Marrow of Tradition, The
Charles W. Chesnutt (1901)
The Marrow of Tradition is one of CHARLES W.
CHESNUTT’s most controversial books. Following
the success of his two short story collections, The
Conjure Woman and The Wife of His Youth and
Other Stories of the Color Line (1899), Chesnutt
worked on The House behind the Cedars (1900).
Chesnutt was certain that his next work, an epic
account of the Wilmington, North Carolina, race
riots, would signal his arrival as a serious novelist.
However, The Marrow of Tradition (1901), now
considered one of most important works in Af-
rican-American literature, met with little critical
acclaim. William Dean Howells, Chesnutt’s edi-
tor, called the novel “bitter.” Most readers found
its unflinching portrait of Jim Crow segrega-
tion, white supremacy, and lynching too realistic,
though by today’s standards the novel would be
considered tame.
Set in the fictional town of Wellington, North
Carolina, The Marrow of Tradition traces the lives
of the Miller and Carteret families. The Millers
(he is a medical doctor) represent rising mid-
dle-class black families of the post-Reconstruc-
tion South, while the Carterets represent the old
guard, southern plantation aristocracy. Janet
Miller, as the result of a prevailing plantation
concubine system, is Olivia Carteret’s half sis-
ter. Throughout the novel, Chesnutt emphasizes
doubles—each major character has a counterpart
illustrating the interrelatedness of the American
community—white and black alike. Chesnutt
also uses the metaphor of the double to highlight
one of his prevalent themes, “second slavery,” a
term used to suggest that the problems of race
in the post-Reconstruction South were as violent
and dehumanizing—if not worse—than in the
antebellum period.
Chesnutt uses his principal characters, Dr. Wil-
liam Miller, Janet (his wife), Major Carteret, and
Olivia, to explore the complicated foundations of
blood relationships that obscure the path to heal-
ing for the South and the nation. Unable to for-
get the largely mythologized “glorious” past of the
South and accept the changes occurring in the
present, the Carterets deny kinship rites and par-
ticipate in both legal and unlawful measures to se-
cure their status as powerful whites. Carteret, who
considers blacks “an inferior and servile race” (25),
“believed in the divine rights of white men and
gentlemen as his ancestors had believed” (34). To
ensure that Janet and her black mother, Julia, who
was legally married to Olivia and Janet’s father,
William Merkell, at the time of his death, will not
be recognized as legitimate heirs, Polly Ochiltree,
Olivia’s aunt, chases Julia and Janet away and hides
the documents that confirm Janet’s legal right to
half the estate.
Whites’ fear of “Negro domination” forms
a threat to the community and leads to a near-
lynching and the riot that results in the death of
numerous African Americans. Miller, a doctor
light enough to “pass,” resists the urge to violence
but ultimately cannot forgive his white neighbors
for the tragedy that befalls his family when his in-
fant son is killed by a stray bullet during the riot.
Significantly, although Chesnutt peoples his novels
with the familiar literary black stereotypes popu-
larized by plantation local color fiction, he imbues
the characters, for the most part, with admirable
moral qualities. Jude Green, a dark-skinned Af-
rican American and the epitome of the “Negro
beast,” becomes the quintessential warrior and
champion of equal rights. During the riots, he in-
trepidly declares, “we ain’ gwine ter stan’ up an’ be
shot downward like dogs. We’re gwine ter defen’
ou’ lives, an’ we ain’ gwine ter run away f ’m no
place where we’ve got a right ter be” (281).
Chesnutt’s moral voice of the tale is Janet Miller,
who is able to overcome her grief and anger and
offer compassion and forgiveness to those who
have wronged her and her family. In the end, the
reader is not certain if Chesnutt’s tone is optimis-
tic or cautious: “there’s time but none to spare.”
If America cannot find honest, healthy, and open
means to deal with its troubled past, its children
and its future will be irrevocably lost.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chesnutt, Charles W. The Marrow of Tradition. New
York: Penguin, 1993.Marrow of Tradition, The 335