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.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “At Break of Day”
Content Warning: The source material and guide contain discussions of enslavement, racism, and white supremacist violence that includes the murder of a child. The novel also uses outdated racial terminology as well as some racial slurs; this guide obscures the n-word and otherwise reproduces such terms only in quoted material.
Olivia Carteret (née Merkell) goes into early labor due to emotional upset. Dr. Price chides her nursemaid, Mammy Jane, for taking poor care of her, but Mammy Jane notes that she nursed Olivia and her mother before her and that she can be relied on to do the same for the family now. To explain Olivia’s state, Mammy Jane discusses the family history between the Carterets and the Millers. After the death of her mother, Olivia was raised by her Aunt Polly (Mrs. Ochiltree). Olivia’s father, Samuel, took up with a Black servant, Julia, whom he impregnated. Janet Miller, the result of this union and Olivia’s half sister, now lives with her husband, Dr. Miller, in the former Carteret mansion. The Carterets lost their money in the war, and although Major Carteret, Olivia’s husband, now has a successful newspaper—the Morning Chronicle—he resents the presence of a Black family in his lost ancestral home. Janet and Dr. Miller have a son who favors the Merkell family.
Before Olivia’s pregnancy, the sight of Janet’s son upset her because she was childless. During her difficult pregnancy, the sight of Janet’s son makes her fear that she will not live through her labor and delivery. However, Olivia survives her labor, and her son is born safely. Dr. Price tells the family this will be Olivia and Major Carteret’s only child. Mammy Jane observes a small mole on the baby’s left ear and decides that he was “born for bad luck” (6). She goes to a conjure woman, obtains a charm, and buries it in the backyard.
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Christening Party”
The Carterets hold a christening party for baby Theodore “Dodie” Felix. The major’s half sister, Clara Pemberton, is the object of admiration for both Lee Ellis, a newspaper editor, and Tom Delamere, a handsome young rake. The other guests include old Mr. Delamere (Tom’s grandfather) and Mrs. Ochiltree. Mrs. Ochiltree presents the baby with an ivory rattle, and when Tom and Clara note that it must have come from her famed cedar chest, the major worries it is imprudent to mention hidden money in front of Mr. Delamere’s Black manservant, Sandy. A debate about the honesty of Black people ensues: Mr. Delamere expresses absolute faith and trust in Sandy as well as admiration for Dr. Miller, and the major reveals his racist views. He states, “I object to being governed by an inferior and servile race” (16). The topic upsets Olivia, so they drop it.
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Editor at Work”
The major gives out cigars at work, shaking hands with all his employees except for Jerry—a Black porter and Mammy Jane’s grandson. Major Carteret laments the fall of the Democratic Party and the participation of Black men in the government. Belmont and McBane visit him. The latter is a formerly poor white man who has recently profited by pressing arrested Black men into forced labor (a practice that was outlawed when the so-called “fusion ticket” of the Republican Party carried the state). They discuss their shared views. Jerry listens in on their conversation, overhearing the n-word, which allows him to understand “the general tenor of the talk” (23). At the end, he hears them toast, “no n***** domination” but mishears it as “no n***** damnation” (24). Either way, he knows that “dere’s somethin’ up” (25).
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
These chapters introduce the racist undercurrents in Wellington as well as the conflict between the Carterets and the Millers. They establish that Olivia Carteret and Janet Miller are half sisters and that from Olivia’s perspective, this blood tie with a Black family is so disturbing as to send her into shock and early labor. While Olivia’s prejudice is implied rather than overtly stated in the narration, her husband’s prejudice is clear. When Mr. Delamere defends his manservant Sandy, calling him as honest as any other man, the major corrects him, saying Sandy is only as honest as any other Black man. Here and in other instances, Major Carteret states that Black Americans are less than human. Major Carteret’s interactions with Belmont and McBane reveal that these views are common among white men in Wellington. Rich but ill-bred McBane openly uses racial slurs, and though Belmont and Carteret do not, they share the same views. The varying ways in which characters express their racism—implicitly versus explicitly, politely versus coarsely, etc.—are both significant and beside the point. Thematically, they establish a juxtaposition between The “Poetry” of Racism Versus the Reality of Racism, yet the novel reveals that this distinction is no distinction at all: Racism of any kind proves savage and violent, though the more genteel bigotry embodied by characters like the Carterets usefully obfuscates this fact for a time.
These chapters also introduce a Black servant, Mammy Jane, and Jerry, her grandson and an employee at the Morning Chronicle. The dialect of the Black characters contrasts with the speech of white characters. Both Mammy Jane and Jerry are somewhat aware of the way their white employers view them. However, they remain incredibly loyal: Mammy Jane still happily works for the family that once enslaved her, and Jerry has followed her lead in remaining compliant with the Carteret family. Also notable is Mammy Jane’s superstition: a birthmark on Dodie’s neck indicates that he is bound for the noose. Despite the novel’s overall antiracist stance, these elements of characterization partake in racist stereotypes common at the time of the novel’s writing—e.g., the maternal enslaved woman more devoted to her white enslavers than to her own family. Chesnutt (who, it should be noted, was of biracial heritage but identified as Black) uses figures like Mammy Jane to contrast with the educated, upwardly mobile Millers, who in many respects embody his hopes for Black Americans in the post-enslavement era.
Related Titles
By Charles W. Chesnutt
