Desiree's Baby

I really enjoyed reading Desiree's Baby. In class last week I mentioned Poe’s dark humor in which some sadistically, dark, word play and situations actually elicit a small giggle from the readers. I myself enjoy dark humor and can appreciate it and in general I think to enjoy gothic readings everyone does enjoy it a little as well. The next reading after Poe is by Kate Chopin and I find this story syncs beautifully in line to follow Poe. It's not as detailed, mysterious, and psychopathic, to say the least, as Poe’s writings but it definitely has a dark ironic twist.

These two young people are raised together as friends but it is clear that they both know little about their own life history. They get married, move away, have a child, and are both just so peaceful. A little bit of foreshadowing is given when Desiree's mother comes to visit her daughter and notices the baby has changed. Desiree just says yes he's grown and is so much bigger but when the mother moves by the window and starts examining the child the audience knows that there is something more to come. Another hint of foreshadowing that is not as obvious is when Desiree says that Armand's father was never cruel or overly cruel to the workers. Now this could just mean his father was a kind hearted man, but a deeper side of it could be that he loved a black/ mixed/ creole woman and had a son with her, thus changing his actions towards the race.

I loved the near ending passages that had much detailed imagery. "Desiree had not changed the thin white garment nor the slippers which she wore. Her hair was uncovered and the sun's rays brought a golden gleam from its brown meshes." Knowing she has the baby in her arms, defeated, and neglected by her husband, she walks through the field somewhat like an angle and the ray of sun glowing off of her hair as a halo. "She walked across a deserted field, where the stubble bruised her tender feet, so delicately shod, and tore her thin gown to shreds." This sad, but angelic figure walking with a child asleep in her arms and slowly ripping her gown apart as she disappears. Amazing, as her relationship, her family that she finally had, her love and life, is falling apart her character walks and falls apart until she disappears. The ending of the story is about how Desiree's husband has lost his love for Desiree because he believes she is black from the characteristics of how their child is growing. He assumes it is her traits their son is acquiring because she was basically and orphan and neither of them know her family line.

Breaks her heart, she leaves with the child, Armand burns every sight of her being in his life and house. Boom, plot twist he finds a letter from his own mother and learns that she was black making him part black and it is actually his traits the were showing in their child.

I cannot help but to wonder though if he knew all along but could not bear to be embarrassed and so blamed and shunned Desiree?

My boyfriend and I will make five years in March, 2016, but we have been knowing each other since 2007. I had not met his parents until about year after we started dating, however, he had informed me that he was part black. His father’s mom is fully black and his father’s dad is half black making his father 3/4th's black. My boyfriend’s dad and my boyfriend’s mom had him and out popped a 3/8th's black baby.

My boyfriend’s skin is a pale white, but tans well in the summer, he has black hair, and is an average height for a male.*top center photo- my boyfriend, his sister, his brother (all from the same dad but different moms)

*bottom left-his mom

*bottom center-my boyfriend

*bottom right-his father

His sister is the first child for his father and besides the skin tone and oval shaped face she resembles her mother.

His brother is the youngest child for his father. He is 6 foot tall or taller, he has a very light skin tone that can be mistaken for not having any black genes in him, and has an oval face like his father.

My boyfriend is the middle child for his/ their father and without a DNA test no one would ever know he belongs to this family because he has more of his mother’s characteristics.

This relationship relates to Desiree's Baby because he can play both rolls. Especially, living in Louisiana he has gotten called racist because to the naked eye he is "white", yet he is part of a white and a black family. Armand either thought he was white and shunned Desiree because he thought she was black, then reviled that he was the black one. The other scenario is that he knew he was black and still shunned Desiree because he was ashamed and wanted to keep it a secret. Though my boyfriend has no problem accepting either side of his family he could have easily neglected his father’s relationship and denied his other siblings or he could have neglected his mother’s white side of the family. Whether Armand knew about his own mothers ethnicity or not he kept to the fact that he was a white man, because he seen white skin, he was respected as a white man, and in that time abused his slave workers.

I realize that comparing my boyfriend to Armand is a little farfetched, but if there were no time difference and being white or black did not make a socially acceptable difference then my boyfriend’s situation would be similar to Armand.

-Armand was raise with a white father, had white skin, and did not know his mother.

-My boyfriend was raised with a white mother, had white skin, and did not know his father until he was about eleven years old.