Abri. That his “rule was a strict one,” and that he felt himself the victim of his wife’s ambiguous background. She describes him as having a “dark, handsome face,” and she tells readers that he came to the United States at the age of eight from Paris after his mother’s death, a woman described only as “having loved her own land too well ever to leave it,” until the last sentence of the story where we learn that she “belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery.” Who, then is black? Who is white? Why does Desiree suffer the consequences of her son’s “tainted” blood, but Armand does not?
Here is perhaps where Chopin’s other important theme emerges. The position of a woman in the Antebellum South was determined by her connection to the master of the plantation. She was his sister, his mother, his wife, his daughter, or his slave. All were expected to be submissive to his wishes, including his wife. She owned nothing, not even her children. She couldn’t own property, earn a living, or obtain a divorce. So, even though she lived a physically more comfortable life, the master’s wife, like his slaves, had little freedom or power. Chopin pushes hard against this obviously unbalanced power dynamic in which women and people of color are subjugated to white men. In Desiree’s Baby, it was very easy for Armand Aubigny to blame Desiree for their child’s dark complexion because of her obscure origins. Some scholars suggest that he knew that he, not Desiree was the reason for their son’s complexion and that he deliberately chose her as his wife to see if his child would appear to be black. Desiree had little defense and no real recourse when her husband blamed her and banished her and their child from their home. She had no money, no power, and nowhere to go that would allow her and her son a life free of this stigma. So, like many 19thcentury female characters in a similar position of powerlessness, she took her own life (and that of her child) rather than live under the weight of society’s harsh judgment.
What then can modern-day readers learn from Desiree’s Baby? Perhaps we can consider how we define race and the modern consequences of being black. African American parents are well-aware that being black places their sons at risk when interacting with police. Why? What has race to do with a broken taillight or running a red light? Why do women still do most household chores and struggle to fill upper management positions in businesses? Why do men still earn more money than women doing the same job? Why do white men remain the dominant power in a society that is rapidly becoming multiracial, multi-gendered, and multicultural? These are all questions that we still struggle to answer but are worth the effort if we are to learn from the mistakes of the past.
Please join in the discussion, by submitting a comment in the text box below – Murray Ellison – Litchatte Editor
Photo Credit – KateChopin.org
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