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ornamental line

A Slender Stream at Best

"Race prejudice is the devil unchained" (117).
Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901)

 

Points for Reflection

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


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.
Mother of Harry O'Tanner
Henry Osawa Tanner


Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu