40 pages • 1 hour read
Charles W. ChesnuttThe House Behind the Cedars
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1900A 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 20-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 20 Summary: “Digging Up Roots”
At his family’s estate, George Tryon is wracked by his conflicting feelings about Rena. He is moody and withdrawn but refuses to answer questions about what is bothering him. Blanche Leary patiently waits for George to show that he reciprocates her feelings but is disappointed. She leaves for a week to see if George will miss her, but he gives no indication that he does. He tries to dismiss Rena from his thoughts but cannot.
Chapter 21 Summary: “A Gilded Opportunity”
Rena turns her heart towards humanity as a whole. Once, she had seen herself as better than darker-skinned black people, but she now identifies fully with them. She wants an opportunity to help newly freed black people but has no opportunity until her mother hears of Jeff Wain from her cousin.
Wain, a prosperous colored man, is reportedly looking for someone to teach at a school for former slaves in his area of Sampson County. After seeing Wain for herself, Molly hatches a plan to have Rena go back with him to teach at school nearby to him and hopefully marry him. Wain is taken by Rena’s beauty and apparent whiteness. After an ostensible interview, Wain tells Rena she is perfect for the teacher position. Rena agrees to take the job, and Molly announces a party for the night before they leave for Sampson County.
Chapter 22 Summary: “Imperative Business”
George receives a letter from Judge Straight. There is no reason for George to handle the matter in person, but he soon convinces himself that he should go to Patesville regardless. Shortly, he admits to himself that he is going to Patesville because he wishes to see Rena again.
As he rides to Patesville he imagines all sorts of possible scenarios that would make it possible for him to marry Rena. George becomes ashamed of how he treated her when he discovered her secret. At the least, he hopes that after speaking together they can part as friends.
Chapter 23 Summary: “The Guest of Honor”
There is a party the night before Rena and Wain’s departure. All the guests are mixed-race of varying skin tones. Wain, as guest of honor, cuts a dashing figure. Rena does not feel celebratory and declines to dance with anyone. Wain tells a tall tale in which a hotelier is ruined for renting a room to him after mistaking Wain for a white man.
Frank Fowler is not invited to the party, but Molly tells him he can sit on the back porch and watch the dancing through the window. Frank accepts the offer despite his father’s scorn. Watching the party, Frank develops a deep suspicion of Wain’s character and intentions towards Rena. Rena emerges from the house to talk to Frank and bring him cake. This gesture of kindness makes Frank very happy. Molly and Mary Pettifoot come out to convince Rena to have a dance with Jeff Wain. With reluctance, Rena agrees and reenters the party on Wain’s arm just as a horse buggy comes by.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Swing Your Partners”
As George approaches Molly’s house, he is shocked to hear the sounds of the party. He parks his buggy where he can see into the parlor and witnesses Wain dance with Rena. He is incensed that she is so light-hearted while he remains desolate. Rena, meanwhile, must endure dancing to the same tune to which she opened the ball in Clarence as Queen of Love and Beauty, and she is barely able to keep from crying during the dance.
George feels betrayed and in his mind heaps racial abuse upon Rena, decrying her manners as “the monkey-like imitativeness of the negro” (154). He feels relieved that he did not marry her and have children lest the “black streak” of her ancestry reveal itself in them. At the Patesville Hotel that night, George feels foolish and decides to leave town early in the morning without calling on Judge Straight.
After the party ends, Rena worries to her mother that another tragedy will result from her leaving Patesville. Molly tries to reassure her daughter. As Wain drives Rena away from town the next morning, Frank watches from behind a bush.
Chapters 20-24 Analysis
Jeff Wain and Rena’s going away party is an exploration of colorism. So far, colorism has mostly impacted the plot as a mechanism through which white people privilege lighter-skinned black people over others. In these chapters, Chesnutt shows how colorism can also be present internally within communities of color.
Molly Walden and Mary Pettifoot are easily persuaded of Jeff Wain’s wealth, civic prominence, and good character almost solely due to his light skin and comparatively fine dress. They have taken markers of whiteness as indicators of inherent virtue and prestige. They have also applied this reasoning to themselves, clearly considering themselves superior to darker skinned black people such as the Fowlers. Mary casually uses racial slurs to refer to other black people—only Dr. Green uses comparable language—and Molly’s offer to Frank Fowler that he sit on the stoop and watch the dancing through a window replicates the sort of master-slave dynamic that would have prevailed before the war.
George’s continuing struggle to reconcile his desire for Rena with his prejudice provides a portrait of how the ideology of white supremacy can harm even those it supposedly benefits. As a wealthy white man, George is unequivocally at the apex of Southern society. However, his elite status and his attendant responsibility to police the color line means that he cannot put aside his prejudices and simply marry Rena as he desires.
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By Charles W. Chesnutt
