Sonnie Sulak ENGL 2025 Sect. 6 Group A Paper Assignment #4 7/29/08 The Bonds of Race vs. the Bonds of Love 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; an air of mystery among the blacks; unexpected visits from far-off neighbors who could hardly account for their coming. Then a strange, and awful change in her husband's manner, which she dared not ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old love-light seemed to have gone out. He absented himself from home; and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse. And the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his dealings with the slaves. Desiree was miserable enough to die (67-68). I think that Desiree chose the right path when she left Armand and took their child with her. The author writes, “Desiree had not changed the thin white garment nor the slippers which she wore. Her hair was uncovered and the sun's rays brought a golden gleam from its brown meshes. She did not take the broad, beaten road which led to the far-off plantation of Valmonde. She walked across a deserted field, where the stubble bruised her tender feet, so delicately shod, and tore her thin gown to shreds. 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” (69). Even though Desiree pleads to stay with him, she overall did the right thing. She turned away from the life she once had and never looked back again. She did not return to the plantation of Valmonde, which is where she was supposed to be going, but instead she walked off into the distance away from the misery that Armand had last brought to her when he told her to leave him.