{"id":37534,"date":"2014-09-30T17:26:50","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T17:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=37534"},"modified":"2014-09-30T17:26:50","modified_gmt":"2014-09-30T17:26:50","slug":"reading-rivalry-race-and-the-rise-of-a-southern-middle-class-in-charles-w-chesnutts-the-marrow-of-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=37534","title":{"rendered":"Reading Rivalry, Race, and the Rise of a Southern Middle Class in Charles W. Chesnutt\u2019s The Marrow of Tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1353\/arq.2014.0018\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Reading Rivalry, Race, and the Rise of a Southern Middle Class in Charles W. Chesnutt\u2019s The Marrow of Tradition<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/journals\/arizona_quarterly_a_journal_of_american_literature_culture_and_theory\" target=\"_blank\">Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/journals\/arizona_quarterly_a_journal_of_american_literature_culture_and_theory\/toc\/arq.70.3.html\" target=\"_blank\">Volume 70, Number 3, Autumn 2014<\/a><br \/>\npages 157-184<br \/>\nDOI: <a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1353\/arq.2014.0018\" target=\"_blank\">10.1353\/arq.2014.0018<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:rachelwise@utexas.edu\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Rachel A. Wise<\/strong><\/a>, Postdoctoral Fellow<br \/>\nDepartment of English<br \/>\n<em>University of Texas, Austin<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This essay argues that a sustained reading of the courtship plot and Lee Ellis\u2019s role in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charles_W._Chesnutt\" target=\"_blank\">Charles W. Chesnutt\u2019s<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=10730\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Marrow of Tradition<\/em><\/a> allows us to see the novel as ultimately envisioning a New South in which racial loyalty still trumps middle-class and professional solidarity. It reads the novel\u2019s romantic triangle as a dramatization of the rise of a white middle class whose professional capital overtakes the central role of a plantation-based aristocracy. In the process, this new class remakes a whiteness that fails to significantly challenge either the essential hierarchy of white over black or the bloody lynch law that enforces that hierarchy. Because Ellis, who initially seems one of the least prejudiced whites in the novel, succumbs to race loyalty, his romantic triumph over Tom suggests the hopelessness of any chances for solidarity, highlighting <em>The Marrow of Tradition\u2019s<\/em> critique of black middle-class enculturation as a viable form of racial uplift.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reading Rivalry, Race, and the Rise of a Southern Middle Class in Charles W. Chesnutt\u2019s The Marrow of Tradition Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory Volume 70, Number 3, Autumn 2014 pages 157-184 DOI: 10.1353\/arq.2014.0018 Rachel A. Wise, Postdoctoral Fellow Department of English University of Texas, Austin This essay argues that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,20],"tags":[1066,333,898,897,17984,17985],"class_list":["post-37534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-arizona-quarterly","tag-charles-chesnutt","tag-charles-w-chesnutt","tag-charles-waddell-chesnutt","tag-rachel-a-wise","tag-rachel-wise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}