Love and Blindness Theme Analysis

Love, both romantic and familial, is a powerful transformative force in “Désirée’s Baby.” Love primarily works to soften characters, allowing them to care for other individuals and for their fellow human beings more broadly. Madame and Monsieur Valmondé are transformed when they discover an abandoned child and welcome her as their own despite her mysterious and, likely, impoverished background. Armand is also softened by his love for Désirée. Not only does he wish to marry a girl of mysterious origins, but he lavishes kindness and extravagant gifts on her. He is also changed (to a degree) in his treatment of other people, particularly his black slaves. Before his marriage he was considered a strict master, but after his marriage to Désirée, Armand ceases to punish his slaves. He even laughs when one man pretends to be injured to avoid work, as Désirée reports to her mother. Even Armand’s physical features change under the influence of his love for Désirée: his countenance is lightened and he smiles instead of frowning.

Love also has another, more subversive, transformative power in this text, which is particularly revealed through Désirée’s character—that of blindness to the truth. Désirée’s love for Armand causes her to overlook his faults and his cruelty. Even when Armand’s mood is sour, Désirée “trembled, but loved him.” Désirée’s blindness takes a more extreme form with respect to her baby. Even though other characters, including Armand and Madame Valmondé, observe the child’s features that indicate his black heritage, Désirée is initially blind to them.

While blindness is generally considered a negative thing, in “Désirée’s Baby” one might actually consider it a positive. Because it is when love isn’t enough to cause blindness that tragedy unfolds. Armand’s mother and father enforce blindness of his own heritage on her son, to protect him out of love, but in doing so allow Armand to believe in the stereotypes and hierarchies that cause him to abandon his wife. And it is when Armand “sees” the racial heritage of his son in its features the he abandons his love; and when Désirée sees the same that she abandons her life. In contrast, Madame Valmondé stands as a model of love, telling her daughter to come home to her mother who loves her even after it seems that Désirée might have a black racial heritage. But in the racist Southern world of the story, even such powerful maternal love is not enough.