In silence he ran his cold eyes over the written words. He said nothing. "Shall I go, Armand?" she asked in tones sharp with agonized suspense.
This moment in the story brings out powerfully the mid-nineteenth-century expectations, behaviors, speech styles, and body language of both genders. Regardless of how much pain Armand has already caused Desiree, and how much he has put her love for him into question, Desiree still acts as if she needs Armand to approve of her behavior. There is no sense or indication of defiance, revolt, revulsion, anger, or hatred in Desiree's behavior or speech. She speaks and acts almost as if she is a slave. It's almost as if the master-slave mentality has found a manifestation of itself in the form of Armand and Desiree's relationship. There is complete dominance on the part of Armand and complete compliance on the part of Desiree.
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.
Yet again, we see a negative quality of Armand. Despite Desiree not having committed any "crime," and it being only Armand's fault for not looking into his own and Desiree's past carefully enough, Armand thinks that his marriage to Desiree and the child they had was a punishment. He claims a kind of quasi-divine superiority, one that allows him to think that he can take revenge on God. However he does not realize that he actually did many wrong things, and committed many sins throughout his life. He is blinded by his own ego, sense of greatness, and quite possibly his status as a wealthy, white, and religious landowner.
She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the banks of the deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come back again.
Desiree's attitude at the point when she leaves Armand is more resolute, focused, and uncompromising than at any other point in the story. She leaves with her baby and ostensibly dies in the wilderness. Ironically, it is at this point when she shows strength - the strength to leave and not look back, to not make agonizing pleas to Armand to keep her - that she makes her more fatal mistake. She could have returned to her parents, who would have accepted her and her child. She acts and asserts herself in a way that would have greatly helped had she done so earlier in the story, had she stood up to Armand, demanded proof rather than believe mere speculation, and gotten her parents involved.
"Good-by, Armand," she moaned. He did not answer her. That was his last blow at fate.
Armand again here takes a jab at the metaphysical, divine extravagance of God that punctures and guides every aspect of his life. His arrogance is most visible here, and yet he also seems quite vulnerable. He is helpless to take any kind of action except to ignore Desiree as she is making her final plea (underlying her goodbye seems to be one final emotional insinuation, one final opportunity for Armand to change his mind). He does not have any other way to vent his disapproval of the terrible fate God has brought upon him. Ironically, despite his notorious temperament, it may surprise the reader that he does not visit any kind of physical torture upon Desiree - in one way, his reaction to Desiree and accusation against her is uncharacteristic of him. If he thinks she is part black then, ironically, he does not treat her the way he treats his slaves. His hostility towards Desiree is mixed with a kind of hesitation and compassion.
"...I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery."
Armand's mother's words show the extent to which the American racial hierarchy has colonized even the black mind. She considers her race cursed, and she is quite glad that her own blood will (ostensibly) never find out that his mother was black. The slave mindset runs deep in everyone's understanding of how to appropriately perceive and process the position, the value, and the humanity of blacks and whites. Racism operates not only in white society, but among blacks themselves. They have internalized constructed differences that in fact end up hurting wealthy, white men like Armand himself.
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.
These words give life to one of the few moments of foreshadowing in the story, and set the change in tone of Armand's behavior towards Desiree. There is an ominous overcast in the atmosphere, and from this point on there is only tragedy for all the characters: for Armand and his fight with fate and God, for Desiree and her slow realization that the man she loves cares neither for her nor her child anymore, and for the Valmondés and the eventual loss of their daughter.
He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana?
Monsieur Valmondé gives Armand a chance to inquire more into Desiree's background. Armand chooses not to do so. This introduces his fatal flaw: his passions rage and he is overwhelmed by Desiree's beauty, smitten by her completely. It foreshadows to some degree Armand's habits about desire as well: if he wants to do something, he does it, despite any evidence to the contrary. It also gives some indication of a possible conflict later on, in which Desiree's unclear background may become a problem for Armand. In the end, his hasty nature leaves him damned (at least, he thinks so) and with a tarnished name, home, and marriage.
Young Aubigny's rule was a strict one, too, and under it his negroes had forgotten how to be gay, as they had been during the old master's easy-going and indulgent lifetime.
Chopin brings in a contrast between Armand's rule over the plantation and that of his father. This cruel treatment of his slaves and his departure from the kind rule of his father may contribute to his damnation later in the story. His treatment of his slaves is yet another frame through which to understand his psychology: dominating, domineering, tyrannical, and impulsive. He is guided and blinded by his emotions and is the most prominent example of hatred, hypocrisy, and racism in the story. Despite its brevity, the story manages to convey an incredibly vivid picture of how powerful and deep racial hatred ran in the Antebellum South.
The passion that awoke in him that day, when he saw her at the gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives headlong over all obstacles.
Here, Chopin's imagery conveys with lucidity the intense emotion that Armand experiences when he first sees Desiree. At the onset of Armand's introduction in the story, Chopin almost immediately begins to emphasize what later becomes evidently clear about Armand: his inability to control his emotions and the incredible control that they have over his convictions and decisions.
When he frowned she trembled, but loved him. When he smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God.
Desiree is presented almost as a slave on two grounds: as a woman and as a lover. The way Armand is slave to his passions, Desiree is slave to her love for Armand. She is unable to understand why he could dismiss their love on such spurious and artificial grounds as mere speculation about her racial heritage. She also fails to comprehend why he does not go to greater lengths to confirm (or more importantly, dismiss) the conclusions that he has made about her. Is his love so shallow as to completely disregard her on claims that, at best, are a product of his hatred of black people? It seems that Desiree does not fully come to this realization at all. At best, she seems to be in denial when she leaves the house because she wholeheartedly submits to Armand when he asks her to leave. Her protests are extravagant at first, but eventually she succumbs. She still values Armand and his wishes. She dies in her commitment to Armand, not really ever giving any indication that Armand is not worthy of her love.
