Previous
Mood
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Part 1
Explanation and Analysis:
“The Wife of His Youth” is set in Groveland—a fictional city in the Northern United States—in 1890, 25 years after the end of the Civil War. It is likely that Chesnutt based Groveland on Cleveland, Ohio (the city where he grew up), and the Blue Veins Society on the Cleveland Social Circle (an exclusive society for mixed-race people in the city, of which he was a member).
The Blue Veins Society is an important piece of the social setting of the story. Chesnutt spends a significant part of the story sharing background on the Society, and here offers a bit of its history:
The original Blue Veins were a little society of colored persons organized in a certain Northern city shortly after the war. Its purpose was to establish and maintain correct social standards among a people whose social condition presented almost unlimited room for improvement. By accident, combined perhaps with some natural affinity, the society consisted of individuals who were, generally speaking, more white than black.
Like actual mixed-race societies in the United States at the time, the Blue Veins Society began as a way for mixed-race people to improve their social standing. Despite the fact that mixed-race people could often “pass” as white, they were still legally regarded as Black and therefore as lower-class citizens. Mixed-race people in societies like the Blue Veins ran the risk of reinforcing racism and colorism by banding together and seeking their fortunes by integrating into whiteness.
Chesnutt was very wary of this lack of solidarity in the post-war Black community and makes it clear that the Blue Veins was not a particularly inclusive organization. That the Blue Veins “consisted of individuals who were, generally speaking, more white than black” was not an “accident,” but the result of prioritizing light-skinned people whose “blue veins” were visible beneath their light skin.
Chesnutt ultimately makes this story a hopeful one as he has Mr. Ryder publicly claim his former relationship with a darker-skinned, lower-class Black woman at a Blue Veins ball. That all of the members of the organization support him in doing this proves that it’s possible for light-skinned, mixed-race people to act in solidarity with the wider Black community.
Related Themes:
