On Being Brought from Africa to America by Kate Chopin - Essay Example

Exclusion in “On Being Brought from Africa to America” and “Desireé’s Baby” “Desireé’s Baby” by Kate Chopin and “On Being Brought from Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley are powerful works that depict the painful emotions of women who are excluded from desirable states and spaces solely because of their color. “Desireé’s Baby” is narrated in the third person, but Wheatley’s poem is a direct address to the reader. Both Desireé and Wheatley desire inclusion—Desireé does so desperately, perhaps because she had earlier never even dreamt of the possibility of exclusion, but Wheatley is content to utter her wise and gentle words and wait for the white world to change, or even to wait for the next world. Exclusion was among the first of Desiree’s experiences, but more fortunate events shielded her consciousness from any immediate injury. Exclusion from the womb into the world must have been more traumatic for her than her exclusion from the world of her birth parents. Fate directed her toward the childless Valmonde couple who happily adopted her and showered their love on her, refusing to speculate unprofitably on the riddle of her origin: “Madame Valmonde abandoned every speculation but the one that Desiree had been sent to her by a beneficent Providence to be the child of her affection, seeing that she was without child of the flesh.” When she was found, the child had been old enough to cry for ‘Dada’ but she soon shed all those memories and “grew to be beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere - the idol of Valmonde.” This pleasant state of existence was not disturbed even when Desiree left her foster parents to live with her husband Armand Aubigny who had seen her once and “fell in love, as if struck by a pistol shot.” The words of caution spoken by Monsieur Valmonde pass unheeded, the “obscure origin” of his would-be bride is nothing to Aubigny, it mattered nothing to him that she was ‘nameless’: “What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana?” For another year Desireé continued to live in the Eden of ignorance and love. Her husband adored her even more than her foster parents did, the servants loved and respected her because Monsieur Aubigny was more indulgent towards them than he had been in his bachelor days, the Valmondes continued to lavish care and affection on her. The baby boy is born—in the first weeks of his existence, he is the apple of his father’s eye, and of everyone else, but then, things began to change. The first doubts appear in the mind of Desiree’s mother when she sees the child, after a gap of around four weeks. “ ‘This is not the baby!’ she exclaimed, in startled tones.” Even at that time, Desiree remained in happy ignorance. She imagined that her mother’s comment only meant that the child had grown more than expected. "Yes, the child has grown, has changed," said Madame Valmonde, slowly, as she replaced it beside its mother. "What does Armand say?" Desiree does not really need to answer this question for her “face became suffused with a glow that was happiness itself.” Obviously, Armand Aubigny was living in the Paradise of ignorance too—his wife knows that “Armand is the proudest father in the parish.” The fall from Eden down to earth was not actually all that sudden: When the baby was about three months old, Desiree awoke one day to the conviction that there was something in the air menacing her peace. It was at first too subtle to grasp. It had only been a disquieting suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks; unexpected visits from far-off neighbors who could hardly account for their coming. Then a strange, an awful change in her husbands manner, which she dared not ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old love-light seemed to have gone out. He absented himself from home; and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse. And the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his dealings with the slaves. Desiree was miserable enough to die. Desireé’s torment is almost unendurable because she had been excluded from paradise without a clue as to what had gone wrong. When she does get a glimmer of understanding, she is too terrified even to formulate her suspicion in words. The sight of a quadroon boy attending on her baby arrests her attention one day: She looked from her child to the boy who stood beside him, and back again; over and over. "Ah!" It was a cry that she could not help; which she was not conscious of having uttered. The blood turned like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture gathered upon her face. She motioned the quadroon boy out of the room and “stayed motionless, with gaze riveted upon her child, and her face the picture of fright.” When her husband enters the room, he does not look at her even when she begs for his attention. "Armand," she said again. Then she rose and tottered towards him. "Armand," she panted once more, clutching his arm, "look at our child. What does it mean? Tell me."      He coldly but gently loosened her fingers from about his arm and thrust the hand away from him. "Tell me what it means!" she cried despairingly.      "It means," he answered lightly, "that the child is not white; it means that you are not white." These words are uttered ‘lightly’ but they strike a heavy blow at the root of Desiree’s self-esteem. Her only defense is denial: A quick conception of all that this accusation meant for her nerved her with unwonted courage to deny it. "It is a lie; it is not true, I am white! Look at my hair, it is brown; and my eyes are gray, Armand, you know they are gray. And my skin is fair," seizing his wrist. "Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand," she laughed hysterically.      "As white as La Blanches," he returned cruelly; and went away leaving her alone with their child. She turns to her ‘mother’ for solace in a letter: "My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand has told me I am not white. For Gods sake tell them it is not true. You must know it is not true. I shall die. I must die. I cannot be so unhappy, and live." The only solace that Madame Valmonde can give her daughter is to invite her and her child back home: "My own Desiree: Come home to Valmonde; back to your mother who loves you. Come with your child." Desiree takes this letter to her husband. He reads it coldly. She is in an agony of suspense when she asks him what she should do. She seems to nourish the hope that he would not ask her to go. But he stabs “into his wife’s soul” with the cold command to go away. “She turned away like one stunned by a blow, and walked slowly towards the door, hoping he would call her back.      "Good-by, Armand," she moaned.      He did not answer her. And Desiree, excluded from her husband’s life, removes herself from his home and from his world without even receiving in return the cold comfort of a farewell. The pain of this exclusion experienced by Desiree is depicted with great attention to detail. The reader is made to feel her trauma as keenly as she does and her emotions are quite faithfully recorded. However, it is only in the last sentence of the story that the reader realizes that her all her pain would pale in comparison with the appalling despair that would have filled the breast of her husband when he realized that he is half black himself. He is excluded from that most personal and most necessary of spaces—the space within himself. Never again will he be able to think well of himself, to honor or to respect himself. The exclusion that crashes into our consciousness at the end of the story is not the exclusion of Desiree—if she had wished to live, she could have found inclusion in a world of unconditional maternal love—but the exclusion of Armand Aubigny from his own world. There can be no existence emptier than that of Monsieur Aubigny, inhabited as it can be only by old prejudices and new home truths. Phillis Wheatley’s feelings are more philosophical and tolerant than those of Desiree or her husband. She is excluded from much of mainstream society dominated by whites, but she has the strong support of a religious belief system, which she believes is superior to the one practiced by her people in Africa. Her land is a “pagan land” and the souls of the people “benighted” by their lack of faith in the Saviour. Therefore, she can see her journey from Africa to America as the fruit of ‘mercy’ rather than cupidity. She neither knew nor sought “redemption” earlier, and she plainly believes that, thanks to her journey to America, she has been redeemed rather than sold, saved rather than betrayed. In a very important sense, then, she feels all the pleasures of inclusion with the Divine, in her new land. However, the pains of exclusion also are known to her—even though she appears to feel the pain more on behalf of her people than on her own behalf. Again, significantly, she uses the terms of religion to articulate the exclusion of her people from society. She is perhaps reminding society that her people would still be included in the Divine society that white mainstream culture believes in, although the whites might hope to appropriate the benefits thereof for themselves alone. She is perhaps scornful of the ‘some’ who “view our sable race with scornful eye” and who may think their ‘die’ a ‘diabolical’ one, although she does not say so herself. Her words are always gentle and reasonable: Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain, May be refind, and join th angelic train. This remonstrance is justified because Christians are indeed supposed to maintain a generous, ‘Christian’ outlook. One is reminded of William Blake’s “Little Black Boy” who wished to play with his white brother in the presence of God, their Father. Again, Wheatley seems to suggest that ‘negros’ need to change too—by becoming more refined. Perhaps, she has in mind the fact that they neither know nor seek redemption—which she is now assured of, in the next world at least. Phillis Wheatley’s attitude to exclusion from mainstream white society is interesting. She does not seem to harbor rancor towards the whites who exclude her and those like her from their society. She plainly, however, does not think it right. Her repudiation of such behavior is gentle and benign rather than harsh and violent. Her wise words have an old world charm all their own. The secret of her gentleness and dignity appears to be her faith in the God of white society—a God who, she believes, will treat her on merit, on par with the whites of mainstream society who may seek to exclude her and her people with scorn and hostility. She can afford to be gentle and noble because she believes that “the meek will inherit the earth.” The response to exclusion from the mainstream is thus, treated differently by Wheatley and Chopin. Chopin depicts the full pain of the experience. Desiree’s trauma is vividly represented, no doubt. However, as noted earlier, the greater pain stored in reserve for her husband, though only hinted at, is truly terrifying. One knows that there is no way Armand Aubigny can escape the humiliation of exclusion, especially because, in his case, it involves exclusion from his vantage view of himself, his situation and his values. Wheatley can rely on her Saviour to bear the brunt of the yoke that white society has placed on her shoulders and hence she does not need to feel particularly bitter. In fact, as one who sees the principles of Christianity with greater clarity than those born Christians, she could, if she needed the support of such thoughts, consider herself superior to most whites. She knows, as does Langston Hughes, who came after her, that the ‘darker brother’ will not eat in the kitchen tomorrow, or in the next world. References Chopin, Kate. “Desiree’s Baby.” Web site. Retrieved 17 October 2006. http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/DesiBaby.shtml Hughes, Langston. “I too Sing America.” Web site. Retrieved 17 October 2006. http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15615 Wheatley, Phillis. “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” Web site. Retrieved 17 October 2006. http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/2001/wheatley0101.html Read More