"The Victim" in "Desiree's Baby," by Kate Chopin.
Lindsay Ryans
October 7, 2002
Dr. Danner
1023H Literature
“The Victim”
“Desiree’s Baby,” by Kate Chopin, is a story of love, prejudice, and rejection. It is a story with noble beginnings that slowly turns to reveal an uglier side of human relationships. In the story, Desiree was portrayed as a weak creature of vanity with a shallow, or at times, absent personality. Desiree was dependent on her husband, Armand, for their livelihood, and even their sanity. Without her husband, she was absolutely helpless and useless. Her very existence hinged on absolute and unquestioning submission…alone, a woman is nothing. The struggle Desiree was trying to overcome was a very difficult one, mainly because of dominance of men over women during this time. The late 1800’s was a turbulent time for women’s roles. During this era, members of the weaker sex were blatantly disregarded as individuals, who had minds that could think, and reason, and form valid opinions. Because of this, Desiree failed to achieve her happiness due to her environment.
Ancestry was very important to a family and their social status. The purity of a family had to be kept and it did not accommodate marriages of mixed races. Knowing this, Armand marries Desiree, an old friend that he has known since the age of eight. She was a girl of no distinction, who had no history or reputation of family name, like that of Armand. Despite this, he fell in love “as if struck by a pistol shot” (1). Others had warned Armand against marrying her, but he did not care for he was so swept away by her beauty. “He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana?” (2). Tragedy comes early on in the marriage with the birth of their first child. Although no one seemed to notice at first, by the time the child was three months old, neighbors, and Armand himself, noticed a change in the child. It turned out that the baby was of mixed blood and because of this Armand shuns both his wife and child, who he was so proud of only days before. Additionally, he accuses Desiree of not being white, which she adamantly denies. “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. And my skin is fair,” “Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand” (4). Armand did not relent in his persecution of Desiree and the baby. His main goal was to crush the soul of Desiree for bringing shame upon him and his name. He might have loved his wife, but he didn’t love her more than himself. Armand had made Desiree the victim and had chosen to loose his family in order to save his name. How can a love so powerful, which would have caused him to forget the importance of his name, have deserted him so readily? Almost as quickly as it came, the “love-light” went out of his eyes, and was replaced with unparalleled intolerance. Desiree in all her flimsy weakness, doesn’t contest, or fight. She simply resigns herself to fate.
