The Sheriff's Children

Tom’s character acts as the catalyst for the sheriff’s conflict and the story’s exploration of racial dynamics and discrimination. Tom is the son of a white enslaver and a Black enslaved woman and he openly expresses the turmoil and discomfort that he perceives as inherent to this identity. It is possible that, an educated person of color, Tom is an extension of Chesnutt himself and is an exploration of identity complexity and conflict. However, unlike Chesnutt, who was accepted by society as white, Tom is derided as a “mulatto” and is therefore more representative of how the descendants of mixed-race relationships were treated at the time. Even though Tom attends school and he speaks “more eloquently and use[s] better language than most Branson County people” (144), this provides him no opportunities.

The turning point of the story rests on the revelation of Tom’s identity as the sheriff’s son. Before this, the story prefigures their relationship by linking their physical characteristics. They are both described as “keen-eyed” and “ruddy,” and, as Tom later notes, bear a striking similarity in their features. However, Chesnutt distinguishes Tom, in his imprisoned state, from the sheriff as Tom “crouche[s] in a corner, his yellow face, blanched with terror” (139). The “semi-darkness” in which he exists as a prisoner recalls the experience of his enslaved mother. That his white father is his jailer directly alludes to the sheriff’s enslaving history, and to the likely exploitative circumstances of Tom’s birth, even before the revelation of kinship makes this the central plot point.

When Tom claims the gun, his eyes begin to “glisten” and his face becomes “ruddy.” While the sheriff first looks at Tom with “mingled contempt and loathing” (139), after Tom has revealed his parenthood, the sheriff now relates to the “passions cours[ing] beneath the beneath that swarthy skin and burn[ing] in the black eyes opposite his own” (144). The sheriff recognizes himself in Tom, distinguished only by the “safeguards of parental restraint and public opinion” (144) that defined the sheriff’s path.

In this way, Tom represents the voice of Realism. Chesnutt juxtaposes the sheriff’s idealistic ideology with Tom’s hard won understanding of the ways of the world. Tom calls the sheriff to task in his parental abandonment and his failure to recognize the hollow life Tom is forced to live. When Polly shoots him, she reasserts the prevailing racial, parental, and social order. Tom falls into despair, ending in his death, part of the story’s unflinchingly realist design.

Charles W. Chesnutt uses the lynchers as the story’s foils to the sheriff and as a means to explore the nature and drivers of racist hatred.

Chesnutt’s presentation of the lynchers as a mass of unnamed people makes them a frightening threat and emphasizes their lack of humanity. As flat characters, the mob yields to “mob mentality,” representing the unfeeling lack of compassion inherent in racist hatred. The story’s setting frames their motivation as a rare opportunity for excitement in Branson County, but their primary drive is to reinforce the little status they have by asserting their “rights” to mistreat Black people. Their words show this clearly: They wish to “teach the n*****s their places” (139), an impulse that has nothing to do with the details of the case or with justice. While the sheriff’s status enables him to treat the Black characters more decently, the story shows that the deprived white citizens are protective of racist distinctions that afford them a sense of importance. The mob personifies the persistent power of conservative Confederate values and also how social and economic deprivation, including a lack of education and opportunity, can deepen racial prejudice.

The mob impedes the sheriff from doing his duty and disrupts social order. They are also cowardly. Surprised by the sheriff’s allegiance to his office and deterred by his threat to shoot any trespassers, they “sullenly” retreat from the jail, hiding instead in the woods. When faced with the real threat of death and the resolve of the veteran sheriff, their arc moves from “apathy” to “excitement” and again to “disappointment” and cowardice.