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Kate Chopin’s short story “Désirée’s Baby” appears in her 1894 collection Bayou Folk. While most of the stories in the collection are humorous, “Désirée’s Baby” stands out because of its serious subject matter. It deals with the hypocrisy and exploitation that thrive in cultures built on racial discrimination, leading to injury and tragedy for those complicit in discrimination and those subject to it.
The protagonist, Désirée Valmondé, is so named because her arrival as a lost child gave a childless couple what they desired most. Raised on a rural plantation in pre-Civil War Louisiana, she grew into a sweet young woman. A wealthy young man, Armand Aubigny, fell in love with Désirée. Despite Monsieur Valmondé’s warning that no one knows Désirée’s background, Armand proudly bestowed on her his family’s name and reputation, and soon an heir was born.
The events of the story begin when the baby is a few months old, and Madame Valmondé comes to Armand’s plantation, L’Abri, to visit. As she arrives, she thinks about how run-down the place is, with the trees casting a shadow on it like a “pall.” At first pleased to find her daughter happy and pampered, Madame Valmondé soon notices something amiss about the baby, and her close observation of the child creates tension in the story’s exposition. She asks, “What does Armand say?” Because it is not clear why Madame Valmondé seems more concerned with Armand than with the baby or her daughter, the question creates suspense. Désirée is oblivious in her joy, however, because Armand is proud, happy, and kind, and her moods are dependent on his.
Soon that dependency is tested when Armand suddenly turns cold toward Désirée and the baby. Confused and despondent, Désirée puzzles over “an air of mystery” among the enslaved servants and an unexplained uptick in visits from neighbors. On a hot afternoon, as the baby naps and is fanned by an enslaved woman’s mixed-race son, Désirée suddenly realizes that the two boys look alike, an event which serves as the story’s inciting incident. As Désirée grasps that the baby has mixed racial heritage and is thus a disgrace in Armand’s eyes, her blood feels like “ice in her veins.” She panics at the thought of the implications for her child in a society that values whiteness and exploits those with darker skin.
The story’s rising action unfolds quickly as Désirée confronts Armand, asking frantically, “What does it mean?” Coldly, he explains that their son is of mixed heritage because of her; obviously, she isn’t white, either. “A quick conception of all that this accusation meant” drives the usually docile Désirée to object that she is clearly white—and shows that she understands what the consequences will be if Armand persists in this belief. She will be ostracized, with her son; she could even be enslaved, as Armand reminds her when he points out that her skin is the same tone as that of La Blanche, whom it is implied Armand almost certainly exploits sexually. For the hypocritical Armand, accepting Désirée, whose beauty and sweetness he once adored, as his wife is no longer a reasonable or honorable course of action.
As the rising action continues, Désirée’s behavior illustrates her fear of becoming the target of the racial discrimination from which she has benefitted all her life. Bewildered by the sudden change in her status, she pants and shakes, as though “stunned by a blow.” Trembling, Désirée writes her mother to ask if Armand is correct, declaring, “I cannot be so unhappy, and live.”
After Madame Valmondé pleads with her daughter to come home with the baby, Désirée shows Armand her mother’s letter and stands in agony awaiting his decision. Speaking coldly to punish her because he cannot punish God for what he feels is an unjust fate, Armand tells her to go. In anguish, Désirée takes the baby and leaves. As the story reaches its climax, events rapidly trace Désirée’s fall from beloved wife to outcast. She walks to the bayou and is never seen again, suggesting that she drowns herself and her baby rather than bring shame upon herself and her husband.
The story’s falling action takes place a few weeks later as Armand burns Désirée’s and the baby’s possessions. He also burns love notes Désirée wrote him during their courtship. But Armand hides one much older letter, and it provides a twist in the story’s conclusion. Armand’s mother, who died when he was a child, had written to his father that Armand will never have to know that his she is Black, and thus she and he belong to “the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery.” The racism that drives Armand to abandon his wife and child, and Désirée to kill herself and her son, is the very same racism that would have punished and exploited him had his true ancestry been known, the same way he punishes and exploits those enslaved on his plantation. After all, as Armand notes earlier in the story, Désirée is as white as La Blanche; his comment suggests Désirée could just as easily have been in La Blanche’s position, and the twist at the end confirms so could he, suggesting race is a construct.
