The Wife of His Youth, and Other Stories of the Color Line by Charles Waddell Chesnutt
"The Wife of His Youth, and Other Stories of the Color Line" by Charles Waddell Chesnutt is a collection of short stories that delves into the complexities of race relations in post-Civil War America. Chesnutt's work confronts the social constructs surrounding the "color line," exploring themes of identity, heritage, and the moral dilemmas faced by individuals navigating a racially divided society. The narratives often feature characters grappling with their mixed racial backgrounds and the implications of societal expectations, as seen in stories like "The Sheriff's Children," where a young man confronts his father, a white sheriff, amidst a lynching attempt.
Chesnutt's storytelling is notable for its focus on the internal struggles of both Black and white characters, challenging readers to confront uncomfortable truths about prejudice and familial ties. He also examines racial dynamics within the Black community, as demonstrated in "The Wife of His Youth," which highlights the tensions between social status and personal loyalty. Through a blend of tragedy, humor, and introspection, Chesnutt's work serves as a critical lens on the racial issues of his time, aiming to illuminate the often-overlooked emotional costs of racial prejudice and the quest for acceptance. This collection is essential for those interested in understanding the historical context of race in America and the enduring impact of these themes in contemporary society.
The Wife of His Youth, and Other Stories of the Color Line by Charles Waddell Chesnutt
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1899
Type of work: Short stories
The Work
Chesnutt summarized the theme of his second book of short stories in a letter to his publisher written a few months before it came out:
I should like to hope that the stories, while written to depict life as it is, in certain aspects that no one has ever before attempted to adequately describe, may throw a light upon the great problem on which the stories are strung; for the backbone of this volume is not a character, like Uncle Julius in The Conjure Woman, but a subject, as indicated in the title—The Color Line.
Chesnutt’s more direct approach to these highly charged racial issues presented a challenge that the conservative reading public often proved unwilling to meet. Particularly shocking to contemporary critics were such stories as “The Sheriff’s Children,” in which a young man of mixed race, Tom, is arrested as a murder suspect in a small town in North Carolina about ten years after the Civil War. A lynch mob attempts to break into the prison to hang him without a trial but is driven away by Sheriff Campbell. Tom then gains possession of the sheriff’s gun and reveals that he is the son of Campbell and a slave woman whom Campbell had sold. Just as he is about to shoot the sheriff, Tom is shot and wounded by Campbell’s daughter and disarmed. Campbell spends the night contemplating his past and decides to atone for his moral crime of neglect against his son, whom he now believes to be innocent of the murder. When he returns to the jail the next morning, however, his son has torn off the bandage on his wound and bled to death in an apparent suicide.
Chesnutt focuses on the internal point of view of the relatively sympathetic white sheriff in the last third of the narrative, providing white readers with a moral role model within the story. Campbell’s miscegenation and the lynch-mob scene, however, are more direct attacks on white society’s treatment of African Americans than anything in the earlier book. Even in a story of superficially successful “passing” and miscegenation such as “Her Virginia Mammy,” in which a young, mixed-race woman is kept ignorant of her black ancestry so that she may marry a rich white man, the emphasis is on the emotional cost to the black mother, who must never acknowledge their relationship, rather than on the daughter’s happy future.
Particularly interesting are a series of tales that analyze the hitherto seldom-explored subject of racial prejudice within the black community. “The Wife of His Youth” presents the positive example of a prominent and wealthy leader of the “Blue Vein Society” (“no one was eligible for membership who was not white enough to show blue veins”), who publicly acknowledges his long-lost wife, an illiterate former slave with very dark skin. “A Matter of Principle” complements “The Wife of His Youth” with the humorous negative example of a light-skinned man whose bias against darker blacks costs his daughter a chance at a successful marriage.
Bibliography
Duncan, Charles. The Absent Man: The Narrative Craft of Charles W. Chesnutt. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998.
Kulii, Elon A. “Poetic License and Chesnutt’s Use of Folklore.” CLA Journal 38 (December, 1994): 247-253.
Lehman, Cynthia L. “The Social and Political View of Charles Chesnutt: Reflections on His Major Writings.” Journal of Black Studies 26 (January, 1996).
McElrath, Joseph R., Jr., ed. Critical Essays on Charles W. Chesnutt. New York: G. K. Hall, 1999.
McFatter, Susan. “From Revenge to Resolution: The (R)evolution of Female Characters in Chesnutt’s Fiction.” CLA Journal 42 (December, 1998): 194-211.
McWilliams, Dean. Charles W. Chesnutt and the Fictions of Race. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002.
Pickens, Ernestine Williams. Charles W. Chesnutt and the Progressive Movement. New York: Pace University Press, 1994.
Render, Sylvia Lyons. Charles W. Chesnutt. Boston: Twayne, 1980.
Wilson, Matthew. Whiteness in the Novels of Charles W. Chesnutt. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004.
Wonham, Henry B. Charles W. Chesnutt: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1998.