Kate Chopin's "Desiree's Baby!"

I was a little nervous about reading this short work because I was not a fan of, "The Awakening" at all in high school. It may have been that we read the novel at too young an age to really grasp the meaning and scandal, but I'm pretty sure that I got lost in the descriptions and never really put together the main plot. It was several years ago, but I distintly remember I did not like it. I was pleasantly surprised that I actually did enjoy "Desiree's Baby" a lot. It reminded me of the mini series North and South. I loved that series, but a woman within it, very light skinned, finds out that her mother was colored (she was adopted at a young age and no one knew of her past). She was married to a very cruel husband who would have killed her if he found out the truth. When her husband passed away and she was planning to marry her true love, who knew the truth and loved her anyway, she hesitated because she didn't want to place shame upon the name of her fiance. I think it is so strange that just the knowledge of "being cursed with the brand of slavery" even if one does not look like it, can make a husband fall out of love with his wife and child. Armand blames Desiree for ruining his family name, but she had no idea of her life before she was adopted. She was lucky enough in that time period to have light enough skin to pass as a white woman. The idea of slavery and thinking of a particular race so poorly, that you would send away your wife and son sickens me. And Arman is such a hypocrite. He too is of the colored race, as they called it, and just because he wanted to maintain his farce and save his reputation, he forces out the person he said he loved. Ohhhh,,,I think it just clicked for me. It wasn't Desiree that was colored but Armand was, so he blamed Desiree in order to save himself and his own reputation. What a jerk!