Desirees Baby Significance of a Letter
...at she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana.” (316). Tragedy comes early 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. “When the baby was about three months old, Désirée awoke one day to the conviction that there was something in the air menacing her peace.“(317). It turns out the baby is of mixed blood and because of this, he shuns his wife and the child he was so proud of only days before. “He absented himself from home and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse.”(317). Armand was “the proudest father in the parish…it is a boy to bear his name.”(317). Additionally, he accuses Désirée of not being white (a crime against his family’s “purity”) 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,”(318). She writes to her adopted mother and tells her of what is happening. Her mother tells her to return home with the child where they will both be loved, but Désirée is so shocked and disheartened she sets off towards a local bayou with the child never to be seen again. Armand has made the decision to lose his family in order to save his name and it’s too late to bring Désirée back. The irony is that the letter read by Armand from his mother reveals to him that it is he who is of mixed blood and not Désirée. Placing blame on outside forces can also be a tragic and misguided reaction to events that people encounter. Armand makes this mistake when he can see no other cause for his anguish and blames God for what he sees as a cruel injustice placed upon him. “He thought Almighty God had dealt cruelly and unjustly with him and felt, somehow that he was paying him back in kind when he stabbed thus into his wife’s soul (319). Ironically, in the letter Armand finds from his mother, she is praising God for having “arranged” their lives so as to be married in a racist world and to have a beautiful child such as Armand. “But above all, night and day, I thank the good lord 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”(319). Paradoxically, it is also this arrangement that is the root of his present day problems. Had he known of his “heritage” before hand, chances are! he would have approached life differently, but we have to assume this was hidden from him to protect him from the society in which he lived. Armand’s shunning of Désirée was not only an attempt to pay back God, but by somehow payback the others he felt were responsible for h...