Anatomy of Disaster
Tragedies leave a dark fingerprint on one’s life and can become historical. The racial riot of Wilmington, NC in November 1898 was the very fingerprint that led Charles W. Chesnutt to construct his novel: The Marrow of Tradition. Throughout the novel, Chesnutt creates character dichotomies that represent reform-minded citizens and racist-minded citizens. While some characters portray a non-confrontational approach to race relations, others are stronger in their will in the fight for racial equality and for white supremacy. Chesnutt, having dealt with the trials and tribulations of his race being suppressed, uses the literary elements of irony and foreshadowing to demonstrate his view of racial caste. Although the South was in a Reconstruction phase, the Jim Crow laws were very much a part of Southern living. Through the characters Dr. Miller and Josh Green, Chesnutt gives a glimpse of the Jim Crow law of race segregation in train travel. In this novel, Chesnutt addresses the idea of assimilation and makes references to Booker T. Washington’s policies of approaching race relations in a non-confrontational manner. The white reader is forced to see the repercussions of their white supremacy notions and an analysis of the way African Americans view them as a race.
The character dichotomies that Chesnutt creates for his reader deepen the novel’s portrayal of the rising African American middle-class and the struggle of aristocrats post the civil war. Chesnutt does not discriminate in developing his characters. The servants Sandy and Jerry seem alike on the surface. Both are submissive and know that their livelihood depends on the Anglo-Saxon; however, Sandy is straight as an arrow, for he has been brought up by the distinguished Delamere family. Jerry, on the other hand, is simply a servant/worker for Carteret. He is not viewed by his master in the manner that Sandy is. Carteret is a white supremacist and Jerry is “not one of...