Jessie Redmon Fauset was, for many decades, regarded mainly for her productive encouragement of other black writers—she is still renowned for being one of the “midwives” of the Harlem Renaissance. But for some years now, her four novels have been read with renewed vigor by feminist critics in particular (Fauset’s novels all lament the marginalization of women in post–World War I culture) and by critics keen to stress the role that African-American writers have played in the development of the American novel. Fauset’s novels also serve as a historical example of a writer asserting the worth of black identity. Unsympathetic characters in her novels tend to be light-skinned blacks who never repent for “passing” as white—the almost grotesque Olivia in Comedy: American Style, who endures a lonely existence as a result of quashing her links with darker-skinned African Americans, is one such character. Fauset’s heroines, contrarily, tend to be young black women who initially “pass” as white, but who mature into accepting the intrinsic worth of their colored identity, ending their “passing,” and willfully rejecting the then dominant notion that whiteness is inherently superior to blackness—such a progression is made by Angela in Plum Bun. Fauset’s stories are always told by omniscient narrators, who often reveal historical injustices—the generations-long discrimination against the black side of the Bye family in There Is Confusion is typical. Historical acts of infidelity and harsh treatment of women are also focused upon: The Chinaberry Tree, the third novel by Fauset, is typical in this regard.
The action is set within the middle-class and working-class black communities of Red Brook, a typical “little hick town” in New Jersey. One third of the way into the novel, it becomes obvious that the main character, Melissa Paul, is pursuing a doomed relationship with a local man, the rich, conservative Malory Forten. Wrongly, Melissa believes that her parents were married. In fact, she was fathered by Malory’s father, who had an affair with Melissa’s mother. If consummated, the relationship between Malory and his half sister would constitute incest. The narrator manipulates the reader, heightening anxiety: will the couple marry, and perpetrate the ultimate sexual taboo? Or will they find out the painful truth beforehand? We wait until the day of their planned elopement to find out. Allusive to ancient Greek tragedy, the novel’s tension rises—with self-conscious, theatrical language, the narrator asks: will The Chinaberry Tree end in tragedy or in comedy? The reader does not find out until the last few pages of the 300-plus-page book.
Male characters are held responsible for the majority of the cruelties that occur in Red Brook. Melissa’s mother was not an enthusiastic participant in the adulterous relationship with Sylvester Forten—the man simply “wouldn’t leave Judy [Melissa’s mother] alone.” Men are possessive and greedy, keen on “hunting” for women and for female deference. Forten, indeed, appears almost like a pantomime villain. Earlier on, the narrator has condemned his “unhampered selfishness,” and his contempt for his female kin: he “sneered at his wife” and “despised his two plain little girls.” Melissa’s cousin, Laurentine Strange, is shunned, because she is illegitimate, the product of a relationship between a black woman and a reckless, married white man, Colonel Halloway. Men seem to translate women into commodities: one particularly aggressive youth, Harry Robbins, would “do anything to possess” Melissa. Even the novel’s most sympathetic male, Asshur Lane, has a habit of hectoring and patronizing women, telling Melissa, repeatedly, that “you must be good.” So bored is Melissa by his moralizing and by his concealed but profound superciliousness, that his repetitiveness “sent her yawning to bed.” Fauset’s heroines will not accept endless condescension from unimaginative males.
In addition to the problems caused by predatory males, Fauset’s female characters must also deal with “this nonsense about color.” Although The Chinaberry Tree conveys anger at the second-class status of blacks—a system of oppression typified by a ludicrous restaurant argument, when Malory and Melissa aren’t allowed to choose from the entire range of desserts—the novel is more preoccupied with class differences between African Americans. Some black communities are disregarded by those blacks who progress to be doctors and successful dressmakers. The affluent Malory, for example, has “absolutely no feeling about color,” and has no care for less well-off blacks: “no one could surpass him,” so other blacks’ plights do not concern him. Such attitudes cause division within black communities, and impede efforts to advance a united front against whites’ discrimination. At the other end of the social scale, a young black woman, the “sulky” Pelasgie Stede, bitterly resents having to serve better-off blacks; her only pleasure is to prattle viciously about the alleged misdoings of the middle-class blacks, resenting them more than whites. One such misdeed is a public fight between Robbins and Lane over Melissa. A racist newspaper editor sees the fight, and plans to report it, to cause embarrassment for the Strange family. Only a sort of bribe from a businessman, who is courting Laurentine, prevents him from publishing the story. But blacks can be bribed too. The Stranges’ old black gardener, Stede, always asserts, amusingly, that he never asks for food, but he hints that he wants food with blatant desire. He could not refuse “Pentecost” if “suthin’ sweet was set before me.” Generously giving food—“Pentecost”—to Stede leads to “ample and satisfactory rewards”—good service. Red Brook, then, is not a community, but a gathering of self-interested individuals. When networks of mutual flattery and self-serving facades of community spirit break down, or when masculine urges cause the fracturing of marital unions, it is female characters who suffer most.
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