Charles Waddell Chesnutt "The Wife of His Youth"

Charles Waddell Chesnutt’s short story “The Wife of His Youth” presents a theme of blackness and the need to acknowledge one’s blackness. In the story, Chesnutt shows a group of light-skinned people who wanted to separate themselves from the darker-skinned African Americans. They view blackness as low, and they wanted o divorce themselves from being associated with blackness in the hopes of one day being accepted by the white race. Mr. Rider, who represents this view, says, “Our fate lies between absorption by the white race and extinction by the black. One doesn’t want us yet, but may take us in time. The other would welcome us, but it would be for use a backward step.”

In the story, Mr. Rider either has to acknowledge his blackness or seek acceptance in whiteness. Chesnutt uses the wife and Mrs. Dixon to represent the races, and to reveal the choice that Mr. Rider has to make. Mrs. Dixon represents the whiteness; as Mr. Rider states, “Mrs. Dixon was the palest lady he expected at the ball.” However, Mrs. Dixon is not white and will never be. Mrs. Dixon, therefore, represents the false whiteness that Mr. Rider seeks. He is seeking something that he can never achieve because it does not exist; he is not white. The wife represents the blackness of Mr. Rider’s youth and the reality that he tries to deny. When Mr. Rider first sees her, he describes her as being 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 or the old plantation life.” His wife, however, brings back memories of his youth and past that he can hardly remember.

Mr. Rider is faced with a dilemma of whether to accept or deny his blackness. He reveals his internal conflict, when he says, “And then suppose that accident should bring to his knowledge the fact that the wife of his youth, the wife that he left behind him,--not one who had walked by his side and kept pace with him in his upward struggle, but one upon whom advancing years and a laborious life ha set their mark,--was alive and seeking him, but that he was absolutely safe from recognition or discover, unless he chose to reveal himself. My friends what would the man do?” In the statement, Mr. Rider’s blackness is the wife of his youth; his blackness is something that he attempted to abandon in order to move upward socially because he realizes that his blackness a disadvantage to him. The markings of the laborious life and advancing years are the markings of slavery and struggle that is associated with his youth and his blackness. Mr. Rider attempts to forget about these markings, but his wife’s appearance brings back all these memories. He realizes that his past/wife/blackness is calling out to him and desires to be acknowledged because it is what has made him what he is now. Mr. Rider decides to be true to himself, and he acknowledges his wife and his blackness.