Tension In Désirée's Baby

The Burden Of Tension On A Mother’s Shoulders Racism and slavery will forever stay written in our history books. There are thousands of books, articles, encyclopedias, and short stories that try to depict it, even until now. Rarely some can barely come close to describe the feelings and emotions felt during that era. One of those heart opening stories is “Désirée’s Baby”; a short story that speaks about a conflicted family living in that tense era. The setting of the story helps create tension because it talks about the post-civil war era, the tension in the divided country and the small town that enhanced discrimination. The post-civil war era was really harsh, especially for colored people. Not only did racism and discrimination affect colored people, but also whites. “Désirée’s Baby” is a great example of it. The story’s setting is set in Louisiana before the civil war. Louisiana was one of the states that had the most amount of slaves with approximately six thousand slaves (Rodrigue 1). The whites would discriminate blacks

Their family, specially Désirée, felt conflicted due to the color of her child’s skin and the divided country in which they were living in. Désirée was okay with her child’s skin, because she loved him unconditionally. Her husband was good at hiding it, but he eventually showed his true colors. And, even though her family didn’t show it, the child 's skin color bothered them significantly. So, tension was significant as well. The one who felt it the most was Désirée, because she was the one who gave birth to a black child. She felt rejection and hatred towards herself, specially from her husband. He thought she had African American blood running through her veins or that she had been unfaithful to him. Even if he did not think that was possible, he still saw her as impure and unclean because of his belief that African American blood ran through her