¶ … Patriarchy to Another
It starts early. Socialization into the social system we call patriarchy starts at birth when we put pink on "beautiful" and "angelic" girls and blue on "handsome" and "tough" baby boys. We hold baby girls so they can see into our faces, as we talk to them. We hold baby boys so they can see what's going on in the room. That's how the process begins. We are the recipients, either willingly or unwillingly, of a patriarchal legacy. What probably began in prehistoric times as a cooperative system for survival has become an albatross. We are stuck with living in a patriarchal society where women are oppressed. And it is certainly not a local phenomenon. "Desiree's Baby" and "No Name Woman" are two stories from far-off cultures, but patriarchy as a system is as much in evidence in those places, if not more so, as it is here. In this essay we will compare and contrast the two stories, explore the nature and resolution of the conflict in each story, and the characters, setting, and themes.
In both stories the birth of a child triggers the central conflict. In "Desiree's Baby" the baby, born into a rich plantation family, is black in a society where black slaves are treated as the lowest and most contemptible of all human beings. In "No Name Woman" the child is illegitimate, the result of adultery, and thought to be the reason for poor crops, illness, and bad fortune in the community. In both stories the mother is blamed. Desiree, who just "appeared" one day on a doorstep when she was very young is assumed to be the carrier of African genes. Because the baby is black, it must have got its "blackness" from Desiree whose background is unknown. In "No Name Woman" the narrator's aunt had sexual relations, no one knows whether consensual or not, with someone while her husband was away working. In both stories, the fathers themselves blame the mothers. In "Desiree" the husband learns to hate his once-beloved wife because of his shame and...
The irony is that he is actually the carrier of the black gene that shows up in the baby. In "No name" the father is someone in the community and probably is present during the violent destruction of the family's home. Neither father is willing to take any responsibility for his child. Likewise, in both stories the conflict is resolved through the self-destruction of the woman. Desiree and her baby disappear into the wilderness and are never seen again. "No name" drowns herself in the family's well.
In both stories the setting contributes greatly to the action. Desiree lives on a plantation where slaves are kept as property and are not paid for their labor. Slavery was a system in which it was all right for the master to impregnate his female slaves in order to produce more slaves (for free, he didn't have to buy them), but it was not all right for him to marry a black woman or for his legitimate heirs to be black because that would elevate blacks socially, and slavery depended on the control and domination of one race over another. Patriarchy is more than the relationship between men and women. It is a system that organizes the entire world around domination, control, and competition. The Chinese village where "No Name" lives is a superstitious place where people depend on "the gods" to favor their crops and their fertility. If a man and woman displease the gods by breaking the rules, then some sort of sacrifice must be made to appease them. Who they sacrifice shows the difference in value they place on males and females. Plus, it's a system of control devised by men. They are not going to sacrifice themselves.
Girls are socialized to be quiet, docile, and conforming. Desiree and No Name, the main characters in the two stories are both women who have been successfully socialized into patriarchy. They cooperate with the patriarchal system. Indeed, like most women, they take it for granted and are probably unconscious…
