Previous
Mood
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Part 1
Explanation and Analysis:
“The Wife of His Youth” is set in Groveland—a fictional city in the Northern United States—in 1890, 25 years after the end of the Civil War. It is likely that Chesnutt based Groveland on Cleveland, Ohio (the city where he grew up), and the Blue Veins Society on the Cleveland Social Circle (an exclusive society for mixed-race people in the city, of which he was a member).
The Blue Veins Society is an important piece of the social setting of the story. Chesnutt spends a significant part of the story sharing background on the Society, and here offers a bit of its history:
The original Blue Veins were a little society of colored persons organized in a certain Northern city shortly after the war. Its purpose was to establish and maintain correct social standards among a people whose social condition presented almost unlimited room for improvement. By accident, combined perhaps with some natural affinity, the society consisted of individuals who were, generally speaking, more white than black.
Related Themes:
