Charles W. Chestnutts The Marrow of Tradition Essay examples -- Chest

Charles W. Chestnutts The Marrow of Tradition Clearly, unity can expect differing critical views of a impertinent from the authors perspective we claver superstar and only(a) view, from a publishers another, and from the reviewers yet another. This is especially true of Charles W. Chesnutts The Marrow of Tradition. If one observes both the contemporary reviews of the novel and garner exchanged between Chesnutt and his friends and publisher, Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., one will see the disparity in opinions regarding the work. Chesnutt himself felt the work was of at least good quality, and remarked often of its significant purpose in letters to Booker T. Washington, Houghton, Mifflin, Isaiah B. Scott, and William H. Moody. Reviewers, too, were able to see the purpose of the novel as a significant one as evidenced by reviews in Chautauquan, the unseasoned York Times, The Literary World, Nation, and New York Age. However, most reviews, eve n those which pointed out the important motif of the novel, suggested that it was not a well written one, often seeming to a fault dramatic and too fictionalized. Even Chesnutts friend, W.D. Howells, was quick to attack the quality of the novel. And, as one might expect, a few reviews (especially those of a Southern origin) were secret code precisely negative. Examples of these are the Atlanta Journal, Bookman, and the Independent. Particularly scathing is that of the Independent, a clip which was con attitudered friendly to the cause of Black rights. In a series of lette... ...things by means of a glass darkly, but we can perhaps by never-ending iteration gradually help to undeceive them. I have do an effort in this direction through my latest novel, The Marrow of Tradition. And if the novel did not become the successor to Uncle Toms Cabin, as Chesnutt hoped, at least, in aggravate the critical community, he achieved what he had desire d to create sympathy end-to-end our country for our cause. ... I know I am on the weaker side in point of popular sympathy, but I am on the stronger side in point of justice and morality, and if I can but command the skill and the power to compel attention, I think I will win out in the long, so far as I am personally concerned, and will help the cause, which is vastly to a greater extent important.