Charles W. Chestnutt
Background and Discussion Questions
Discussion:
How critical or satirical of blacks is
Chesnutt in his portrayal of them?
 Does he treat them with sympathy, even
when they behave foolishly?
 Is Chesnutt's satire biting and distant or
self-involving and tolerant?

There's rarely one source of authority in
a Chesnutt story.
 Different points of view compete for
authority.

 Identify the different points of view and play
them against each other.
Chesnutt's Social Purposes

How could stories about slavery have
any bearing on the situation of blacks
and on race relations at the turn of the
century--when Chesnutt wrote--and
today?
Major Themes, Historical
Perspectives, and Personal Issues

Major themes include the following:
Chesnutt's attitude toward the Old South;
the myth of the plantation and the happy
darkey, the mixed-blood (monster or
natural and even an evolutionary
improvement); and miscegenation* as a
natural process, not something to be
shocked by.
(*sexual relations between people of different races,
especially of different skin colors, leading to the
birth of children)
Significant Form, Style, or Artistic
Conventions

Chesnutt wrote during the era of literary
realism.
 What is his relationship to realism, its
standards, its themes, its ideas about
appropriateness of subject matter and tone?
Original Audience

Chesnutt wrote for genteel magazine
readers much less critical and aware of
their racism than we.
 How does he both appeal to and gently
undermine that audience's assumptions?
Discussion questions

What predicaments of postemancipation life are presented in the
story?
Discussion questions

What is the unique predicament of those
of "mixed blood"?
Discussion questions

What stratifications* have evolved in
African American society by the 1890s,
as portrayed in this story?
 (*to stratify means to form castes, classes, or
other groups based on status, or be formed into
such groups)
Discussion questions
How do the Blue Veins construct the
past in order to accept former slaves
into their ranks?
 What is the "shadow hanging over
them"?

Discussion questions

Characterize the identities that Mr.
Ryder and 'Liza Jane have created for
themselves. What is gained and lost in
their choices?
Discussion questions

Is Mr. Ryder free of "race prejudice"?
Discussion questions

Judge Mr. Ryder's response to his
ethical dilemma. Does he make his
decision before the ball or after
presenting his dilemma to the Blue
Veins? What will he do after the ball, in
your opinion?
Discussion questions

Relate Mr. Ryder's belief that "Selfpreservation is the first law of nature" to
the dilemma and outcome of this story.
Does Chesnutt sympathize with his
character, Mr. Ryder?
Discussion questions

Why does Chesnutt omit white society's
view of the Blue Veins from this story?
Comparisons, Contrasts,
Connections

Chesnutt wrote to counter the stories of
Thomas Nelson Page and Joel Chandler
Harris. Chesnutt might also be
compared to Paul Laurence Dunbar and
Frederick Douglass as depicters of
blacks on the plantation before the Civil
War.