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 18-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 18 Summary: “Under the Old Régime”
The narrative shifts to tell the story of Molly Walden’s life. Molly is born to free parents of mixed white, African, and Native American ancestry. Her father dies when she is still a child. One day, a white gentleman spots Molly at the well by their house. He begins to visit frequently, and the family’s fortunes rise tremendously.
Soon Molly, though still a child, is installed in a house of her own. Molly is grateful to her benefactor, though there are moments in which she sees the situation more clearly for what it is. The man dies several years before the war when Rena is only a few years old. Molly’s comfort is gone, but the family manages to survive on the scraps that remain.
In 1855, John Walden is fifteen. He is visibly indistinguishable from white children but is beaten by other boys for claiming to be white. John is a clever child who soon realizes his place in society and yearns to rebel against it. One day he appears before Judge Straight and announces his desire to become a lawyer. The judge is amused by the child’s self-confidence, and, from John’s features he discerns that an old friend of his is John’s father.
Judge Straight explains to John that knowledge of his racial status in Patesville precludes him from becoming a lawyer. The judge tells him that he must go where he is not known if he wishes to pass for white. Judge Straight consults the South Carolina legal statutes and finds that it makes allowance for persons such as John to be considered white on the basis of “reputation, reception into society, and by their exercise of the privileges of the white man, as well as by admixture of blood” (118). John spends the next two years working as the judge’s office assistant during the day and reading his law books in secret at night. When he turns 18, he asks his mother for money and leaves for South Carolina.
Molly’s protector had installed two slaves, Peter and Nancy Fowler, to take care of her. Having saved for years, Peter buys freedom for him and his wife, and they refuse to do any unpaid work for Molly after that. Peter’s son Frank grows up with Rena and is smitten with her from an early age.
Chapter 19 Summary: “God Made Us All”
Two weeks after Rena’s collapse, John arrives in Patesville discreetly. He tries to persuade her to return to Clarence with him. She refuses, saying that she will always be unsure if people know their secret and that to go back unmarried would be humiliating. She does not believe that George ever truly loved her and grows increasingly upset.
John offers to send her to a school in the North where she might meet a new suitor. Rena refuses, saying she will remain with their mother and never marry. John begins to suspect that he too cannot return to his life in Clarence; George may change his mind and reveal the siblings’ secret after all. He again offers to take her away with him but she asks what will happen to their mother. Molly cannot pass as white and to bring her would threaten their position. Rena refuses to leave, so John decides to wait a few months before trying to persuade her again.
John has Frank bring Rena’s luggage from the station and thanks Frank for his loyalty to the family. The next day, Frank finds his old, one-eyed mule and rickety cart replaced by a young, strong mule and a new cart.
Chapters 18-19 Analysis
The secret history of the Walden family is finally laid out in full. Molly’s nonwhite ancestry has constrained her, but the evidence of her partial white ancestry has allowed her to rise. As a result, Molly only values the white parts of herself and her children. John has clearly internalized the viewpoint. He is not in any way interested in describing himself as a black man. Rena, by contrast, has learned that carrying the secret of one’s identity while passing is traumatic and she can no longer bear it. She firmly turns her back on white society.
John and Rena’s respective responses to George’s discovery of their secret reflect the different degrees to which they’ve internalized anti-black stigma. Except for a short time, Rena has lived her whole life in Patesville where she is known as a black woman. She has previously considered herself somewhat above her neighbors on account of her light skin, but she now sees that, despite the special status her white appearance gives her, Southern society’s elevation of her over other black people will only ever be provisional. Rather than strive to be accepted by those who would only be at best ambivalent about her origins, Rena decides to accept her racial identity.
John’s suggestion to Rena that they leave the South entirely shows that he is far less ready to abandon his dreams of escaping their origins. However, John begins to realize that he cannot rely absolutely upon George’s discretion. George has said that he still considers John a white man and is treating him as such, but there is no guarantee that George will not change his mind. John finds that he too cannot rely upon southern chivalry.
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By Charles W. Chesnutt
