Tragedy is the outcome of a story when the protagonist loses the battle against their opponents in the end. “Desiree’s Baby” is a short story written by Kate Chopin which deals with the theme of racial prejudice. Desiree is an adopted girl who marries Armand who is an aristocrat in Louisiana. They get married and she gives birth to a child who is a mulatto. Since her ancestry is unknown being adopted, Armand is convinced that the Desiree is of black heritage and he disowns both his wife and his son. The tragedy in this story is related to the fact that Desiree is white and that Armand is half-black but nobody is aware of that until the end of the story when Desiree is gone and Armand has gone mad with disappointment.
The main characters of the story are Desiree and Armand who make a great couple being young and beautiful. Desiree’s adoptive parents are good people who brought her up to become a lady and she grew up very beautiful and elegant looking. Desiree is looking forward to having a family of her own and Armand feels the same which is what brings them together and makes their marriage happy. The birth of the child is celebrated especially because it is a boy, but all of this changes once the boy turns out to be dark skinned. Desiree’s mother suspects that something is wrong from the moment she sees the baby: “Madame Valmonde had never removed her eyes from the child. She lifted it and walked with it over to the window that was lightest” (Chopin). Desiree is not unhappy about the skin color of her child, because she is not a racist, while Armand loses interest in his family once the boy turns out to be black. He blames Desiree for that and he is sure that she has a black ancestry without being aware of the possibility that he might have black relatives, which turns out to be the fact. The society has influence on their characters because a noble man cannot have a black child because its race is not worthy of being a member of an aristocratic family. Slavery was an unavoidable concept at the time and black people were considered to be biologically and intellectually inferior to white people. Armand’s actions are controlled by the society because he cannot remain in his marriage having a black son. “The Louisiana ideological framework constitutes the tragic mulatta stereotype primarily as a threat to the southern hierarchy” (Pegues 3). This hierarchy is the reason for which Armand cannot accept to have a black child.
The tragedy happens when Desires gives birth to the boy and when his skin color becomes darker with time. The tragic character is Desiree because she is driven away from her home and from her family by her estranged husband. The tragedy was caused by Armand who is intolerant and too proud to accept racial diversity. Desiree is the tragic character and her mother supports her by asking her to come home and bring the child with her. The plot twist happens when Armand finds out that he has black ancestors and that his mother was black. His mother wrote to his father about the fact that he was lucky to be fair-skinned, since she was black: “I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery." (Chopin). Desiree is already gone along with the baby and their future is unknown. Armand seems to be devastated and unable to recover from the shock and the tragedy could have been avoided if Armand knew about his ancestry all the time.
People encounter tragic situations very often even unknowingly because of the fact that they have been brought up to value one thing and scorn another. This is called prejudice and the best way to avoid these kinds of situations is to be open-minded and tolerant in life. It is true that people do not have control over such situations because they cannot fight their own nature, but it is best to go through life with an open heart.
Works Cited
Chopin, Kate. "Desiree's Baby." shortstories. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2016. <http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/DesiBaby.shtml>.
Pegues, Dagmar. "Fear and Desire: Regional Aesthetics and Colonial Desire in Kate Chopin's Portrayals of the Tragic Mulatta Stereotype." The Southern Literary Journal 43.1 (2010): 1-22. Print.
