The Sheriff's Children Chesnutt Summary

Charles W. Chesnutt, an African American writer of the late nineteenth and early-twentieth century, focused his short stories and novels on the color line in America after the Civil War. Chesnutt wrote several collections of short stories, but the most comprehensive collection, one which draws heavily upon his mixed-race heritage, The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories, is the work from which I have chosen the stories about which I will write. Three of the stories I will analyze focus on child characters, a subject about which all human beings are interested. Children can easily evoke joy as well sympathy depending on the situation or circumstances surrounding them. In the three stories regarding child characters, “The Sheriff’s Children,” “The Bouquet, and “Her Virginia Mammy,” children bring about …show more content…
Chesnutt begins the story with describing the setting which is Branson County, North Carolina. Branson County, is a typical rural southern community in the post-Civil War era. Branson, is located in "a sequestered district" in "one of the staidest and most conservative States of the Union" (Walcott, 83). Chesnutt mentions the setting of the story to remind the reader what Branson County is like after the Civil War. For all practical purposes, the war was the most important event in the South; however, in Branson this was not the case. Branson was barely disturbed by the way—it was stagnant. Branson, then, is different from other southern communities because it survived the war without damage (Walcott, 83). The damage does not mean damage the city alone, but damage includes damage of people’s hearts and minds. Branson County is not damage by the Civil War, but it is damaged by racism. In The Sheriff’s Children, Tom, a young mulatto boy is accused of murder, without evidence of his guilt, because he is seen wearing the murdered man’s