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 7-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Mid New Surroundings”
The mansion which John has inherited from his deceased wife impresses Rena. They are alone except for John’s son Albert and the servants. Rena soon becomes Albert’s primary caretaker. John is pleased to see Rena settle in well and feels relieved to have someone present who knows his secret.
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Courtship”
Rena becomes friends with Mrs. Newberry who introduces her to the other women of the town. George Tryon is smitten with Rena and wishes to marry her instead of Blanche Leary, a blonde girl from his hometown whom his mother wants him to marry. Rena is flattered by George’s attentions but worries that it is “too good to be true” (50).
After a several weeks, the couple declare their love for one another, and Rena accepts George’s offer of marriage. John congratulates them heartily but adds a cryptic remark hinting at the siblings’ secret: “I hope that neither of you may ever regret your choice” (49).
George now visits more regularly. He presses Rena to marry him quickly since he is leaving in three weeks, but she demurs and says she will give her answer in a week’s time. Rena frets that George will no longer love her if he learns her secret.
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Dream”
George and Rena set their wedding date for the end of the month. George lives in a town not far from Patesville but unconnected to it directly by train or boat, so John does not worry too much about discovery. On the twentieth of the month, George and John leave for a week to work a court case in the next county.
In the morning, as John is preparing to leave, Rena tells him that she has dreamed of their sick mother. John dismisses her concerns, but Rena has an even more distressing dream about their mother that night. When Rena has the same dream for a third night, she resolves to immediately go see her mother.
Rena finds out the time for the train to Patesville before collecting her mail and finding a letter from her mother confirming her ill health. Before leaving for Patesville, she writes two letters, one to John and the other to George.
Chapters 7-10 Analysis
As a beautiful, young, and demure woman, Rena’s entry into Clarence’s high society is almost seamless. She is so successful that it seems she will almost immediately marry a handsome and wealthy young man, George Tryon. Rena’s feelings, however, prevent her from seamlessly accepting his offer and illustrate a difference in the two siblings’ characters.
John is perfectly comfortable evading or even manipulating others to maintain his secret, as shown by the scene in the dining cabin. He has been doing so for almost a decade, and, if he ever had any misgivings about deceiving others, he has long since set them aside. Rena, on the other hand, has only recently begun to pass as white and worries that George will reject her if he finds out. John obliquely gets his friend to addressing Rena’s concerns, but he phrases his questions so that George does not really understand what he is agreeing to.
Molly’s illness and Rena’s dreams are examples of the sorts of chance encounters, near misses, and convenient coincidences which drive much of the novel’s plot. John and Rena’s need to conceal their past is the central tension of the book. From the novel’s setting, the reader is reasonably certain from the beginning that the siblings will inevitably be exposed. The author must heighten the reader’s sense of foreboding by having Rena evade detection by increasingly close calls. Rena’s return to Patesville, blurring the line between her old and new lives, will set off a chain of events which will lead to her destruction.
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By Charles W. Chesnutt
