Desiree's Baby

Catholicism emerges as a motif in “Désirée’s Baby.” Madame Valmondé describes Désirée as a gift from God: “Désirée had been sent to her by a beneficent Providence to be the child of her affection” (Paragraph 3). Chopin describes Armand, however, in terms of Satan, rather than of God: “the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his dealings with the slaves” (Paragraph 19). He believes himself to be the victim of punishment by God: “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” (Paragraph 36). He inflicts punishment on Désirée and is, at the end of the story, a kind of victim of his own hatred. Catholic notions of judgment and damnation are echoed in the events of “Désirée's Baby.”

When Madame Valmondé sees Désirée at L’Abri, the image is regal, even Biblical: “The young mother was recovering slowly, and lay full length, in her soft white muslins and laces upon a couch” (Paragraph 7). The “soft white muslins and laces” produce an angelic or saintly effect, and Désirée’s personality and spirit in her early days of motherhood mimic this visual.