ornamental line

This Silent Grief

"She was in what might be called the chip-on-the-shoulder stage,
through which races as well as individuals must pass
in climbing the ladder of life” (29).
Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901)

 

Points for Reflection

C. Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901)

chps. 1-6

  1. Does the state of the weather outdoors in chapter one mirror the events inside the house, or provide a tonal counterpoint?
  2. Does Chesnutt’s employment of dialect and regional colloquialisms to capture Mammy Jane’s distinctive voice complicate your absorption of the intersecting family histories of the Merkells, Carterets, and Millers, or enrich your understanding?
  3. Does Jane’s superstition disqualify her as an agent of truth?
  4. Does Jane resist her subservient position in the Carteret family?
  5. Does romance between Sam Merkell and Julia develop before or after his wife’ s death?
  6. Is Major Carteret an admirable family man?
  7. Which has the deeper roots, Major Carteret’s racism or his classism?
  8. The narrator tells us that Mrs. Ochiltree has, with age, “lost in some measure the faculty of nice discrimination” and has begun to throw figurative barbs at virtually everyone, convinced that even friends “were sometimes the better for being told the truth” (17).  Is she a reliable truth-teller?
  9. Who seems more dangerous, Belmont or McBane?
  10. Does “Captain” McBane have any virtuous qualities?
  11. Does the racism of Belmont, McBane, and Carteret spring from shared motivational factors?
  12. Does each character’s physiognomy reliably signal their personality?  Do outward appearances, that is, positively correlate with internal traits?
  13. Does Chesnutt’s introduction of doctors Burns and Miller differ from his initial descriptions of other characters?
  14. In what ways has the abolition of slavery impacted the white working class?
  15. At what points does the narrator willfully betray his own opinions about character or ideology?  Does he tend to interrogate or perpetuate the prejudices of the time?
  16. The narrator observes that the young nurse working at the Carteret household deserves one paragraph in this novel about Southern life (29).  Are her social status and mindset representative of her generation alone, or does her liminality reflect that of an older black generation as well?
  17. After relocating on the train, Dr. Miller settles down to read an editorial about what subject?
  18. What shape does Dr. Miller’s “philosophy” take, and do you think Chesnutt wishes us to affirm Dr. Miller’s philosophical musings?
  19. Is Dr. Miller as classist as General Carteret?
  20. Does our author, Charles Chesnutt, share Dr. Miller’s optimism, his belief “that the race antagonism which hampered his progress and that of his people was a mere temporary thing, the outcome of former conditions, and bound to disappear in time” (43)?
  21. Does Janet’s desire for an unattainable family connection make her weak?
  22. Chesnutt’s narrator and Dr. William Miller both deploy the word “nature” to denote the internal character of individuals and groups.  Do they appear to believe that “nature” can empower, as well as weaken, individuals?

chps. 7-15

  1. Do the novel’s three doctors share similar values?
  2. As configured by Chesnutt, does a majority of the voting population in North Carolina wish to repeal the 15th amendment?
  3. Does the relative power of the three conspirators mirror that of their differing rank?  Is General Belmont, the most senior in military rank, the most influential, followed by Major Carteret and then “Captain” McBane?
  4. General Belmont speaks of purity of the plotters’ motives, and flavors his rhetoric with ideas culled from The Bible and other literature--as when he suggests that they “‘avoid even the appearance of evil’” (I Thess. 5:22), affirms McBane’s transparency with “‘An honest man’s the noblest work of God’” (4.248 from Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Man”), and declares that “‘A good name is better than great riches’” (Prov. 22:1).  Why might Chesnutt allow a die-hard racist, to cite these sources in this way (52-53)?
  5. Why does General Belmont prefer that black Americans be free?
  6. In a letter to one Mrs. W. B. Henderson, Chesnutt observes that his novel was “criticized as being bitter” though he “did not intend it to be so” (Norton 211).  What do you think?  Does bitterness undergird The Marrow of Tradition?
  7. Does Jerry’s preoccupation with money make him mercenary or practical?
  8. General Belmont recommends that Major Carteret have a talk with his nephew, Tom, about his card-playing and liquor (58), a suggestion Carteret takes to heart.  How does Tom respond to the “mild lecture” given him by his uncle, and what does this reveal about his character?
  9. Is Tom Delamere a mirror image of his grandfather, Mr. Delamere?
  10. When questioned about Tom’s behavior, does Ellis close ranks and refuse to say anything incriminating?
  11. Does Clara know herself well, according to the narrator?
  12. Do Tom and Major Carteret share the same assumption about the impact of marriage on men?
  13. What does Mrs. Janet Carteret make of Mammy Jane’s superstitious beliefs?
  14. By what ethical code does Josh Green abide?
  15. Does Dr. Miller approve of Josh Green’s trajectory?
  16. Does Chesnutt appear divided between the divergent opinions of Josh Green and Dr. Miller, or does the novel appear to implicitly support one man’s position more than the other’s?
  17. How has Mrs. Ochiltree’s aging impacted her cognitive function?


chps. 16-24

  1. What observation does Chesnutt make, tangentially, about clearcutting?
  2. What revelations about human psychology does chapter 16 make?
  3. What do the obstacles encountered by Tom, and his response to those barriers, reveal about both the psychological and spiritual dimensions of his character?
  4. Why might the narrator promptly discontinue the analysis of Tom’s interiority begun in chapter 17?
  5. Does Olivia Carteret’s reaction to traumatic loss mark her as “abnormal”?
  6. Does Chesnutt’s narrator justify the tendency to assume a black culprit when tracking down the perpetrator of a crime?
  7. What is the unspoken but strongly implied accusation undergirding the observations made by McBane and Carteret in chapter 21?
  8. Does Jerry’s reaction to the event currently rocking Wellington match that of the trio that regularly convenes in the Morning Chronicle?
  9. Is Mr. Delamere’s belief in the power of familial influences to shape one’s character and values well-founded?


chps. 25-31

  1. Does Mr. Delamere’s explanation of the factors shaping both law-abiding and criminally behaving black folk give white communities too much, too little, or just enough responsibility?
  2. Does Major Carteret’s point about the limited reliability of environmental factors--in shaping character—hold water?
  3. While Chesnutt makes it easy to make a simple, up or down judgment concerning characters like “Captain” McBane and Dr. William Miller, other figures occupy a gray middle.  Where does Chesnutt wish us to place characters like Dr. Price (see chps. 7 & 22) and, more recently, Mr. Ellis?
  4. What palpable outcomes arise from Mr. Delamere’s discoveries about Tom’s behavior? 
  5. Why does Mr. Delamere agree to publicly voice a lie?
  6. With what tone does Chesnutt’s narrator observe that “the workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe” (139)?  
  7. What does the narrator’s report about the aftermath of the near-lynching reveal about the way press releases work?
  8. Why are Mr. Delamere’s wishes, concerning his estate, suppressed?  
  9. Why might Chesnutt decline to explore Tom’s psychology in depth?
  10. Who hires Sandy after the near-fatal debacle?
  11. What impact does church involvement have on Sandy’s behavior?
  12. What array of changes/shifts follow in the wake of the near-lynching?
  13. Does Ellis gradually become a more praiseworthy sort of fellow, or would we do better to characterize him as decidedly unheroic?
  14. What does the narrator reveal about the psychological factors underpinning U.S. aggression, both in the Spanish-American War of 1898, and in increased hostility towards black U.S. citizens?
  15. How do some in the South go about stealing the vote from the black population?
  16. Does Chesnutt’s narrator share the despair of the black population he describes?
  17. What exactly do the conspirators, convening at the Morning Chronicle, hope to achieve?
  18. Is the rhetoric and language of Belmont, Carteret, and McBane distinct enough that you can distinguish among them without being directly told which one is currently speaking?
  19. What important factor do the conspirators leave out of their calculations, according to the narrator?
  20. The narrator explains that Olivia Carteret “was a good woman, according to her lights, with a cultivated conscience, to which she had always looked as her mentor and infallible guide” (160).  Do chapter thirty’s contents support or question this self-evaluation?
  21. In The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Sigmund Freud highlights the role played by “objective sensory excitations” occurring outside the body in creating dream content (62).  What such external variable shapes Mrs. Olivia Carteret’s troubled dream in chapter thirty-one?
  22. Does the internal conflict which wracks Mrs. Olivia Carteret in chapter thirty-one make her more sympathetic, or less so?
  23. In a letter written to Chesnutt by W. E. B. Du Bois (March 8 1902), Du Bois declares the novel “one of the best sociological studies of the Wilmington Riot which I have seen” (Norton Critical 210).  In your own estimation, what sociological truths does the novel effectively illustrate?


chps. 32-37

  1. Does Josh’s family spur or slow his rush towards vengeance?
  2. Does their faithfulness to the Carteret family hold “Mammy” Jane and Jerry in good stead?
  3. With what tone does the narrator describe the armed white men as “brave” and “reformers” (177)?
  4. To whom does the narrator apply this passage from The Bible, found in Galatians 6:7?  “As a man sows, so shall he reap.”
  5. Which of our characters publicly labels the violent mayhem “murder” and “madness”?
  6. What does Major Carteret initially believe will be the response to his dire request in chapter thirty-six?
  7. Does Janet finally receive what she has longed for these past 25 years, and in the manner in which she has longed to receive it?


a two-tone painting of a castle-like structure to the right side in all black with a tall tower and wall surrounding it near a body of water. the water and sky are golds and ambers.
Woman from the West Indies (1891)
Henry Osawa Tanner


Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu