Ethical decisions in two different works of Charles Waddell Chesnutt, 2016

Bokhari, Shuaa Abdulrashid

2010-2019

Chesnutt's short stories collection The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line (1899). Charles Chesnutt wrote two short stories which are "The Sheriff's Children" and "Her Virginia Mammy." He wrote them with white audiences in mind. In The Sheriffs Children, Chesnutt presents Tom as a protagonist, his father Sheriff Campbell, and his half-sister Polly. In Her Virginia Mammy, he mentions Clara as a protagonist, her love Dr. Winthrop, and her mother Mrs. Harper. Chesnutt records their struggles in Post-Reconstruction North Carolina. He romanticized his characters difficult ethical decisions related to racial identity to illustrate more dramatically the consequences of their oppression. The Sheriffs Children and Her Virginia Mammy both illustrate the ethical dilemmas of their protagonists, demonstrating to Chesnutts white readers the struggles and losses of black and biracial families. KEY TERMS: Chesnutt, race relations, short stories, ethical, color line, decisions, American Literature

text

application/pdf

2016-12-16

thesis

Master of Arts (MA)

Clark Atlanta University

English

Askew, Timothy
Vinyard, Alma
Montgomery, Georgene Bess

Clark Atlanta University

Georgia--Atlanta

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/cau.td:2016_bokhari_shuaa_abdulrashid