Tainted Love

Kate Chopin’s Désirée’s Baby superficially portrays the protagonist Désirée as woman who seems to measure her worth by the love and acceptance of her husband. “When he frowned, she trembled, but loved him. When he smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God. But Armand’s dark, handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns since the day he fell in love with her.” Armand Aubigny, Désirée’s husband, rejects his wife and their child for their ‘color’ as a result of hatred of his own darkened skin. Désirée is gravely offended when Armand claims “that the child is not white; it means that you are not white.”

By the end of this short story, the audience is aware that it actually means Armand is not white. As a plantation owner set above slaves, Armand himself unknowingly “belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery.” This truth was never revealed to Armand since he did not know his black mother. His own reality falsely projected onto his wife leaves her with no reason to believe his accusation. “It is a lie; it is not true, I am white! Look at my hair, it is brown; and my eyes are gray, Armand, you know they are gray.” Then drawing an empirical comparison to that of her husband’s skin claims, “Look at my hand; whiter than yours Armand,” and then “laughed hysterically.” Her whiteness juxtaposed against his darkness made him more aware of his color by her comparison. The mockery of his own wife perpetuates Armand’s embarrassment, fulfilled by the birth of his son. The child of Armand and Désirée was the realization of their love and their genes mixed together, producing the mulatto child which Armand despised.

Désirée, in the end, seems to have felt Armand’s rejection of his own skin in the form of unrequited love. But Chopin strongly indicates that Désirée’s own happiness was threatened the greatest by Armand’s accusation that she was black. “My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand has told me that I am not white. For God’s sake tell them it is not true. You must know it is not true. I shall die. I must die. I cannot be so unhappy, and live.” This reveals the sad truth that the threat of darkness in Désirée’s skin is more disturbing to her than the failure of her own marriage.