A Study Guide for Charles Chesnutt's "The Goophered Grapevine"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Charles Chesnutt's "The Goophered Grapevine," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jul 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535836999

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The Goophered Grapevine

Charles Waddell Chesnutt

1887

Introduction

The Goophered Grapevine by African-American novelist and short story writer Charles W. Chesnutt, was first published in Atlantic Monthly in 1887. It was the first work by an African American to appear in this prestigious magazine, although at the time the editors were unaware of Chesnutt's race. The story was reprinted in Chesnutt's collection of stories The Conjure Woman, published in 1899. The story is also available in Collected Stories of Charles W. Chesnutt (1992), edited by William L. Andrews. The story is frequently anthologized and is the best known of the dialect stories Chesnutt wrote in the early part of his career. These stories, which use the style of language, or dialect, spoken by African Americans in the South in the mid-nineteenth century, are not only a landmark in African-American literature, they also capture life in the South immediately before and after the Civil War.

The Goophered Grapevine is set in North Carolina in two distinct time periods. Shortly after Reconstruction (the period from 1865 to 1877, when the Southern states were reintegrated into the Union following the Civil War), a Northern businessman travels to the South to investigate the possibility of buying a vineyard. He encounters a former slave named Julius who tells him a story about something strange that happened on the plantation before slavery was abolished. The story reveals much not only about the cruelty of the slavery system but also about the folktales and beliefs of African Americans during this period, and the contrast between their beliefs and those of the Northern visitor and the culture he represents.

Author Biography

African-American novelist and short story writer Charles W. Chesnutt was born on June 20, 1858, in Cleveland, Ohio. He was the first child of Andrew Jackson Chesnutt and Ann Maria Sampson, free blacks who had moved north from North Carolina. In 1866, after the Civil War, the family, now with five children, moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Chesnutt's racial heritage was mixed. His grandmothers were of mixed race, and it is likely that both his grandfathers were white. Chesnutt himself was light-skinned, and could have passed as white, but he chose instead to identify with his African-American heritage.

As a boy, Chesnutt attended the Howard School and also worked in his father's grocery store.