Part 1 of Essay
Following the Civil War, just prior to the turn of the century, many American novelist were writing more freely of the previous slave culture. Two of these writers being Mark Twain and Charles Chesnutt. Mark Twain was a popular “white” author by this time. Charles Chesnutt, the son of free blacks, decided to pursue a dre ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... of each, the reader is left wondering whether the tale was true or if Uncle Julius had conceived of it merely to satisfy his own desires. Chesnutt has added to the end of each story an ulterior motive of Uncle Julius that seems to be met by the telling of his tales. By doing this, Chesnutt discretely satirizes whites in general. In the first story, The Goophered Grapevine, Uncle Julius tells of a conjure woman putting a “goopher” on the grapevines, causing all blacks that eat the grapes to die within one year. ....