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Dialect
Part 1
Explanation and Analysis—Eliza Jane and Molly:
In “The Wife of His Youth,” Molly Dixon and Eliza Jane act as foils for each other, meaning that their juxtaposition reveals important information about their characters, as well as about the intended takeaways of the story. While Molly is young, light-skinned, and educated—and therefore “desirable” by Mr. Ryder’s standards—Eliza Jane is old, dark-skinned, and uneducated.
The way that Chesnutt describes the two women when introducing them shows how he is intentionally setting them up in opposition to each other. For example, when he introduces readers to Molly, he focuses on her skin color, age, and social class:
She was much younger than [Mr. Ryder]; in fact, he was old enough to have been her father, though no one knew exactly how old he was. She was whiter than he, and better educated.
Likewise, when Chesnutt introduces Eliza Jane, he does the same:
Although she stood erect, and looked around her with very bright and restless eyes, she seemed quite old […] And she was very black,—so black that her toothless gums, revealed when she opened her mouth to speak, were not red, but blue. She looked like a bit of the old plantation life.
By contrasting how Molly is “younger,” “whiter,” and “better educated” than Mr. Ryder with the “old” and “very black” Eliza Jane who reminds him of “the old plantation life,” Chesnutt encourages readers to believe that Mr. Ryder will ultimately choose Molly over Eliza Jane. Molly, after all, is his potential bride who would grant him even more access to white society, while Eliza is his former wife who ties him to a painful past. Despite all of this, Mr. Ryder decides to risk his potential marriage with Molly by publicly acknowledging his marriage to Eliza Jane, thereby proving his loyalty to his former wife and his solidarity with the Black community as a whole.
Related Themes:
Part 2
Explanation and Analysis—Eliza Jane and Molly:
In “The Wife of His Youth,” Molly Dixon and Eliza Jane act as foils for each other, meaning that their juxtaposition reveals important information about their characters, as well as about the intended takeaways of the story. While Molly is young, light-skinned, and educated—and therefore “desirable” by Mr. Ryder’s standards—Eliza Jane is old, dark-skinned, and uneducated.
The way that Chesnutt describes the two women when introducing them shows how he is intentionally setting them up in opposition to each other. For example, when he introduces readers to Molly, he focuses on her skin color, age, and social class:
She was much younger than [Mr. Ryder]; in fact, he was old enough to have been her father, though no one knew exactly how old he was. She was whiter than he, and better educated.
Likewise, when Chesnutt introduces Eliza Jane, he does the same:
Although she stood erect, and looked around her with very bright and restless eyes, she seemed quite old […] And she was very black,—so black that her toothless gums, revealed when she opened her mouth to speak, were not red, but blue. She looked like a bit of the old plantation life.
By contrasting how Molly is “younger,” “whiter,” and “better educated” than Mr. Ryder with the “old” and “very black” Eliza Jane who reminds him of “the old plantation life,” Chesnutt encourages readers to believe that Mr. Ryder will ultimately choose Molly over Eliza Jane. Molly, after all, is his potential bride who would grant him even more access to white society, while Eliza is his former wife who ties him to a painful past. Despite all of this, Mr. Ryder decides to risk his potential marriage with Molly by publicly acknowledging his marriage to Eliza Jane, thereby proving his loyalty to his former wife and his solidarity with the Black community as a whole.
Related Themes:
