Inequality in The Marrow of Tradition Eric Lees College

The Marrow of Tradition by Charles Waddell Chesnutt utilizes inequalities tied to the era of the American South where the Wellington Insurrection of 1898 occurred as a result of growing racial tensions coupled with the growing divide of economic opportunity among the people there and the relations between these inequalities and divides to paint a hyperreal portrayal of the post-Civil War South in terms of aesthetics and those who populated it, all of whom represent different ideas and motifs that existed during Chesnutt’s time. Among these types of inequalities, the three important ones to look at are racial, shown through the relationship between the white and black casts in the story, social, through the socio-economic differences between the black community itself, and gender, through the emasculation of man and the fetishization of women suffering as a martyr for unjust violence and retaliation.

Racial inequality is a major factor of The Marrow of Tradition to illustrate a brutally realistic depiction of the tensions felt during Chesnutt’s time in the South and reactionary to the real-life Wellington riots. These inequalities between the races are clearly expressed through the varying relationships that the white citizens...