Challenging Norms: Chopin and Chesnutt

            The elements that the Chopin and Chesnutt pieces brought to the ideas of slavery and the post-slavery world were really interesting to me. Since they describe the stories of white or partially white people, they have a unique perspective that you do not often read about in the accounts of slavery. I liked that each of the stories had their own twist at the end also; the endings served to challenge the norms of the societies that the characters operated within and make the audience think.

            “Desiree’s Baby” was my favorite of the two pieces. Armand Aubigny is quick to jump to the conclusion that his wife is mulatto when their son turns out to have some physical aspects of African American descent. Since Desiree has no knowledge of her own personal background, she is forced to accept his criticisms and leave with her baby to live with her adopted mother. Chopin really uses the piece to show how society discriminated against people with African American descent during this time. Armand does not even hesitate to throw her out when she asks if she should leave and he seems disgusted with having married her. It seems to wound his pride and he can no longer feel the love and happiness for her that he once had. When it turns out at the end that Armand is actually the one with African American descent, and not his wife who he has shut out, there is a sort of irony since he was so certain that his well-to-do family would have nothing to do with mixing races. Looking back on the passage, I thought it was incredibly ironic that Desiree comments, “Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand” as she tries to prove to him that it is not her fault.

            I felt that Chesnutt’s piece was a little more predictable but still with the same sort of ending. Mr. Ryder was getting along in society just fine pretending that he was a white man as the head of the Blue Vein society. However, in contrast with the Chopin piece, when the wife of his youth shows up at his door, he acknowledges her in the end. He recognizes her as his wife and gives up any prospects of moving up in society by marrying Mrs. Dixon. Even though this piece is set in a post-war society, the attitudes of racism are still apparent and the idea that only those with whiter skin can have any chance of doing well for themselves remains.

            Both of these pieces deal with the attitudes of society toward people who were of a mixed race during the time at the end of the civil war and directly after. Even though many people of mixed race were not slaves, they were still treated badly because they were not purely white. This type of prejudice disgusts me and I think the authors did great jobs of challenging this belief in their pieces by showing that skin color has nothing to do with affluence in society or morality. The reasoning for racism is all made up.