Ham’s Redemption was painted by Spanish painter Modesto Brocos in 1895. This work is considered one of the most racist paintings of the nineteenth century, centered around the dangerous belief that blackness was a curse, broken when a generation began to birth white complected children, the ‘whitening of society’ which was perceived as progress.
Research a little more about the painting. What are the parallels between this and Desiree’s Baby? Write a 200 word reflection on this and submit through Canvas.
Désirée’s Baby
by Kate Chopin
As the day was pleasant, Madame Valmondé drove over to L’Abri to see Désirée
and the baby.
It made her laugh to think of Désirée with a baby. Why, it seemed but yesterday
that Désirée was little more than a baby herself; when Monsieur in riding through the
gateway of Valmondé had found her lying asleep in the shadow of the big stone pillar.
The little one awoke in his arms and began to cry for “Dada.” That was as much as
she could do or say. Some people thought she might have strayed there of her own
accord, for she was of the toddling age. The prevailing belief was that she had been
purposely left by a party of Texans, whose canvas-covered wagon, late in the day, had
crossed the ferry that Coton Maïs kept, just below the plantation. In time Madame
Valmondé abandoned every speculation but the one that Désirée had been sent to her
by a beneficent Providence to be the child of her affection, seeing that she was without
child of the flesh. For the girl grew to be beautiful and gentle, affectionate and
sincere,—the idol of Valmondé.
It was no wonder, when she stood one day against the stone pillar in whose shadow
she had lain asleep, eighteen years before, that Armand Aubigny riding by and seeing
her there, had fallen in love with her. That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love, as
if struck by a pistol shot. The wonder was that he had not loved her before; for he had
known her since his father brought him home from Paris, a boy of eight, after his
mother died there. The passion that awoke in him that day, when he saw her at the gate,
swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives
headlong over all obstacles.
Monsieur Valmondé grew practical and wanted things well considered: that is, the
girl’s obscure origin. Armand looked into her eyes and did not care. He was reminded
that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of
the oldest and proudest in Louisiana? He ordered the corbeille from Paris, and
contained himself with what patience he could until it arrived; then they were married.
Madame Valmondé had not seen Désirée and the baby for four weeks. When she
reached L’Abri she shuddered at the first sight of it, as she always did. It was a sad
looking place, which for many years had not known the gentle presence of a mistress,
old Monsieur Aubigny having married and buried his wife in France, and she having
loved her own land too well ever to leave it. The roof came down steep and black like a
cowl, reaching out beyond the wide galleries that encircled the yellow stuccoed house.
Big, solemn oaks grew close to it, and their thick-leaved, far-reaching branches
shadowed it like a pall. 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.
The young mother was recovering slowly, and lay full length, in her soft white
muslins and laces, upon a couch. The baby was beside her, upon her arm, where he had
fallen asleep, at her breast. The yellow nurse woman sat beside a window fanning
herself.
Madame Valmondé bent her portly figure over Désirée and kissed her, holding her
an instant tenderly in her arms. Then she turned to the child.
“This is not the baby!” she exclaimed, in startled tones. French was the language
spoken at Valmondé in those days.
“I knew you would be astonished,” laughed Désirée, “at the way he has grown. The
little cochon de lait! Look at his legs, mamma, and his hands and finger-nails,—real
finger-nails. Zandrine had to cut them this morning Is n’t it true, Zandrine?”
The woman bowed her turbaned head majestically, “Mais si, Madame.”
“And the way he cries,” went on Désirée, “is deafening. Armand heard him the
other day as far away as La Blanche’s cabin.”
Madame Valmondé had never removed her eyes from the child. She lifted it and
walked with it over to the window that was lightest. She scanned the baby narrowly,
then looked as searchingly at Zandrine, whose face was turned to gaze across the fields.
“Yes, the child has grown, has changed;” said Madame Valmondé, slowly, as she
replaced it beside its mother. “What does Armand say?”
Désirée’s face became suffused with a glow that was happiness itself.
“Oh, Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe, chiefly because it is a
boy, to bear his name; though he says not,—that he would have loved a girl as well. But
I know it is n’t true I know he says that to please me. And mamma,” she added,
drawing Madame Valmondé’s head down to her, and speaking in a whisper, “he has n’t
punished one of them—not one of them—since baby is born. Even Négrillon, who
pretended to have burnt his leg that he might rest from work—he only laughed, and
said Négrillon was a great scamp. Oh, mamma, I’m so happy; it frightens me.”
What Désirée said was true. Marriage, and later the birth of his son had softened
Armand Aubigny’s imperious and exacting nature greatly. This was what made the
gentle Désirée so happy, for she loved him desperately. When he frowned she trembled,
but loved him. When he smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God. But Armand’s
dark, handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns since the day he fell in
love with her.
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. It was at first too
subtle to grasp. It had only been a disquieting suggestion; an air of mystery among the
blacks; unexpected visits from far-off neighbors who could hardly account for their
coming. Then a strange, an awful change in her husband’s manner, which she dared not
ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old
love-light seemed to have gone out. He absented himself from home; and when there,
avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse. And the very spirit of Satan
seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his dealings with the slaves. Désirée was
miserable enough to die.
She sat in her room, one hot afternoon, in her peignoir, listlessly drawing through
her fingers the strands of her long, silky brown hair that hung about her shoulders. The
baby, half naked, lay asleep upon her own great mahogany bed, that was like a
sumptuous throne, with its satin-lined half-canopy. One of La Blanche’s little quadroon
boys—half naked too— stood fanning the child slowly with a fan of peacock feathers.
Désirée’s eyes had been fixed absently and sadly upon the baby, while she was striving
to penetrate the threatening mist that she felt closing about her. She looked from her
child to the boy who stood beside him, and back again; over and over. “Ah!” It was a
cry that she could not help; which she was not conscious of having uttered. The blood
turned like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture gathered upon her face.
She tried to speak to the little quadroon boy; but no sound would come, at first.
When he heard his name uttered, he looked up, and his mistress was pointing to the
door. He laid aside the great, soft fan, and obediently stole away, over the polished
floor, on his bare tiptoes.
She stayed motionless, with gaze riveted upon her child, and her face the picture of
fright. Presently her husband entered the room, and without noticing her, went to a table
and began to search among some papers which covered it.
“Armand,” she called to him, in a voice which must have stabbed him, if he was
human. But he did not notice. “Armand,” she said again Then she rose and tottered
towards him. “Armand,” she panted once more, clutching his arm, “look at our child.
What does it mean? tell me.”
He coldly but gently loosened her fingers from about his arm and thrust the hand
away from him. “Tell me what it means!” she cried despairingly.
“It means,” he answered lightly, “that the child is not white; it means that you are
not white.”
A quick conception of all that this accusation meant for her nerved her with
unwonted courage to deny it. “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,”
seizing his wrist. “Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand,” she laughed
hysterically.
“As white as La Blanche’s,” he returned cruelly; and went away leaving her alone
with their child.
When she could hold a pen in her hand, she sent a despairing letter to Madame
Valmondé.
“My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand has told me I am not white. For
God’s sake tell them it is not true. You must know it is not true. I shall die. I must die. I
cannot be so unhappy, and live.”
The answer that came was as brief:
“My own Désirée: Come home to Valmondé; back to your mother who loves you.
Come with your child.”
When the letter reached Désirée she went with it to her husband’s study, and laid it
open upon the desk before which he sat. She was like a stone image: silent, white,
motionless after she placed it there.
In silence he ran his cold eyes over the written words. He said nothing. “Shall I go,
Armand ?” she asked in tones sharp with agonized suspense.
“Yes, go.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“Yes, I want you to go.”
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. Moreover he no longer loved her, because of the unconscious injury she had
brought upon his home and his name.
She turned away like one stunned by a blow, and walked slowly towards the door,
hoping he would call her back.
“Good-by, Armand,” she moaned.
He did not answer her. That was his last blow at fate.
Désirée went in search of her child. Zandrine was pacing the sombre gallery with it.
She took the little one from the nurse’s arms with no word of explanation, and
descending the steps, walked away, under the live-oak branches.
It was an October afternoon; the sun was just sinking. Out in the still fields the
negroes were picking cotton.
Desiree had not changed the thin white garment nor the slippers which she wore.
Her hair was uncovered and the sun’s rays brought a golden gleam from its brown
meshes. She did not take the broad, beaten road which led to the far-off plantation of
Valmondé. She walked across a deserted field, where the stubble bruised her tender
feet, so delicately shod, and tore her thin gown to shreds.
She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the banks of
the deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come back again.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Some weeks later there was a curious scene enacted at L’Abri. In the centre of the
smoothly swept back yard was a great bonfire. Armand Aubigny sat in the wide
hallway that commanded a view of the spectacle; and it was he who dealt out to a half
dozen negroes the material which kept this fire ablaze.
A graceful cradle of willow, with all its dainty furbishings, was laid upon the pyre,
which had already been fed with the richness of a priceless layette . Then there were
silk gowns, and velvet and satin ones added to these; laces, too, and embroideries;
bonnets and gloves; for the corbeille had been of rare quality.
The last thing to go was a tiny bundle of letters; innocent little scribblings that
Désirée had sent to him during the days of their espousal. There was the remnant of one
back in the drawer from which he took them. But it was not Désirée’s; it was part of an
old letter from his mother to his father. He read it. She was thanking God for the
blessing of her husband’s love:—
“But, above all,” she wrote, “night and day, 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.”
Kate
Chopin
wrote
“Désirée’s
Baby”
on
November
24,
1892.
It
was
published
in
Vogue
(the
same
magazine
that
is
sold
today)
on
January
14,
1893,
the
first
of
nineteen
Kate
Chopin
stories
that
Vogue
published.
It
was
reprinted
in
Chopin’s
collection
of
stories,
Bayou
Folk,
in
1894.
You
can
find
complete
composition
dates
and
publication
dates
for
all
Chopin’s
works
on
pages
1003
to
1032
of
The
Complete
Works
of
Kate
Chopin,
edited
by
Per
Seyersted
(Baton
Rouge:
Louisiana
State
University
Press,
1969,
2006).
http://www.KateChopin.org
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