power of the past and the ways in which it roots it-
self in the present day. A member of the mahogany
family and a tree that is native to China, it is
known for being invasive, because its seeds are eas-
ily spread by birds and animals, and it is drought re-
sistant. It produces yellow leaves in the autumn and
yellow berries during winter. The tree featured in
the novel grows from a sapling to a towering speci-
men, and it is Francis Holloway who brings it to
Red Brook from Alabama. It becomes “the visible
measure of Frank’s love for Sal” despite his inability
to openly declare his deep feelings for her (Davis,
xxv). Every day, Aunt Sal sits under the tree “on
the circular hexagonal seat which ran around it and
remembered. Laurentine too used to sit under the
tree and thought that she could not remember any
time in her life when it had not cast its shadow on
the side lawn” (Fauset, 2). Fauset’s novel suggests
that time does provide women like Sal and future
generations with increased opportunities for re-
demption and public affirmations of their virtue.
Laurentine ultimately marries Dr. Denleigh, a man
who focuses on the woman she is, rather than on
the allegedly illicit circumstances of her birth.
According to some critics, The Chinaberry Tree
was the weakest of Fauset’s novels. While Fauset
herself admitted that she preferred her first two
books, she offered a persuasive assessment of the
goals she tried to reach. “In the story of Aunt Sal,
Laurentine, Melissa and the Chinaberry Tree,” she
wrote in her Author’s Foreword to the novel, “I have
depicted something of the homelife of the colored
American who is not being pressed too hard by the
Furies of Prejudice, Ignorance, and Economic Injus-
tice. And behold he is not so vastly different from
any other American, just distinctive” (Fauset, ix).
The novel prompted many in the Harlem Renais-
sance community to praise Fauset for creating what
ALAINLOCKEreferred to as “one of the accomplish-
ments of Negro fiction” (Davis, xxxi). In his review,
Locke suggested that Fauset “handle[d]” the
“tragedy of mixed blood” and that she did so “very
competently, with conviction, force and reserve”
(Davis, xxxi). ZONAGALE, who authored the intro-
duction to the book, reinforced the growing notion
that Fauset was a writer concerned with propriety
and respectability. “She foregoes the color, the rich-
ness, the possibility of travesty and comedy and the
popular appeal of the uneducated Negro with his di-
alect and idiom, his limited outlook,” she observed.
“She has turned to this other field,” noted Gale, one
“less spectacular and, to the ‘General Public’ less
convincing because so little standardized” (Fauset,
vii). Gale also referenced Fauset’s sophisticated back-
ground and “her American and European experi-
ences” as she underscored the impressive class motifs
that, according to her, represented a new and impor-
tant constituency among American readers and
African-American characters. “From the homes of
the thousands of the members of the National Feder-
ation of Colored Women to the homes of college
professors at Hampton or Tuskegee, Howard or
Wilberforce,” she insisted, “these Americans are try-
ing for a life of reason and culture” and “such people
are to be met, not only in New York and Chicago,
but in the smaller towns of the East, the Middle
West, and the South” (Fauset, viii).
Thadious Davis, who suggests that Fauset’s
Sarah is a modern-day version of Nathaniel Haw-
thorne’s Hester Prynne, notes also that the novel il-
lustrates “the bounded lives and subjectivities” of
the Strange women whose “carefully structured
family drama... has the overlay of Greek tragedy”
(Davis, xxi). Indeed, there are many powerful links
between Fauset’s novel and others. As Davis also
notes, Fauset’s use of the chinaberry tree becomes a
useful model for ZORANEALEHURSTON, who en-
dows a pear tree in her celebrated THEIREYES
WEREWATCHINGGOD(1937) with great social and
sexual significance (Davis, xxv). More recently, the
children’s fiction writer William Miller continued
the connection in his historical fiction entitled Zora
Hurston and the Chinaberry Tree, a tale based on
Zora’s response to the death of her mother and the
comforting horizons that she is able to see when she
climbs a chinaberry tree to escape the oppressive
sadness of her family home.
The Chinaberry Tree is one of Fauset’s most
evocative novels, a work in which she grapples
most deliberately with the complicated legacies of
slavery, caste, and racial segregation.Bibliography
“The End of Desireand Other Works of Fiction.” New
York Times,10 January 1932, BR7.
Davis, Thadious. “Introduction” in Jessie Redmon
Fauset—The Chinaberry Tree: A Novel of American
Life.New York: G. K. Hall, 1995.80 Chinaberry Tree, The: A Novel of American Life