Effects Of Being Mixed Race On The Rural South Essay

Racism has devastated and destroyed people, families, communities, and friendships. “Passing” and “Desiree’s Baby”, the literary works of Nella Larsen and Kate Chopin, respectively, shed light on the impact of racism through characters whose experiences often reflect those of the authors. Both stories explore various forms of white racial dominance including feminist issues involving race. Both main characters, despite coming from significantly different backgrounds, are negatively impacted by both sexism and racism. In “Desiree’s Baby”, Desiree, an orphan raised by Monsieur and Madame Valmonde in their Louisiana plantation as if she were their own daughter, “grew to be beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere”(Chopin 3).

Readers unfamiliar with Louisiana in the nineteenth century can gleam rationalistic information from Chopin’s story including racial relations and the local dialect including the inclusion of French phrases. The different races and ethnic background that existed in southern Louisiana, and how the one-drop rule was used, and unsuspecting people’s lives were altered due to the new knowledge of having black heritage. The gender and roles they had also lacked the equality of today and thankfully laid a foundation for equal right for all minorities going into the future. The difference that being a woman had versus a man in the nineteenth century southern Louisiana was very unbalanced as was being a black man versus a white man, and a white woman versus a black woman. Chopin illustrated a wonderful glance into a time period and people that some one probably never would have thought of and, although the story had some rough parts the outlook was

In the short story, “Desiree’s Baby,” Kate Chopin exposes the harsh realities of racial divide, male dominance, and slavery in Antebellum Louisiana. Although written in 1894, Chopin revisits the deep-south during a period of white privilege and slavery. Told through third-person narration, the reader is introduced to characters whose individual morals and values become the key elements leading to the ironic downfall of this antebellum romance. As Chopin takes the reader through the unfortunate circumstances and unexpected twists of Desiree’s life, a Southern Gothic tale emerges. While Armonde is Chopin’s obvious villain, one should not assume that the other characters are not antagonists themselves, as

Sometimes the hardest thing for an individual to do is taking a stance against the culture they live in, and sometimes the people who take the stance are underappreciated. Sadly, this is story of a talented writer named Kate Chopin; who took a stance against her environment with her writing, most notably in her short story, “Desiree’s Baby”. Chopin’s short story “Desiree’s Baby” uses the themes of naturalism, realism, and the usage of irony to expose the hypocrisy of racism.

In “Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin, Chopin describes a story of an older woman, Madame Valmondé, coming to see her daughter, Desiree, who is married Armand Aubigny, and her baby. Mme. Valmondé, at first, is astonished at the appearance of the baby. Later, the baby herself shocks because of its dark appearance. Desiree later asks Armand why the baby is black. Then, Armand gets very angry, because Armand, a person who perceives he is of European race, has realized that he is the father to a black baby. Armand goes on to accuse Desiree of being black and being the cause of this perceived imperfection. A very distressed Desiree asks for Mme. Valmondé for help. Mme.

The Changing Concept of Race in the South Throughout the years, the concept of race has changed in the South.

Mulattoes are automatically classified with the Negro group regardless as to who or what color their parents are. When slavery is born, mulatto children lose all possible chances of improving their social status. And yet in the Caribbean, mulatto are not permitted to be worked in the fields nor treated as a slave. They are tradesmen, house servants, and especially, concubines. It is the situation of the locations that enable a different view on the classification of a people, situations such as men to women ratio and agricultural production. Unlike the Colonist which adopted only one term from Spain to describe the offspring between a white person and a Negro or Native American, the islanders used four different names to classify the different levels of skin color; mulatto, sambo, quadroon, and mestize. Furthermore, in Jordan’s essay, he speaks of “passing,” and how over a period of time, eventually the Mulattoes offspring will be as white as their master. He states the meaning of “passing,” is when the stain (Negro blood) is finally washed out, the result is a white person one cannot call a Negro. In a letter Henry Laurens writes from England, he claims, “These people are to be free and kept harmless.”

The first voyage of the Middle passage in the 16th century was the initial start of the Atlantic slave trade; the exact number of

Looking back in time, slaves were differentiated into mulattoes and pure blacks. Pure blacks did most of the outside labor leaving the house labor to mulattoes. For mulattoes, being a house servant brought advantages including food, shelter, and clothing. Mulattoes were trained for skilled occupations and these skills allowed mulattoes to separate themselves from other blacks. The light skinned blacks were exposed to cultural views and practices such as proper speech, dress, and mannerisms. Once a mulatto was emancipated, he/she was better prepared for negotiating with whites because mulattoes knew how to handle them. Mulattoes had a sense of being superior over the darker slaves. Because of the color similarities between mulattoes and whites, the mulattoes were the middle class between blacks and whites.

This tolerant attitude led to a wide range of “race classification.” According to how much “white” a slave had, their value in the eyes of society increased. Slaves could be black, octaroon or mulatto to name a few. Thus this led to a classification based on one’s degree of white blood. In the United States no such classes existed. If a slave was born to a black mother, that slave was black. In essence, Latin America judged based upon the degree of “blackness” while the South saw only two races, black or white. Outward appearance, the color of the father or anything else deviated the classification in the United States. It has been said, half-facetiously, that Southerners are color blind, in the sense that individuals, despite their racial composition, are considered to be either white or black, while Latin Americans recognized degrees of blackness and whiteness.

Imagine growing up in a village being taught since birth that whites had been always superior to blacks. Where fellow white Southerners were convinced that the South had always been and would remain a white man’s country. Where the daily routine was to demand that blacks and whites worked together, encounter one another at the store or the post office, or talked occasionally as neighbors, yet, simultaneously, there was always a segregated barrier between the two. This is exactly what author Melton McLaurin experienced growing up in Wade, NC. In the book Growing up White in the Segregated South, McLaurin writes about his experiences growing up in Wade, specifically pertaining to what he learns about race, about being white, and about the rules both blacks and whites had to follow in a segregated society. He writes,” I was also well versed in racist dogma, having been instructed from birth in the ideology and etiquette of segregation.” Growing up White in the Segregated South, he had to learn the rules or etiquette of segregation where he was challenged by his most securely held concepts about who he was and who he would become and experienced many events and observations that changed his view of race and segregation.

“Desiree’s Baby” provides insight into the application of the hypodescent rule in plantation-era Louisiana, depicting individuals of mixed race who are marked and assigned to the subordinate social group. In her short story, “Desiree’s Baby,” Kate Chopin addresses the practice as it was applied to the “one-drop rule,” the notion that an individual with white complexion may be deemed black by society given the presence of any African ancestry. Desiree, the story’s protagonist, is eloquently placed at the intersection of the two races, victimized in order to highlight the flaws and inadequacies of the rule. Desiree’s ultimate removal from white society and possible death may indicate a text working to criticize racial prejudice; however,

     In Kate Chopin’s short story, “Desiree’s Baby”, she demonstrates how racism played a major part in people’s lives in the 1800’s. Kate Chopin is extremely successful in getting her readers to feel disturbed by the events in the story. Through words and images, the reader feels touched by the story, either by relating to it at some points or when confronted with things we frequently decide to ignore in the world: the evil some human beings are capable of possessing.

Throughout time, humans struggled with issues of conformity and individuality. In the modern world, individuality is idealized, as it is associated with strength. Weak individuals are usually portrayed as conforming to society and having almost no personal ideas. In “Desiree’s Baby”, a short story, the author Kate Chopin deals with the struggles of African descendants in the French colonies during the time of slave labor. The protagonist is a white woman named Desiree who is of unknown origin and birth as she was found abandoned as an infant at an aristocrat’s doorstep. Eighteen years after her discovery, she and a fellow aristocrat, Armand Aubigny, fall in love and get married. They soon have a child, yet conflict arises when the child

Kate Chopin’s Desiree’s Baby is a short story about a girl named Desiree who is abandoned, then adopted into a wealthy family. Young Desiree soon grows up and falls in love with a slave owner, Armand,with whom she conceives a son with only to discover that her child's appearance consists of African descent characteristics. Chopin narrates the issues of oppression and loss of identity during a historical period of time through Desiree’s character. Derek Foster and Kris LeJeune's critique, focusing on the feminist standpoint of Desiree’s Baby, attempts to demonstrates how Desiree’s act to flee into the bayou is her first accomplishment of independence.