The Wife of His Youth by Charles Waddell Chesnutt - Essay Example

? “The Wife of His Youth Its Significance and Relevance Charles Wadell Chesnutt, a lawyer and an educator who is best known for his novels and short stories about the post-Civil War, presented a value in America in the past that has now been emaciated and a voice in America that was once denigrated and belittled by the society. His “The Wife of His Youth” which was published in Atlantic Monthly year 1898 is the subject of attention that mirrors the contrast of today’s prevalence of divorce and infidelity. Likewise, it mirrors the voice of the colored race in their daily and constant struggle in the face of racial discrimination and slavery. “The Wife of His Youth” was about Mr. Ryder who was a member of a colored race and a dean in Blue Veins Society – a “little society of colored persons organized...shortly after the war.” It consisted of individuals who were, “generally speaking, more white than black.” Mr. Ryder and the colored race members of the Society were in dilemma of racial exclusion. As a matter of fact, Mr. Ryder has apparently developed attraction and romantic interest with Mrs. Molly Dixon– although a member of a colored race society in Washington, she is “whither than he, and better educated”–so that it “would help to further the upward process of absorption he had been wishing and waiting for.” Mr. Ryder was going to give a ball supposedly for the attractive Mrs. Molly Dixon one day when an old lady who’s described to be black, “very black- so that her toothless gums revealed when she opened her mouth to speak, were not red but blue,” appeared to him to inquire if he knew of someone Mr. Sam Taylor. Mr. Ryder has learned that the old lady, Liza Jane, was looking for the past 25 years for her husband Sam Taylor who was gone while they were still a young couple. During the ball which was planned by Mr. Ryder so that he could deliver his proposal to Mrs. Dixon, Mr. Ryder shared his encounter with Liza Jane, and he has ingeniously put his audience in the shoes of the man “safe in recognition and discovery, unless he chose to reveal himself.” Mr. Ryder has asked his audience “Shall you acknowledge her” and “…what should he have done?” All the answers of his audience was “’Yes,’ they all echoed, ‘he should have acknowledged her.’” Then slowly the denouement unraveled the persona of the enigmatic Mr. Ryder. “He came back in a moment, leading by the hand his visitor of the afternoon, who stood startled and trembling at the sudden plunge into this scene of brilliant gayety. She was neatly dressed in gray, and wore the white cap of an elderly woman. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “this is the woman, and I am the man, whose story I have told you. Permit me to introduce to you the wife of my youth.” Here, Mr. Ryder embodies–in the start–the ideal Blue Vein–the society of colored race that has become more sophisticated than the people it represents; Ms. Dixon as an erudite colored race; and Liza Jane as an ideal example of an African-American who worked as a slave and is ignorant. Chesnutt purposely held the readers to believe that Mr. Ryder and Ms. Dixon is an ideal couple to end a romantic story, and that Liza Jane in the story is just a misnomer, a minor character. As the story progresses, the opposite has become true. He “cannot help but be struck by the loyalty and determination of this woman” (Duncan). Chesnutt ended it romantically by making Liza Jane as the love of Mr. Ryder. Chesnutt employed literary devices with his usual craftsmanship to hide and eventually portray or reveal the obvious all along–that Mr. Ryder is Liza Jane long-lost husband Sam Taylor. Chesnutt had involved Mr. Ryder to “commitment to honest self-awareness and acceptance of his obligation to his first wife” (McCloskey). Essentially, it epitomizes Mr. Ryder as a persona who freely allows one to recollect and to try to accept wholeheartedly the past or one’s beginnings–the challenge he wanted the members of the Blue Veins to accept. Ultimately, it made the reader to see the importance of loyalty, fidelity and devotion of a husband to his wife and of a person to his own race. To unlock the significance and relevance of “The Wife of His Youth”, one has to identify and associate it entirely to the plight of the African-American in US soil, which is the central theme, than the concurrent love story of the man who was the enigmatic Mr. Ryder and his Liza Jane. After all, “The Wife of His Youth” purports to “examine the racial issues of the time” (Duncan). Chesnutt, like William E.B. Du Bois intended in their work to address head on the problem of racial exclusion. It is of utmost important to explore “what is recognized by character and reader in these stories” and how it “leads both reader and character to recognition” (McCloskey). It also pays to examine how the family–the basic unit of society–went through this epoch of slavery. It also presented an opportunity to the readers to examine racial and gender consciousness and the way the society handled it. With the prevalence of racism nowadays, Chesnutt’s “The Wife of His Youth” is a must-read. It is important to look back and realize that racism has made the minority African-American to suffer; it made them abandon their African heritage and ancestry. To point out how the colored race deals with the plight was noteworthy. By the use of his flawless allegory and metaphor, Chesnutt has illustrated cunningly the epoch it tried to represent and the modern America it tried to foresee. An African-American himself who has openly professed his being one, Chesnutt was determined to reflect the oppressive consequences of racial discrimination which are slavery, ignorance and exclusion. In this matter, Chesnutt made many mentions and implied criticisms about Black–“black lady”, “black slave”, “she was black”, and “complexion”. The Blue Veins Society was considered by some to be “a glaring example of the very prejudice from which the colored race had suffered most,” declared that “character and culture were the only things considered,” and reasoned out why most of the members were light-colored, “because such persons, as a rule, had had better opportunities to qualify themselves for membership.” To prove the point, Mr. Ryder said “Our fate lies between the absorption by the white race and extinction in the black. The one doesn’t want us yet, but may take us in time. The other would welcome us, but it would be for us a backward step.” All the illustrations made by Chesnutt in his “The Wife of His Youth” were representative of the setting when slavery and racial exclusion were prevalent in a post-civil war America. With resolution in mind, Chesnutt shifted the story “to convey crucial implications for considerations of race” (McCloskey) at the end to get his sad message across that one has to realize the need to freely accept and reunite with his culture; and that one should be true to his self which has made Mr. Ryder a “morally superior human being” (McCloskey). Also, Chesnutt has raised an issue in gender consciousness in his dialogues, “ladies and their mother had maneuvered with much ingenuity to capture him”, “She had not seemed displeased at Mr. Ryder’s attentions…had given him every proper encouragement”, “woman as the gift of Heaven to man.” It has also shown the reality among women, “Such devotion and such confidence are rare even among women” in reference to Liza Jane’s unprecedented commitment to his long-lost husband. When it opened the possibility of Mrs. Molly Dixon to remarry after her husband death, it also presented the leitmotif of today’s society in America and even across the world. In terms of its orientation to family as the basic unit of society during the time of slavery, Chesnutt also pointed out and examined ideas of marriage and couple. The circumstances leading to the separation of Liza Jane and her husband is an enough proof to reveal the damages the slavery has inflicted on every family. Work Cited McCloskey, Leora H. “The Cultural Logic of Color: Strategies of Recognition in Charles W. Chesnutt's The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line.” Re-Placing America: Conversations and Contestations; Selected Essays .University of Hawaii. 2000. Gale, Cengage. 209-218. Print. Duncan, Charles “The Wife of His Youth: Overview.” 2006. Gale, Cengage. Print. Chesnutt, Charles Wadell. “The Wife of His Youth.” 1898. Etext.lib.virginia.edu. University of Virginia. 1994. Web. 20 Apr. 2012. Read More