Keeping an "Old Wound" Alive: The Marrow of Tradition and the Legacy of Wilmington

Abstract

The historical and sociopolitical context of Charles W. Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition is legacy of Reconstruction, and - more specifically - circumstances surrounding what H. Leon Prather calls Racial Massacre and Coup of 1898. This is what title of novel primarily refers - a whose marrow is colonial racism. Eric Sundquist, in his To Wake Nations, gives The Marrow of Tradition recognition it deserves, as probably astute political-historical novel of its day, not just in its rendering of Wilmington Racial Massacre, but in its illumination of sociopolitical context that produced both massacre and novel itself (13). Precisely because Chesnutt was so heavily constrained - as a writer and as a black man - by same material conditions he sought illuminate and critique, his great, ambitious novel of protest also became agonizingly self-critical. The work of historical revision it contributes to, however, was - and continues be - invaluable. Raymond Williams writes that tradition is most evident expression of hegemony of dominant class, intentionally selective version of a shaping past and a pre-shaped present; therefore, the accessible and influential work of counter-hegemony is historical . . . recovery [and] redress (115-16). Williams also writes, however, that creative practice of this political-historical kind is always a difficult remaking of an inherited (determined) practical consciousness . . . a at roots of mind (212). The Marrow of Tradition is product of this struggle within Chesnutt's own mind; tragedy of novel lies in his recognition of futility of his labor, how hegemony of Southern tradition is perpetuated in very marrow of white (and black) consciousness in South. The novel begins with birth of Theodore Felix Carteret, who embodies Major Carteret's dearest - to have children of which he was so proud, write it still higher on roll of honor (2). And historical and socioeconomic meaning of Carteret family name and Major's desire perpetuate it are succinctly encapsulated some pages later; Major, now editor of Morning Chronicle, is investing part of his wife's patrimony in an enterprise that promises immense - profits which would enable his son, upon reaching manhood, take a place in world commensurate with of his ancestors, one of whom, only a few generations removed, had owned an estate of ninety thousand acres of land and six thousand slaves (30). Dodie (as Theodore Felix is affectionately called) embodies Southern itself, idealized socioeconomic order founded on colonial racism. And Carteret's position as editor of Morning Chronicle, along with his reliance on his wife's patrimony, suggests how far dignity of family - and Southern aristocracy as a whole has fallen. At end of this chapter, Carteret writes the famous editorial in which he sounded tocsin of a new for white supremacy; thus, through Chesnutt's construction of novel, Carteret's hope for Dodie - and for Dodie embodies - introduces and figures this crusade (39). In such ways, seemingly Victorian plot of love, marriage, and domesticity is from beginning linked complex historical and sociopolitical context of plot by Big Three of Carteret, General Belmont, and Captain McBane. Too often, however, critics of novel have seen narrative mannerisms of Victorian novel of manners - and, perhaps more importantly, seeming contradictions and ambivalence within text - as what William Andrews calls aesthetic blemishes (203). In his influential 1980 book on Chesnutt's literary career, Andrews states that The Marrow of Tradition - although an important social statement in literature of its time - today . …