Desiree's Baby

“Désirée’s Baby” begins almost like a fairy tale, with a visit from Madame Valmondé to her daughter and new grandchild on a “pleasant” (Paragraph 1) day. The story of Désirée’s being found at the gates of the Valmondé estate, as well as the story of how Armand Aubigny fell in love with her merely by laying eyes on her as she lingered by those same gates 18 years later, is also reminiscent of a fairy tale. “Désirée’s Baby,” however, is not a fairy tale, and Désirée’s mysterious origins and lightning-fast engagement are not the precursors to a “happily ever after” ending. Désirée’s inability to establish her ancestry is the very seed of her downfall.

Chopin uses foreshadowing throughout the story to create the foreboding sense that something dark is looming. Madame Valmondé’s reaction to L’Abri is one instance of foreshadowing: “she shuddered at the first sight of it, as she always did” (Paragraph 6). Her perception of the place is influenced by its not having “the gentle presence of a mistress” (Paragraph 6), and here, the reader learns the crucial detail of Armand Aubigny's mother having lived and died in France—a fact which seems like backstory but actually contains the secret upon which the ending of the story turns. In actuality, Aubigny’s mother was either black or mixed-race, meaning she couldn’t live as a free person in the United States or marry a white man, and this is why she likely chose to stay in France.

Armand Aubigny’s treatment of the enslaved people who live at L’Abri is contrasted with his father’s before him: Armand’s “rule was a strict one” (Paragraph 6), whereas his father was “easy-going and indulgent” (Paragraph 6). This sets up Armand and his father as foils, though their major opposition won’t become clear until the end of the story, when it’s revealed that Monsieur Aubigny had an interracial marriage. Armand Aubigny, on the other hand, effectively condemns interracial marriage by rejecting his own wife. This difference between father and son illuminates a theme: the salvation of love versus the destructiveness of hatred.

When Madame Valmondé finally sees her grandchild, it’s apparent to the reader that something has shocked her, but Désirée misunderstands. This is an example of dramatic irony: the reader understands something that Désirée, the character, does not. Here, Madame Valmondé asks Désirée what Armand thinks, which helps establish a motif in “Désirée’s Baby”—that what white men think of a situation has profound, life-or-death implications for the women and people of color involved in that situation. What Armand thinks of the baby is the judgement that decides Désirée’s fate.

Désirée is at first a happy, peaceful character—an innocent—though her happiness is not without fear: “I’m so happy; it frightens me” (Paragraph 16). As the baby grows, that fear takes over: “there was something in the air menacing her peace. It was at first too subtle to grasp” (Paragraph 18). This creates a powerful sense of suspense, leading both the reader and Désirée to crave learning the source of the unease. She asks her husband to interpret the evidence of her infant’s physical similarities to an enslaved woman’s son. She says, “Look at our child. What does it mean? tell me” (Paragraph 22), reinforcing that white men possess the absolute power to define the lives of those around them. Armand replies, “the child is not white; it means that you are not white” (Paragraph 24). This is an example of an epiphany, the acquisition of knowledge that irreversibly changes the path forward for a character. Désirée leaves L’Abri, though she doesn’t return home to her adoptive parents’ welcoming arms, choosing instead a more severe punishment for herself.

The ending of the story is an example of situational irony: as Armand Aubigny burns his own love letters from Désirée, he learns from a different love letter (belonging to his late father) that his mother belonged “to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery” (47). This means that he (and likely not Désirée) is “not-white,” and the “crime” of blackness for which Désirée paid with her life, is actually Armand’s.

The black and mixed-race characters in this story are largely voiceless presences in “Désirée’s Baby,” though Zandrine does verbally respond to Désirée when Désirée tells her mother how Zandrine cut the child’s fingernails, and she’s depicted as moving “majestically” (Paragraph 11). Madame Valmondé looks to Zandrine when she first sees that her grandchild appears to be mixed-race, but Zandrine’s “face was turned to gaze across the fields” (Paragraph 13). As Désirée leaves L’Abri, Chopin writes that “out in the still fields the negroes were picking cotton” (Paragraph 40). As Armand Aubigny builds a pyre to burn Désirée’s belongings, “half a dozen negroes” (Paragraph 44) keep the fire “ablaze” (Paragraph 44). Their silent but active presence is a reminder of the existence of slavery in the antebellum American south and the corresponding life-and-death consequences of being “black.” The fact of the non-white characters being in the background, and the “white characters” being in the foreground, becomes ironic as the lines between “white” and “non-white” become blurred throughout the story.