Wife of His Youth

Chesnutt's second major work of fiction, The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, was published in 1899 by Houghton Mifflin. In this collection of nine short stories set in Ohio and North Carolina, Chesnutt scrutinizes the sociological and psychological effects of Jim Crow laws and practices on white, black, and mixed-race communities. Chesnutt insightfully and often satirically reveals not only the difficulties faced by racially blended individuals but also their intense prejudices against more darkly shaded African Americans. Throughout The Wife of His Youth, Charles Chesnutt repeatedly unveils the nation's hypocrisy in claiming social equality among the races while gradually embracing the fierce system of segregation that characterized the North and the South at that time.