Armand also has self-hatred inside of him. He surrounded himself with bi-racial slaves as he has a “yellow” nurse, a quadroon boy, and a slave named La Blanche which is white in French. Chopin is certainly not vague about the message, foreshadowing, and irony in her story. La Blanche herself is also an interesting secondary character in the already short novel. As the quadroon boy is her son, which would imply that she was raped by a white man. It is not hard to believe that the white man was none other than Armand himself, as most white slave masters had no problem sleeping with slaves as they didn’t seem them as people, just mere property. They could use them in any way they see fit, even for sexual gratification. It might explain why the…show more content… He also threw La Blanche in Desiree’s face when he assumed that Desiree was the reason for the baby’s mixed race as he coldly said to Desiree that her hands were, “as white as La Blanche’s” after she insisted that her hands were whiter than his (Chesnutt 445). Now we know that Desiree’s hands were probably lighter than both his and La Blanche because they’re both mulattos.
The fear of blood mixing was a fear that both Mr. Ryder and Armand had. Mr. Ryder spoke early in the story about tainting his blood with a darker skin black person and what it would mean for him, “” I have no race prejudice,” he would say, “but we people of mixed blood are ground between the upper and the nether millstone. Our fate lies between absorption by the white race and extinction in the black. The one doesn’t want us yet but may take us in time. The other would welcome us, but it would be for us a backward step. ‘With malice towards none, with charity for all,’ we must do the best we can for ourselves and those who are to follow us. Self-preservation is the first law of nature”” (Chesnutt 490). This is the most powerful piece of dialogue from the entire story. It’s the raw, damaged heart of Mr. Ryder and many mulattos. They’re are outcasts. Not