Desiree's Baby

Chopin’s Desiree’s Baby seemed similar to much of the works we have read regarding racism and slavery. However, this story definitely made me think about how we view racism today and how this discrimination is still evident in our everyday lives. Chopin’s story was a great vehicle for communicating strong themes that I thought were powerful. I like how Chopin uses suspense with the unfolding of the parent’s true colors. This added more meaning to the irony in the story and made me truly reflect on Chopin’s message. Some of the themes that stood out to me were that we should never be too quick to judge someone along with pride and prejudice.

I once had a speech teacher who told us that we all judge people and regardless of how hard we try to look at people objectively and equally, we are all culprits in judging people. He then told us that when someone was giving a speech that we should immediately get all the judging out of our system so that we could listen to what the person had to say. At the time my teacher told me this it definitely made sense and was helpful when others were giving a speech. However, it also made me question why we judge people and just because we all do it doesn’t make it right. I like how Chopin uses racism to support this theme of judgment because it was so prevalent during the time and it still permeates into our society today. One of the things that I do that helps me with judgment is reflecting on how I would react in someone else’s shoes. I have found this to be humbling and insightful. I feel like Armand did this when he found out he was of black decent but his pride and vanity kept him from doing the right thing. I feel like this was humiliating for Armand because the people he had cursed where exactly like him.

 I think that it is incredible how evil we can treat one another on the premise of one’s race and stature. This story also reminded me of a study we looked at in psychology. Researchers at Stanford took a group of people and separated them into two groups, one having the title of prisoners and the other having the title of prison guards. Within a matter of days the two groups started to act according to their “titles” and the prison guards started to have authority over the prisoners to the point where it was oppressive. This oppression became so powerful that the researchers had to terminate the study after two weeks. Situations like this show how strongly we cling to titles in our life. The title of being either white or black during times of slavery said everything about who you regardless of what kind of person you where. It doesn’t mention specifically what Desiree’s race is in the book but we do know that she is disowned because of evidence of her baby being partly black. Desiree seemed like a loving wife and an even greater mother to her child. She had no reason to be treated the way she was. However, according to the laws of prejudice Armand has every reason to abandon her and the child.

Chopin’s story really brings into light how incredibly ridiculous racism is and the irony of Armand’s true color supports her point even further. The question that I am left still asking myself after reading this story is why do we continue treat people that our different than us inferiorly? I’m guessing it is most likely a mixture of many things and even though we don’t think it is as big an issue today, I still see it evident in all realms of life from how we pick our leaders to how we pick our friends.