Madame John Character Analysis

Madame John is a character in the story “Tite Poulette.” She is a free Creole woman living in New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase. One major aspect of the story is that Madame John chose to keep her daughter’s race a secret from her for a long time. Though some would think it was selfish of her, there are a few reasons why Madame John’s choice to keep the racial secret appears to be motivated by a mother’s love. As a fever nurse, Madame John took care of sick people. Among her many patients were a Spanish couple. The couple died days after each other “and left an infant,” which happened to be Tite Poulette (200). Madame John raised Tite Poulette, who the story is named after, as her own daughter. Madame John kept the fact that Tite Poulette
One reason why Madame John’s secret can be read as selfless is because it allowed her to raise Tite Poulette as her own and thus with her ideals of equality. Tite Poulette did not believe that a person of a certain race was better than others and, Madame John’s decision to keep her secret had a part in that. Tite Poulette said, “God made us just a as we are” meaning that they are made perfect and they don’t have to claim something they are not be to have a better life (191). Not telling Tite Poulette about her real racial identity helped her to be a different person than what she might have been. Growing up, Tite Poulette saw how hard her mom worked for her to make However, the most important thing that Madame John wanted was for her daughter to find love and get married. It was so important to Madame John that Tite Poulette got married that she even asked Tite Poulette to “lie” about her racial identity and say that she was “white”. In a conversation with Tite Poulette, Madame John said, “ ‘If any gentleman should ever love you and ask to marry you— not knowing you,— promise me you will not tell him you are not white’ ” (192). The fact that Madame tells Tite Poulette to lie about her racial identity in order to find love shows how important she thought it was to be married. Madame John, primarily, wanted Tite Poulette to lie about her identity because she did not have a typical relationship
If Tite Poulette knew that she was Spaniard she would have married any person that asked for her hand in marriage. Instead, Tite Poulette was hesitant and scared to break the law. In conversations with Madame John, when she asked Tite Poulette to lie about her racial identity Tite Poulette would respond by saying, “And break the law” and did not care about what her mother had to say and insisted that “But it is the law” and it should not be broken (192). Tite Poulette never questioned whether Madame John was lying to her about her identity, she believed that her mom was telling the truth. When Madame John asked Tite Poulette to lie about her identity she said, “it can never be,” because she did not want to lie and did not think it was the right thing to do (192) . It was until in a later conversation with Madame John when she agreed that she was willing to break it was revealed. If Madame did not talk to Tite Pouellte about breaking the law and lying about her race, she probably would of never thought about it. When Madame told the truth about Tite Poulette’s racial identity it was for a happy ending. Ultimately this proves Madame’s John love for Tite Poulette because she let her marry and leave home for better