Deziree's Baby
Storyboard-Text
- Kate Chopin wrote the short story, ''Désirée's Baby,'' in 1892, 27 years after slavery in America was abolished. This story is set during the time of slavery on a Louisiana plantation, exploring the role of racism in every facet of society.
- Désirée, was an abandoned child taken in by wealthy land-owners. The wealthy land-owners were Monsieur and Madame Valmondé, who raised Désirée as their own. At eighteen, Désirée marries Armand, the current owner of a nearby estate called L'Abri , who falls deeply in love with her. Armand has a reputation for his strict personality and for mistreating his slaves.
- During this brief interlude, Armand becomes notably kinder to his slaves, treating them with understanding and tolerance. Unfortunately, there is something not quite right about the baby. When Madame Valmondé comes to visit her daughter and grandson, she sees that something is amiss. In fact, she declares aloud, ''This is not the baby!''
- In a later incident, a slave boy of one-quarter black background is tending the baby. Désirée watches the two, and suddenly realizes what she is seeing. Her own heritage is unknown, and the young mother now believes that she must have African-American ancestry, which has been passed on to her baby. In the society in which she lives, this discovery is intolerable.
- Désirée willingly shares her fear with Armand, who has recently been acting distant and often absent from home. When questioned about the baby, Armand coldly informs his wife that the baby is not white. Furthermore, that she is not white.Poor Désirée has trouble denying this charge, as neither she nor her adoptive parents know anything about her true heritage.Madame Valmondé urges the miserable girl to come home with her baby. Her husband concurs that she should not be in his home with the statement, ''Yes, I want you to go.''
- Désirée, however, does not go home, but rather takes the baby and disappears into a field, taking nothing else with her. The final confirmation of Armand's disgust with his wife and child is a bonfire he builds to destroy her clothes and possessions. To Armand's distress, while collecting Désirée's things to burn, he finds a letter from his mother to his father, revealing Armand's own mixed-race parentage. She has written, ''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.''
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