{"id":58592,"date":"2019-07-28T23:30:52","date_gmt":"2019-07-28T23:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=58592"},"modified":"2019-07-30T17:35:22","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T17:35:22","slug":"mixed-race-politics-and-homi-bhabhas-third-space-theory-in-charles-chesnutts-the-wife-of-his-youth-and-the-sheriffs-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=58592","title":{"rendered":"Mixed Race-Politics and Homi Bhabha\u2019s Third Space Theory in Charles Chesnutt\u2019s \u201cThe Wife of His Youth\u201d and \u201cThe Sheriff\u2019s Children\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mixed Race-Politics and Homi Bhabha\u2019s Third Space Theory in Charles Chesnutt\u2019s \u201cThe Wife of His Youth\u201d and \u201cThe Sheriff\u2019s Children\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English<\/a>
\nVolume 20, Issue 1 (2018)<\/a>
\nArticle 6 (pages 37-50)<\/a><\/p>\n

Gabrielle Sanford<\/strong><\/a>
\nChristopher Newport University, Newport News, Virginia<\/em><\/p>\n

Tru Leverette<\/a>, a Mixed race professor of African American and Mixed race literature, explains that people of mixed ancestry have a difficult and confusing racial path: \u201cI, like many other persons born to parents of different races, sometimes think of myself as moving in the space that unites the two, as traveling from one shore to another . . . and other times as sailing the river that forms the meridian between two shores\u201d (\u201cTraveling\u201d 79). And while there has been progress in how America regards biracial people today, Mixed race people are often marginalized in society, literature, and politics through underrepresentation and a lack of acknowledgment of their culture and characteristics. There is very little space for Mixed race people to have their own identities because they are neither seen as a separate race nor accepted into the races that form their racial identity. They are only seen as a combination of two or more races that needs to fit into a predetermined racial mold. This blindness sidelines biracial and multiracial groups and leaves them without legal status.<\/p>\n

Charles Chesnutt<\/a>, a post-Reconstruction<\/a> Mixed race author, presents Mixed race issues in his short stories \u201cThe Wife of His Youth<\/a>\u201d (1899) and \u201cThe Sheriff\u2019s Children\u201d (1889). Chesnutt\u2019s characters, however, do not want representation for their Mixed race to be the final goal in the changing social structure of America, but rather want to be a part of White society and leave behind their Black heritage. This is seen in \u201cThe Wife of His Youth\u201d when Ryder seeks to leave his Blackness in his past and embrace an upward climb to White status by being a part of the Blue Vein Society<\/a>. The same is seen in \u201cThe Sheriff\u2019s Children\u201d when Tom grieves over the unfairness of his life due to being Mixed race. Notwithstanding the feelings of these characters, though, Chesnutt encourages a third space for Mixed race representation and a social acceptance of hybridity; he also, to be sure, recognizes that this third space has the potential to marginalize Blacks and biracial people even further…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mixed Race-Politics and Homi Bhabha\u2019s Third Space Theory in Charles Chesnutt\u2019s \u201cThe Wife of His Youth\u201d and \u201cThe Sheriff\u2019s Children\u201d The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English Volume 20, Issue 1 (2018) Article 6 (pages 37-50) Gabrielle Sanford Christopher Newport University, Newport News, Virginia Tru Leverette, […]<\/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":[333,898,897,30077,1883,3255,30076,30075],"class_list":["post-58592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-charles-chesnutt","tag-charles-w-chesnutt","tag-charles-waddell-chesnutt","tag-gabrielle-sanford","tag-homi-bhabha","tag-homi-k-bhabha","tag-the-oswald-review","tag-the-oswald-review-an-international-journal-of-undergraduate-research-and-criticism-in-the-discipline-of-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58592","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=58592"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58626,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58592\/revisions\/58626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}