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Research Articles

No. 1

Animality against Humanism in Charles Chesnutt’s The Conjure Woman and The Marrow of Tradition

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15881882
Submitted
3 June 2022
Published
28.10.2021

Abstract

The fiction of Charles Chesnutt may be easily read and analyzed through his own Enlightenment humanist political lens. However, despite his politics, Chesnutt’s use of animality in The Conjure Woman and The Marrow of Tradition opens an unexpected space of critique towards humanist perspectives and strategies as he addresses racial injustice in the United States in the early 20th century. Given recent critiques of the racial and special construction of the human, animalizing comparisons in literature may be understood in a new light, working to challenge typical humanist understandings of racial degradation and “dehumanization.” I argue that Chesnutt’s fictional use of animality poses such a challenge, prompting a recognition of and response to white material interests, rather than ineffective humanist ideals.

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