The Awakening

Quadroon Nurse

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Character: Quadroon Nurse

Source Text:  Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899)

Entry Author:  Maraed Dickinson

Racial Mix: Categorized by narrator as “Quadroon,” a term used to designate a person of white and one-quarter African ancestry.

The plot of The Awakening unfolds among a close-knit community of affluent conservative Creoles living in New Orleans during the late 1800s. The novel, coinciding with the early women’s movement, focuses on the increasingly rebellious behavior of Edna Pontellier, who rejects society’s expectations and searches for an identity independent from her role as wife and mother.

As Edna becomes increasingly absent from her prescribed familial role, entering into an affair and eventually moving out of her family home, the Quadroon Nurse performs the role of caretaker and constant companion to Edna’s two young boys. The nurse remains at Edna’s disposal: either to free her of responsibility, allowing her to explore her identity crisis or, be easily dismissed, so Edna can entertain a fantasy of motherly affection for brief periods. Edna can ignore them or, in spurts of focused attention, let off steam from her conflict with Robert by blaming the supposedly negligent quadroon.

The nurse’s effect on the status quo offers some debate. On the one hand, she maintains the status quo and structure of the society by keeping its individual unit, the household, functional despite brewing discontent. Her oppression and resignation to her domestic duties preserves the family. At the same time, the nurse’s compliance frees Edna to explore outside her marriage and her prescribed role in the Creole society. Eventually, Edna’s exploration culminates in her complete breakage from society through her suicide.

The nurse’s ultimate role is to enable the freedom of others, even the two young boys she watches, who exercise their white male privilege despite their young age. Even the youngsters “[look] upon [the quadroon nurse] as a huge encumbrance, only good to button up waists and panties and to brush and part hair; since it seemed to be a law of society that hair must be parted and brushed,” (19). The young boys move about freely with “the quadroon following at the respectful distance which they [require] her to observe,” (30).

At times, the Quadroon Nurse reflects Edna’s discontent from the burden to perform her societal role, but mostly, she absorbs those tensions. The nurse is given little dimensions otherwise. When she leaves, she “vanishe[s],” allowing us no look into her outside life. However, the readers are allowed small glimpses into an internal mental world separated from her domestic duties. The novel introduces her with her customary activity off following the children around but “with a faraway, meditative air,” indicating that her she is not mentally invested in her duties (3). Despite her subservience, the nurse maintains her hidden world of inner thoughts…. At times she “follow[s] them with little quick steps, having assumed a fictitious animation and alacrity for the occasion,” (139).

Unlike affluent white women, her class and race determines that she will always be expected to be capable, and never told she is weak and cannot lift a finger. Her acceptance of her role seems racialized. Complying with Edna’s whim of portrait painting, “the quadroon sat for hours before Edna’s palette, patient as a savage,” (148). Her presence becomes a faint “pursuing voice … lifted in mild protest and entreaty,” mixed with the sounds of the children’s “escaping feet” – a marker of her Sisyphean duties (129).

Armand Aubigny

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armandCharacter:  Armand Aubigny

Source Text:  Chopin, Kate. The Awakening: With a Selection of Short Stories. 1899. Reprint. New York City: Bantam Dell, 1981. 177-182. Print.

Entry Author:  Emma Baker

 

In Kate Chopin’s short story, “Desiree’s Baby,” Armand Aubigny is the father of the titular child and the husband of Desiree. Belonging to a well-known, respectable Creole family, he owns a plantation called L’Abri that he inherited from his father. He spent his childhood in Paris until his mother’s death, and returned home to the United States with his father. Presumably, he lived with his mother when she was still alive. His role in the short story focuses on falling in love with Desiree, the adopted daughter of the Valmondés, another well-known creole family. Although Desiree comes from an ‘obscure origin,’ as the Valmondés found her around the ‘toddling age’ near the gateway to their home, Armand initially finds that no obstacle to marriage instead asserting, “What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana?” However, while his father treated the slaves under his ownership with kindness, “Young Aubigny’s rule was a strict one, too, and under it his negroes had forgotten how to be gay.” (Chopin, 177)

As such, Chopin positions Armand Aubigny as the character with the most power in his societal context. He is male, wealthy, and at the start of the story, both the reader and the surrounding characters believe he is white. One can see evidence of his exercise of this power in the treatment of his slaves as well as evidence of prejudice and racism. He seems reasonable in his acceptance of a nameless wife whose origins are unknown at the start of the novel, but after the birth of their child one perceives changes in his behavior. Others notice the child’s skin tone before he does but he begins to absent “himself from home; and when there, avoided [Desiree’s] presence and that of her child, without excuse.” (Chopin, 179) After Desiree herself realizes the similarity to one of the quadroon boys of La Blanche, a mulatto slave, she pleads with Armand to tell her what it means. He only responds, “it means…that the child is not white; it means that you are not white.” (Chopin, 180) Armand is not suspected to be the reason for the child’s quadroon appearance, as Desiree’s origin is unknown. As she attempts to defend herself by naming her features, he cruelly responds, “As white as La Blanche,” (Chopin, 180) demonstrating that the physical appearance of whiteness holds no power when one carries ‘black blood.’  Following this, he draws further away from his wife, begins to treat his slaves with a greater cruelty than before and does not prevent his wife from walking unprotected into the bayou with her child never to return. His position in a place of power demonstrates how influential his actions and decisions are on the lives of others around him, as well as highlight the discrepancy between an unknown origin or namelessness and the possibility of having black ancestry.

Chopin does not reveal his parentage until the last lines of the story. As he burns all of Desiree’s belongings he finds a letter sent from his mother to his father saying, “I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery.” (Chopin, 182) The reader then retroactively remembers various mentions throughout the story of “Armand’s dark, handsome face,” (Chopin, 179) and when Desiree pleads, “look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand.” (Chopin, 180) As such, Chopin constructs Armand as a mixed race character who passes for white and maintains, if not enforces, the status quo in order to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the Louisiana culture. In the revelation of his mixed race as the final and pivotal plot-point, Chopin upsets the status quo by suggesting a complete lack of adherence throughout the piece, as well as emphasizing the dire consequences that resulted from adherence to those conventions.