The Awakening 281the post–Civil War stereotype of the freed slave and
turning it on its ear. The happy-go-lucky, childlike
blacks portrayed in other period novels are here
shown to be wily and manipulative. Meanwhile,
the victorious yet greedy whites from the North are
shown to be comfortable with the stereotype and to
some degree disingenuous about social conditions
in the region.
Uncle Julius is a freed slave who has chosen not
to leave the South. He does not necessarily like
whites, and he surely does not trust them. He uses
the stereotypical “Yas, suh” and “Lawd bless you, suh”
to cover up a natural shrewdness. The white narrator
decides that shrewdness is “not altogether African,”
thus preserving in his own mind the stereotype of
the blacks in general. But Uncle Julius is shrewd and
attempts to manipulate the white man by launch-
ing into a story about a cursed—or, as he calls it,
“goophered”—grapevine.
A story within the story explains the curse,
which was initiated in antebellum times. McAdoo,
the previous owner of the grapevine, did not like his
slaves to eat his grapes, so he cursed the grapevine
in such a way that if a slave ate of that vine, he
would dwindle away and die. Of course, the grapes
would not impact the whites in any way. A prize
slave, Henry, ate of the vine anyway and started to
decline, so McAdoo sought out the conjure woman
who made the curse and found a way to save the ill
slave, at least temporarily. Uncle Julius makes clear
his dislike for McAdoo and whites in general by tell-
ing the narrator how Henry would be sold for a high
price in the early spring when he was in the best of
condition. In the fall, as Henry’s stamina and vigor
collapsed, McAdoo would buy him back for a song.
This continued for several years until the vine and
Henry both died.
Chesnutt describes the white narrator in eco-
nomic terms. He is a man looking to bring intel-
ligence, attention, and money to the South in order
to develop it and make more money. He knows
grape culture, and so he looks at the grapevine in
question. He sees the African Americans in the
area as potential workers, sources of entertainment,
and background. They are of no real importance to
him and therefore no competition. “I was enough
of a pioneer to start a new industry,” he says of his
search for a vineyard. Further, he says that “labor was
cheap and land could be bought for a mere song.”
The northerner is indulgent of Uncle Julius’s story
and clearly humors the former slave with his ques-
tions. He does not believe the tale of the goophered
grapevine.
At the end of Uncle Julius’s story, he reiterates
his advice to the northerner not to buy the land. The
motivation behind the story and the recommenda-
tion is not hard to determine. Uncle Julius sees the
coming of the northerners as another influx of those
who would seek to exploit the land and the local
population, especially the blacks. He knows he can-
not truly fight such a situation, but he tries within
his means. The northerner assigns Uncle Julius an
economic motive because he makes a small income
from other blacks by harvesting what grapes survive.
The narrator only sees the potential profits and
not the costs. He is quite proud to say that he later
hired the former slave as a coachman. He soothes
whatever conscience he might have by deciding that
Julius’s wage is the equivalent of his takings from
the grapevine. Thus, the northerner does away with
Julius’s ability to take care of himself through his
own efforts and ingenuity, trapping him with mere
wages that allow for no advancement.
The conflict of the races in “The Goophered
Grapevine” is one of superiority and hypocrisy. A
white person can be progressive and succeed only by
severing the ability of a black person to do the same.
The whites like the status quo, which includes the
blacks in the role of servants with a docile, grateful,
and trusting manner. The black man can only use
subterfuge to try to survive that condescension and
economic exploitation.
Elizabeth MaliaCHOPIN, KATE The Awakening
(1899)
Very simply put, The Awakening is the story of a
housewife who grows dissatisfied with her life and
commits suicide. But The Awakening is a complex
narrative, and that simple summary does not begin
to do justice to these complexities.
In order to really understand the novel, one
must understand something about the culture that