Post- Emancipation Life in The Wife of His Youth by Charles Chesnutt

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In The Wife of His Youth by Charles Chesnutt, he shows many predicaments of post-emancipation life. One of these predicaments is that the social status of freedmen compared to white men left little room for improvement and made it hard for them to survive. The freedmen were illiterate and not used to being out on their own, because as a slave all they had to do was work in the fields. They were still viewed as inferior, but had little to no jobs to provide money for the necessities in life. Another predicament shown in the story was how when they were slaves they were sold to different plantation owners and separated from their family and people they care about. This caused many of them to search for years after they were released, with the hope that they would one day find their loved ones. Post-emancipation life was just as bad for the people of “mixed blood” because they were more black than white, but not accepted by whites. In the story those with mixed blood often grouped together in societies, in hopes to raise their social standards so that there were more opportunities for...

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