Racism in the Old Sout as seen in Kate Chopin's "Desiree's Baby"
...s no thought put to the consequences of their love; it happened so quickly (28). The story also tells us Monsieur Aubigny was kind to his slaves. “Young Aubigny’s rule was a strict one, too, and under it his negroes had forgotten how to be gay, as they had been during the old master’s easy-going and indulgent lifetime” (29). How could Monsiuer Aubigny be cruel to the people from whom his wife and son came? I would not say that Monsieur Aubigny was not a racist with his ownership of slaves, but just that he wasn’t a cruel man when he dealt with his slaves, as if he had a special place in his heart for them. Armand Aubigny was portrayed as a racist in the paragraph above and in his treatment of his wife and son. He knew that Desiree had no link to her past and her lineage was of question by the remark of Monsieur Valmonde “wanting things well considered before their marriage” (29). Armand, knowing that his child could be born showing signs of Negro blood, felt safe in marrying a woman without family history or a name. If the child was born with black characteristics, he could always pass the blame onto his wife. Most children having reached the age of eight would have some remembrance of their mother. He most assuredly knew he was of black ancestry; perhaps not as a child but when he grew to adulthood, he would have remembered his beloved mother and realized what her color meant to him. Armand’s cruelty to the slaves was perhaps a means to remove himself from what he truly was, a quadroon or possibly a mulatto. His treatment of his slaves shows what a cruel man he was. After the baby was born Armand, was a jubilant man; Desiree tells her mother, “he hasn’t punished one of them-not one of them-since the baby was born”(29). Armand’s happiness is not to last. We see the comparison of the baby to Zandrine, a house slave with yellow color, when Madame Valmonde visits Desiree. “This is not the baby!” as if to say how could your child be of the same color as this slave upon whom she was looking (29). “She scanned the baby narrowly, then looked as searchingly at Zandrine”(29). She compared the skin color of the two: one that was to be of white blood and one that was of Negro blood. Most black babies are indeed light in skin color at birth. Their color comes out with age. When the baby reached the age of three months, visits from far off neighbors who would not have normally come started occurring. Gossip about the baby must have reached far from the confines of the plantation. Armand’s mood became dark, just as the skin on his son began to show signs of having blood of a race that is dark and branded with slavery. Upon his realization that his son did indeed show signs of being black Armand tells Desiree that the baby is not white because she is not white. He can’t face the truth that the Negro blood is what runs through his own veins. To hide the truth and face the consequences of himself being known as black, thus making him no better than those he chose to own and abuse, Armand allows his wife and child to leave him without knowing what is to become of them. Desiree is touched by racism in and of the fact that when she was found at the pillars of a rich plantation, she was brought into the house. If she had been black, she would have been se...