That's How Things Are

In class today, it was brought up that Chesnutt's characters don’t learn the morals that the readers instantly see and understand. It’s an interesting thing to think about in context with history. Specifically, the Civil War and what that meant for people.

The Civil War, as historians will point out, was not fought initially to free the slaves. There was a lot of factors that led to it, and slavery was just one of the issues. There was also a difference in economy and some competitiveness. (There are probably way more than what I've just listed, too.) In school, the Civil War is generalized to being a war that ended slavery. Really, it was more of a war of crushing an attempt at independence and then imposing new national laws. (If you can't tell, this is my dislike of inaccurate history being taught.)

But the moral of history was not a learning moment. People did not suddenly wake up and realize that slavery was evil. They got up, and were either already under the belief that slavery was evil, or they got up and were upset at the world for taking their “property.” People didn't learn. Moral lessons in racism are still not even understood today. We’re still struggling with this.

Chesnutt’s stories reflect some of this. The Civil War led to amendments and laws that changed how legally things can be looked at, but internal thinking remained the same. Maybe that’s why his character’s don’t change at the end of the story. While, given the distance and time, we understand what moral issues are being talked about, the characters themselves are stuck on the same track because it was just one unfortunate moment. Nothing more, nothing less.