desirees baby
...amtic change of attitude may be because he had formed an unconscious emotional bond (since all emotional bonds are) with the baby and as it says the baby and Desiree (he thinks) give him a “unconscious injury”. Meaning that they betrayed him. When Armand talks to Desiree knowing that the baby is not totally white, he does it very coldly, like he was numb from pain, this is also expressed when it says “in a voice which must have stabbed him, if he was human” meaning that he was emotionally void or unattached. (this also shows that at the time this was written there was still the idea that animals or other forms of life did not have feelings). The story also shows another superiority complex that of the feeling (of white people) that they where better then black people. This is rampant in the story and very little attention is paid to it, it uses derogatory words such as “yellow” to describe people. Armand is a very emotional person, who express´s his emotions a lot. Armand´s nature could be compared to a very spoilt little child (which he probably was) consider - he takes out his anger on his servants or slaves, he has a nature described as “exacting”. One thing that is surprising about the story is that neither Armand nor Desiree noticed that the baby is not black until after everyone else. This story was made a bit surreal by the very fact of Desiree´s origin, which seems to be very abnormal even in the real world. We can assume that Desiree was very scared of Armand and that may be based on prior experiences with Armand. We can assume this from where it says, “When he frowned she trembled” although in the 19th century women where still considered lessors by men. There are many things that could have made Armand think that his hypocrisy he bet his wife on where true, it could have been the fact that he was considered a pure bred blue blooded person with a name “that was one of the oldest and proudest in the whole of Louisiana” and Desiree was a adopted child with “obscure origins.” Armands hypocrisy was backed up by Madame Valmonde in her letter to Desiree, in the letter she doesn´t even validate Desiree´s question with an answer, she just ignored it as if it was rhetorical. Also there is another contrast in the emotions of Armand, since is says that “ He (Armand) looked into her eyes and didn´t care (about her origins)” then later he rejects her because he thinks now that she defiantly is black. Armands actions should not be judged by 20th or 21st century standards because of his lifestyle and environment his was brought up in. I say this although it may seem irrelevant to the question though it does partially explain why he would have formed such views and why he acted in the way he did. from I feel some of the sympathy in this story should lie with Armand because (even though its because of his own actions) he loses his wife, his baby and then has to deal with his hatred of himself (racially.) He also increases his pain by achieving self-alienatio...