Stories about the tragic mulatto have evoked feelings of anger, racism, and sympathy since the 19th century. In Kate Chopin's story “Desiree's Baby,” Desiree plays the role of the tragic mulatto. This is a person who believes they are white, but discovers that they are actually black. There are three categories of tragic mulattoes and they are often women. The first is a woman beautiful enough to pass for white. She falls in love with a white man, but her mixed identity is revealed and the story ends terribly. The second is a woman who appears white and hides her “mixed-race status” by lying. It is accepted as European or Spanish. Once his identity is discovered, he loses his place in the community. Ultimately she is a woman who is socially accepted and valued, but once her black heritage is recognized, she is forced into slavery and sexually dominated by her slave master. Desiree is a racial stereotype in the story because her ancestry is unknown. Peel states that “Desiree questions the meaning of race, gender, and class” (Peel 223). Based solely on her appearance, she is considered white and adopted by a white family. When Armand, her husband, interprets the appearance of their child, he assumes that “the child and the mother are not white” (225). Her missing identity forces her to behave like the tragic mulatto. Racial identity is determined by family history in which the assumption of race occurs through skin color. The story takes place in an "antebellum Creole community governed by institutions based on seemingly clear dualities: master over slave, white over black, and man over woman" (224). The South was marked by a racial system known as the “one drop rule,” which meant that “any person with a drop of black blood was considered black… middle of the paper… His whole life he believed he knew himself. In the end Desiree is the most tragic mulatto. She is white but plays the role of a mulatto and kills herself together with the child. Works Cited Shen, Dan. “Implied Authorship, General Consideration, and Subtext of “Désirée's Baby.” Poetics Today 31.2 (2010): 285. Advanced Placement Source. Web. March 26, 2014. Chopin, Kate. “Desiree's Baby.” Literature and the writing process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan '." American Literature 2 (1990): 223. JSTOR Arts and Sciences I. Web April 6. 2014.