46 pages • 1 hour read
Charles W. ChesnuttThe Marrow of Tradition
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1901A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The “Poetry” of Racism Versus the Reality of Racism
Many of the novel’s white characters are biased against their Black neighbors, but their bias takes different forms. Major Carteret and Belmont believe that their racism is both gentlemanly and poetic: Their goal is to uplift their race and reestablish what they take to be the natural, harmonic order. When they want to overthrow the democratically elected government and its Black representatives, they thus must be careful: They do not want to be perceived as evil but rather to convince others of the rightness and justness of their cause. It is telling that Major Carteret runs a newspaper, harnessing the power of words to serve his cause.
McBane, by contrast, is more to the point: He openly states that he aims to keep Black men down because it serves his desires and interests, and he is willing to achieve them by any means necessary, including lynching and murder. He repeatedly accuses Major Carteret and Belmont of hypocrisy, questioning the point of pretending that there is something beautiful about their enterprise when its goal is simply the subjugation of one race. The massacre in some sense vindicates McBane, proving that there is no distinction between “respectable” white supremacy and violent racial hatred.
The novel depicts these differing attitudes as roughly corresponding to class: McBane’s father was an overseer, while the aristocratically born Southerners are more concerned with the outer appearance of their actions than with dissecting their true intent. They find McBane’s remarks distasteful and loathe working with him, and they maintain a distinction until the end: Major Carteret and Belmont hang back from the fray during the massacre, whereas McBane attacks a hospital, which even at the time would be viewed as an egregiously unacceptable target for violence. Nevertheless, Carteret and Belmont must work with him, as their “poetic” cause can only be supported through violence, bloodshed, and the mobilization of hatred. In depicting these complex dynamics, Chesnutt alludes to the way the white ruling class wielded appeals to racism to ensure the white working class directed any violence at Black Americans rather than at the system that disenfranchised all but a wealthy elite.
Respectability Politics in the Face of Racism
Dr. Miller and his wife, Janet, seek to integrate themselves into the Wellington community and have no desire to stir the pot. Dr. Miller has lived and studied abroad and could choose to live somewhere with less racism but is determined to help his community by building a hospital to treat the Black population of Wellington.
Dr. Miller and Janet strive to be acceptable to their white neighbors, and Dr. Miller sincerely believes they will eventually achieve this end. He endures the segregation of a train car and his friend Dr. Burns’s anger on his behalf without question. He does not involve himself in political affairs and sees the op-ed on interracial marriage in the Afro-American Banner as unnecessary and even pointlessly inflammatory. Janet, likewise, wishes nothing more than to be accepted by her white half sister Olivia and hopes against hope that this will happen without her active intervention. Even when a riot breaks out, Dr. Miller is convinced that the white men will not harm women or children, nor will they burn down hospitals or schools.
The Millers’ reward for their efforts is the death of their only son and the destruction of the hospital at the hands of their neighbors. For all their efforts, they cannot achieve “respectability” in the eyes of Wellington’s white residents. It is only when Dodie’s life is on the line that this status quo shifts at all. When a life-or-death matter eclipses Major Carteret’s racism, he and Olivia finally seek out and acknowledge the Millers. However, the price of this acceptance is so high that Janet rejects the Merkell name and estate, symbolically rejecting the white supremacist society into which she and her husband once sought entrance.
The Power of the Press
The Afro-American Banner and Morning Chronicle are at the center of this novel, revealing that the written word can be a powerful force for both good and evil.
For the novel’s Black characters, the existence of the Afro-American Banner is a triumph in and of itself. Belmont and Carteret mock the paper’s cheap production values, and some of the content—advertisements for hair straighteners and skin lighteners—reflects its readers’ internalized racism. Nevertheless, the novel notes the paper’s significance as one written by and for a population that was subject to enforced illiteracy under enslavement: The mere ability to share one’s concerns and opinions publicly represents a means of combatting white supremacy and uplifting one’s community.
Exercising that power is not simple, however. An op-ed against lynching in the case of interracial marriage backfires by presenting unscrupulous characters like Carteret and Belmont with a tool for inflaming racism. Belmont, an astute politician, sees that one end could be achieved by immediately lynching its writer—but another is possible if they use it to frame public opinion. When the race riot breaks out, it is because of a long campaign in which newspapers are the primary weapons for turning public opinion against the town’s Black residents. Likewise, Sandy is almost lynched because of a special edition of the Morning Chronicle. When his lynching is forestalled, it is also because of an announcement outside its offices. While the sheriff claims he is incapable of stopping a lynching, the newspapermen know they are very capable of either inciting or stopping one.
Lingering in the background of the novel’s exploration of press freedom and racial politics is a broader concern about the journalist’s role in society. The news about Sandy’s supposed guilt makes national headlines partly due to ingrained racism but also because it is “highly sensational.” By contrast, the retraction proclaiming Sandy innocent lacks the same lurid interest and is relegated to an “inside page.” Elsewhere, Chesnutt depicts the national press as serving a propagandistic purpose, justifying US imperialism by enumerating the “inestimable advantages” of bringing “American liberty” to colonial territories. Such passages are reminders that Chesnutt wrote The Marrow of Tradition during the age of “yellow journalism.” Although the novel suggests the press can be a powerful tool for public debate and reform, it also reveals journalism is vulnerable to sensationalism and ideological capture.
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By Charles W. Chesnutt
