Desiree's Baby

It may be a point of conflict depending on how you view the topic, but back in the south when slavery was around race was a very big issue (of course). People being confused about who their parents were, where they were front, and did they have any African American blood in them. Such theories have come about such as the “One-Drop” rule by Thomas Jefferson, which states that if a person has even one drop of “black” blood in them they are considered black and can be treated thusly. People feel very differently about them and especially now since that era is long and gone. I will go over a few ways that these things were an issue as well as what “Desiree’s Baby” was trying to prove.

The author, Kate Chopin, wrote about a white woman who had a child with a white man, or so he thought. The child was born and appeared to be white but eventually grew to have darker skin. This appalled the mother and the father. The father automatically assumed that it was the mother that was partially black because he was supposedly guaranteed to be fully white, being a “high head” at the plantation they stayed at. The mother refused to believe that it was her that was partially black but also didn’t accuse the father. She was just confused and didn’t know what to do with herself or the baby.

Now that you know the main part of the story, I’ll go over how the author used certain diction and rhetoric to get your attention and appeal to you in certain ways. She described how the father was so excited to have a child, specifically a son, so that they could carry on the family name. The mother was excited and was so happy to have a healthy baby, which the Chopin describes when she says “”And the way he cries,” went on Desiree, “is deafening. Armand heard him the other day as far away as La Blanche’s cabin.”” This shows that they were excited over something that most parents now-a-days find annoying and would much rather not have to deal with. But they take pride and joy in the fact that the child is healthy and doing well.
When the child’s skin began to darken and they determined that he was mixed with black, they were shocked couldn’t figure out what was going on, basically in disbelief and awe. The author described their reacting very vividly and precisely by using such phrases as “The blood turned like ice in her veins” and “a clammy moisture gathered upon her face.” The father (Armand) felt that he had been “dealt cruelly and unjustly” by God. This implies that he feels that he did nothing to deserve such a “punishment” as receiving a black child. This appeals to people’s pathos by having them feel sympathy for the child and the mother. Armand became bitter and cold towards the mother (Desiree) after this all was discovered. The author proves that Armand wants nothing to do with her since she is thought to have some black somewhere along her bloodline now.

The author makes good work and points of all of this drama. What makes it even better and more intense is that Armand was a slave owner and once he thought this way of his wife, he immediately turned cold towards her and didn’t want anything to do with her. That makes people think about how it really was back in slavery times and how strongly people felt about such issues. Chopin did a good job of proving this with facts and quotes and by making it into a very personal and intimate. This lets people feel like they are personally peering into the lives of these people and looking in on issues that they deal with, as well as allowing them to think about how this is only one situation out of many that have come out in this time.