Desiree's Baby

3 Pages 872 Words

“Desiree’s Baby”: A Case of Embarrassment or Something Deeper?

What is it exactly that caused Armand to cast his wife, Desiree, and their child aside? Disappointment, shame, and a deep sense of bitterness factored into his actions. The child was a symbol of his masculinity and a legitimate heir to his family name. When you factor in the accumulative sense of betrayal he must have felt towards Desiree and her supposed lack of pure blood, his actions are justified. Despite all other feelings one could possess in such a predicament, embarrassment was the overlying element.
The shock and horror Armand endured upon finding out his child is not worthy of his family’s name or position in life was nothing short of overwhelming. “He no longer loved her, because of the unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name.” (180) Now imagine Armand’s embarrassment at finding out that he is the one who caused his child to become a social pariah. Imagine the embarrassment when he discovered he was living a lie. Armand’s embarrassment and his deep seeded resentment of the entire situation caused him to act impetuously, to the point that he allowed Desiree and their child to leave, burned their belongings, removing every trace of them from his life.
Armand fell in love with Desiree despite her being a foundling with no familial ties. He proclaimed her lineage did not matter, in fact, “what did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana” (178). Once she conceived their child, neither one of them gave any thought to the fact that their child would be anything other than of pure blood. With no knowledge that Armand was the carrier of this “disease”, they still delivered a child, which would later become his greatest embarrassment. This child was theirs, and neither one of them was black in any visible way.
His subsequent disappointment in his offspring and wife fue...