Question

Explain why Armand asks Désirée to leave. What does this say about his character and about the social norms of the time?

Answer 1

Desiree's Baby by Kate Chopin focuses on the three subjects of marriage, prejudice and racism, exposing inequalities and female subjugation before the Civil war in Louisiana.

After Desiree’s marriage with a young aristocrat, Armand Aubigny, she hopes to find her real home with him and giving birth to a baby boy, Armand was happy. Later the boy started showing the negroid features, being bi-racial. Desiree started panting, clutching his arms to which Armand replied, “it means that the child is not white; it means that you are not white” and asks Desiree to leave with the baby. Later it takes a turning point when Armand discovers that he too had the black ancestry.

Such actions describe Armand as being prejudiced towards her ‘race’. Being prejudiced he denied the parental responsibility and asks Desiree to leave with the child as the child is bi-racial.

During that time no aristocratic family would accept any bi-racial daughter in law or grand-child. The social norms during that time exposed the subjugation of women and inequalities of prejudice.