46 pages • 1 hour read
Charles W. ChesnuttThe Marrow of Tradition
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1901A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 16-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary: “Ellis Takes a Trick”
Major Carteret invites Ellis for a carriage ride along with Olivia and Clara. On the hour-long ride to the hotel, the major complains about the Black citizens of Wellington. Ellis laments Clara’s coldness to him. When they arrive at the hotel, Clara asks Ellis to look for Tom—Ellis finds him passed-out drunk in the middle of a card game on the second floor. When he returns claiming he does not know Tom’s whereabouts, Clara decides to go up to the second floor to play piano. Ellis does not wish her to see her fiancé in such a state and blame him, so he sends a servant ahead to close the door to the room where Tom is passed out. Clara does not see him upon going up or downstairs. Tom eventually joins the party out on the beach, claiming he had been ill; Clara is cold to him and kind to Ellis. She asks Ellis if Tom was “really sick,” and again, Ellis declines to answer. The ride home is nearly silent, and Tom finds himself annoyed by Ellis’s condescending behavior and Clara’s rejection.
Chapter 17 Summary: “The Social Aspirations of Captain McBane”
Tom Delamere goes to the St. James Hotel to blow off steam. McBane sees an opening in the situation: He wishes to seek admission to the Claredon Club and believes Tom might help advance his cause, as he has “lax principles and a weak will” (101). McBane organizes a card game and anticipates Tom’s cheating. He cheats as well, and Tom ends up $1,000 in debt: “[T]he biter had been bit, and could not complain of the outcome” (102). When McBane asks for Tom’s help gaining entrance to the club, Tom is annoyed—he knows he would have opposed the man’s membership were he not in his debt. However, seeing no way to get the money without exposing himself to his family’s disappointment, Tom agrees. He returns home and borrows $50 from Sandy, hoping to gamble again at the Clarendon Club and recoup his losses. His efforts more than fail: He is confronted for cheating and expelled from the club. His expulsion will be kept quiet as long as he pays his additional debts there.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Sandy Sees His Own Ha’nt”
Still in poor standing at his church, Sandy goes out for drinks with Josh Green. Returning drunk, he sees a figure walking ahead of him who looks just like him. “Ef dat’s me gwine ‘long in front,” he wonders, “den who is dis behin’ here?” (109). On returning home, he asks Tom what might have happened and whether he might be drinking too much. Tom reassures him and also pays him back for the borrowed money with several gold pieces. After Sandy leaves his room, Tom burns several things in the fireplace. He departs early the next morning.
Chapter 19 Summary: “A Midnight Walk”
This chapter retells the events of Chapters 17 and 18 from Ellis’s perspective. Ellis has heard about Tom’s scandal at the Clarendon Club and feels “a certain elation in the thought that his rival had been practically disposed of” (112). As he walks home, he sees a man he recognizes as Sandy standing under a streetlight. He notices he is followed by another man who looks almost exactly like Sandy. He assumes they are relatives.
Chapters 16-19 Analysis
These chapters show the consequences of Tom’s habits. Although Tom is dishonest and a habitual cheat, he still feels that he is above a vulgar nouveau-riche man like McBane. This arrogance and sense of entitlement make it impossible to accept the consequences of his actions. Indeed, rather than embarrass himself in front of his grandfather, he is willing to kill his fiancée’s relative and benefactor: As is revealed in subsequent chapters, Tom has murdered Mrs. Ochiltree. Here too, he seeks to evade responsibility, and in this case, the racism of his society conspires to help him: Tom hopes to pin the consequences on Sandy by disguising himself in Sandy’s clothes and planting evidence on Sandy.
These chapters portray Sandy as somewhat ignorant and superstitious. Drunk, he is unable to make sense of the sight of Tom dressed up in his clothes. Like Mammy Jane, he resorts to superstition to make sense of the world, deciding that the man must be his “ha’nt,” or ghost. These characters’ belief in the supernatural is particularly significant considering the novel’s description of enslavement as a “curse.” The word evokes not only enslavement’s evil but also the persistence of that evil across time. Similarly, the “specter” of enslavement lives on in both the violence of white supremacy and in the devotion of Sandy to his white employers. The price for Sandy’s faith in the Delamere family is ultimately the accusation of murder, which is an indictment of Respectability Politics in the Face of Racism; even genuine devotion is no protection against racist violence.
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By Charles W. Chesnutt
