The Wife Of His Youth Summary

Charles W. Chesnutt, in “The Wife of His Youth”, addresses the challenges biracial people face as their lives transitions “from slavery to freedom and freedom to slavery”. In the story, complexities arise when Mr. Ryder, a well-respected biracial man, tries to find his own true identity. Like other biracial in the community, he finds himself deciding whether to acknowledge his past or gain higher status in society by refusing to accept the past. After gaining freedom, Mr. Ryder worked hard to improve his life and he believes adapting the values of white Americans is only way to gain acceptance into the community. Biracial people fear that revealing their past may halt their progress in improving their status in society. However, through the story, Chesnutt implies that when biracial people refuse to accept their past, they are not being true to themselves. This prevents society from moving forward and

After escaping from slavery, Mr. Ryder became a self-educated and hard-working man, and gained the status of a dean in the honorable Blue Vain Society. His improvements are motivated by his desire to obtain the opportunities that he did not have as a slave. However, acknowledging his past as a slave “would be for [Mr. Ryder] a backward step” (7) that would take away his honor and status in society. Although Mr. Ryder “[has] no race prejudice”, he wants to distance himself from his past as a former slave to preserve what he has accomplished through his hard work. When he says “Self-preservation is the first law of nature” (7), Mr. Ryder implies that biracial people should move forward in society and gain more rights without concerning themselves with matters that would lower their position in society. Therefore, deciding to identify as former slaves is a complex choice for biracial