In Kate Chopin's story Desiree's Baby, Desiree is a girl without a name. When she is toddler age, she is found by a couple who takes her in and loves her as though she is their own child. Eighteen years later, Armand Aubigny falls in love with her. Desiree loves him desperately, as if he were a god.
One senses from reading the story that Desiree's love stems from the fact that he loves her. She is a woman without a name - and while she loves the people who have raised her - Armand can give her what she longs for. He gives her a name, a family of her own, and a home. She may see Armand as her rescuer.
Even when Armand's temper flairs, and he beats his slaves, Desiree trembles, but still loves him. When Armand smiles, she "asked no greater blessing of God." Perhaps she fears invoking Armand's wrath, sensing that he could just as easily hate her as love her. Desiree is dependent on Armand's love for security and in order to feel complete. She has already been rejected or abandoned once; would her heart survive another rejection?
Ironically, Armand does cease to love her when he discovers that their child is not white. He hates Desiree for "the unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name."
Armand tell her to leave and she takes the baby and disappears into the bayou, never to return.
By putting all of her hopes, her trust, and her love into Armand, she made him into a god. A god who had the power to give when pleased, and the power to take away when the one who worshipped him displeased.
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