Post #4: Charles Chesnutt and Plantation Tradition

Plantation tradition had stemmed from local color and regionalism. However, it's meaning is not understood from the name alone. The myth that most people think of as true plantation tradition, is an idealized, well-ordered agrarian world, where all people held the same values. But true plantation tradition looks back at the times before the civil war, when slavery and issues of race were in reality a traditional societal norm. One such author who writes upon plantation tradition is Charles Chesnutt.

One aspect that Chesnutt had always made sure to express, was the notion of a connection between the slaves and the land which they worked on. "As he became more and more absorbed in the narrative, his eyes assumed a dreamy expression, and he seemed to lose sight of his auditors, and to be living over and over again in monologue his life on the old plantation" (pg 691). Here, in the story "Goofered Grapevine," Chesnutt describes a scene in which most in the nineteenth century were familiar with. He shows the slaves nostalgically looking back at their time on the plantation, working in the fields to songs, the traditional view of slavery. The character of Henry is another great example in which Chesnutt draws a connection between slave and land. Henry was the land, and when he died, when his life was destroyed, as was the plantation.