The turning point in the story comes when Armand’s behaviour suddenly changes and we are told that this is because he has found out that both Désirée and the baby are not white. Immediately Chopin is changing the reader’s opinion of Armand by using something that will provoke a reaction, racial discrimination. Chopin uses powerful sentences, which make the reader feel the emotion in the story. “Armand, she called to him, in a voice which must have stabbed him, if he was human.” This particular sentence is quite shocking. It suggests that Armand has been overcome by something unnatural and evil and no longer has his acute human sensitivity. I have noticed that Désirée is used to endorse the reader’s current negative feeling of Armand, “she was like a stone image, silent, white, motionless.” This almost ghostlike description shows the devastation that Armand is already creating. Armand’s cold and heartless nature is depicted until the final twist captures the reader’s attention. The fact that Armand finds a letter and finds that he is in fact black means that his wife and child are dead. Even the wording of the letter, “brand of slavery” and “cursed,” make Armand’s actions seem even more unjust. This is used to provoke a strong reaction from the reader and is almost unbearable to think about. Chopin captures Armand’s cruelty brilliantly and indeed proves that his impulsive reactions have a certain hidden danger, which have effectively ruined his life and killed two other people.
The couple in The Half Brothers are living on an unequal divide because it was a marriage of convenience. Helen married William Preston although he was much older than her because he was a “decent man to see after him.” It was clear to both of them that this was an unrequited love. William Preston was in love with Helen but she only married him because of his kindness towards her son. A cause for the reader’s sympathy is the jealousy between William and Gregory, “she loved Gregory, and she did not love him.” This jealousy mainly from William can be seen to be the cause of Helen’s death. Gaskell, much like Chopin, begins to portray the bad points in William’s nature. “He was a man who liked better to be angry than sorry,” so he begins to blame Helen’s deteriorating health on Gregory. This portrayal of his selfishness does turn out to be part of the reason for Helen’s death. Gaskell continues this portrayal of William in a powerful sentence “I believe my father rather cherished his feeling of alienation to my brother as a duty, than strove to repress it.” This describes William’s immaturity on the matter of Gregory. He still feels jealous of the love Helen had for him and is purposely showing Gregory little attention and treating him unfairly.
In contrast, Gregory is described so that the reader will sympathise with him and even start to dislike William for the unjust treatment of him. Gaskell cleverly has two men in the same story who are described as having completely opposite personalities. The narrator of the story is shown to be quite foolish and Gaskell suggests that this is caused by the way in which William puts him on a pedestal and spoils him. The twist at the end of the story proves Gaskell’s point superbly as Gregory uses the initiative to work out where his brother is and dies to save him. Gaskell’s subtle description of Gregory’s dog and it’s treatment demoralises the reader’s opinion of William even further. “My father always kicked (the dog) whenever he saw it.” It seems strange that William treats Gregory and the dog so badly yet his heart is in their hands. Gregory has the choice of whether to save his brother or save himself.
Gaskell, much unlike Chopin gives the “villain,” in this case William, a chance to redeem himself. Towards the end the reader starts to feel sorry for him once he has realised that Gregory is dead. Sentences such as “his eyes filled slowly with unwonted tears,” make the reader feel more emotion and regain some respect they had for William’s character.
A more fine point that both Chopin and Gaskell could be making is that the men in the stories are not entirely to blame. They may be the villains of the stories but they must have been provoked by the women to act in such a way. In Désirée’s Baby and The Half Brothers, the women were both at fault in some way. Désirée was very quick to doubt herself and it is understandable that Armand was considered a pure bred blue blooded person with a name “that was one of the oldest and proudest in the whole of Louisiana,” and Desiree was an adopted child with “obscure origins.” Although, even with these things taken into account Désirée was very quick to take action and it seems, the wrong action. In a way she was more selfish than Armand by killing herself and the baby because he would have to live with the guilt. Much like Helen in the Half Brothers she did not think about the consequences. Helen did not love William but married him anyway and this proved to be devastating to the whole family. As a result, she died and so did her son and this left William and the other son with the guilt of their deaths. It could be said that although the men in these stories are mostly to blame, the women do play a part in the tragic endings to the stories.
Chopin’s life was possibly not as devastating as the female part in Désirée’s Baby but there are distinct reasons for the writing of her stories. When her husband died she abandoned her Catholic faith and started her “second life.” This diverted her thoughts to such issues as the repressive aspects of marriage, female emancipation and racial equality. From Désirée’s Baby it is clear that Armand is portrayed in a negative light as a criticism of racism, not men. Although the story does suggest that Désirée was repressed and overpowered by Armand. The Half Brothers massively reflects Gaskell’s thoughts and experiences. She had a very unsettled childhood as her mother, brother and father all died at different times uprooting her and forcing upon her the experience needed to write stories. In The Half Brothers there are some small parallels with her life, such as “my mother was twice married” but it was in fact Gaskell’s father and Helen dying from the exhaustion of childbirth, which is much like her own mother.
These two authors criticise the socially approved roles of men and women and ideas of femininity and racism. These ideas were very controversial at the time that the stories were written and to some degree are still controversial today. It is clear that these authors were ahead of their time as I wonder if our society has changed its attitudes as much as we would like to think.
