Delphine Duval

Character Analysis

Make-Over Artist

Okay, so Tilly is the narrator, right? But from the moment Delphine steps off the steamboat in Grand Tower, all eyes, including the reader's, are on her, so there's a strong argument that Delphine is the main character. Just check out how Tilly describes Delphine the first time she sees her:

A young lady was in the lead, in ballooning crinolines. Heavens, I'd never seen such skirts—rustling taffeta stretched wide over hoops. Her top part was encased in a cut-plush cape, with tassels. And her bonnet. My stars, I pushed people aside to get a look at it. A bonnet too dark to make out except for the ice-blue satin it was lined with, and a whole corsage of artificial violets planted inside next to her face. An enormous satin bow tied beneath her chin.

And then her face, framed with long dark curls beside the violets. Her eyes were large and darkly fringed. Her Cupid's bow of a mouth too dark to be as nature intended. She must be from New Orleans. No town between here and there could have produced her. (3.34-35)

Delphine is a vision—Tilly can't seem to help but fawn over her. And while some might feel uncomfortable with all eyes upon them, for Delphine, life is a performance. As Tilly says, "What must we all have looked like to her, listening openmouthed to her every word? It didn't seem to displease her" (3.48). Delphine, then, may not be able to help drawing the spotlight to her, but she certainly doesn't seem to mind standing in it, either.

Scene-Stealer

Let's posit a few reasons for Delphine's feeling that all the world's a stage. Well, her stage, to be specific.

At first glance, it seems like loving the spotlight is just part of her personality. Based simply on her grand exit from the boat, it seems she enjoys drawing attention to herself. It's hard to see Delphine's presentation of herself as an accident, what with her hair perfectly framing her face and such. She steps off the boat ready to be looked at.

On a deeper level, though, Delphine's performer status is a key part of what she's been raised to do. In order to attract a white partner in the plaçage system, Delphine has to make herself beautiful and put herself on display. Her success in making it as a free woman of color literally depends on it. So, what might seem superficial at first glance is actually Delphine in survival mode.

Along this line, Delphine may be acting under the assumption that the easiest place to hide is in plain sight. From the moment she leaves New Orleans, she's in constant danger of being found out. If someone figures out who she and Calinda actually are, they won't be safe from the web of intersecting and contradictory laws that govern the lives of people of color—and remember, the stakes at this point are enslavement. So, they're really high. Presenting herself as an intensely desirable white woman may be Delphine's best line of defense for herself and her sister.

Supporting this idea further is the fact that Delphine goes so far as to pretend that her son, young Dr. Hutchings, is actually the child of Tilly and old Dr. Hutchings. She is haunted by the prospect of her racial identity being discovered and willing to forfeit her position as a mother in hopes of keeping her son safe should her cover someday be blown. In the meantime, she stuns everyone around her with the performance of her beauty in hopes of keeping them from thinking too hard about who she is.

Confederate Sympathizer

Delphine makes no secret about her Southern leanings, even as she's nursing Northern soldiers in an army hospital. As a free person of color in New Orleans, Delphine finds herself in an odd position when it comes to slavery. She hasn't been enslaved herself, and her mother may even own slaves—many free people of color in her position do. Her white father definitely owns slaves. However, if the South loses the war, the delicate balance of this system will be upset, which Mrs. Hanrahan reminds Delphine of in no uncertain terms:

"[Y]ou'll be nothing better than a freed slave. You're not much higher than that right now. If the Yankees take New Orleans, that fancy life of yours'll come crashin' down." (12.22)

In other words, along with her loyalties to her father and her city, Delphine has very personal reasons for wanting the South to win: everything she knows and the life she's been prepared for will be wiped away if the South loses. Then again, if the North wins, there won't be any more slavery. In terms of Delphine's character, what we see here is a character torn between two worlds—which is what we see whenever we take a good, hard look at Delphine. She's a woman in the middle, doing her best to survive.