This modules assignment has forced me to observe and appreciate literature in a more reflective way! I was unfamiliar with Charles W. Chesnutt’s, “Wife of His Youth” until now and as a child of a man who was mixed race from Charleston, South Carolina, who married my mother, a dark skin woman from Marion, Alabama; having their life and relationship met with the many challenges of skin color as those mentioned in Mr. Chesnutt’s short story, I’ve been presented with another perspective of the obstacles for which history played a part in shaping whom them became.
Albeit, Chesnutt’s story is a reflection of the post slavery reconstruction period, my parents experienced the segregated Jim Crow South. “The Wife of His Youth,” depicts a mixed race man who transforms from a field hand from the South into a well respected prominent light-skin black man in the free North. The short story is written with an emotional tone which also has a spiritual element allowing the reader to connect emotionally with Liza’s unwavering faith and devotion. Chesnutt shows a gradual assimilation process as Mr. Ryder (Sam Taylor as he was formerly known) adapts to the values of the “Blue Veins” culture that further discriminates against African Americans.…show more content… He’s now class and color conscious, and he realizes that as a black man there’s no room for advancement.
He excludes darker skinned, working class African Americans from his social group, and surrounds himself with fair-skinned, affluent, educated