A Chocolate Soldier (Masterplots II: African American Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Cyrus Colter
- First Published: 1988
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The 1920’s to the 1980’s
- Setting: In and around Gladstone College in Valhalla, Tennessee
- Principal Characters: Meshach Coriolanus Barry, Carol Barry, Rollo Ezekiel “Cager” Lee, Mary Eliza Fitzhugh Dabney, Haley Tulah Barnes, Flo
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: African Americans, Parents and children, Love or romance, Murder or homicide, Twentieth century, Leadership, College life, Oppression, Fathers, Storytelling, Tennessee
- Locales: South (U.S.), Valhalla, TN
The Novel
A Chocolate Soldier is a story within a story that reveals the obsession and loneliness of Meshach Barry’s life. He narrates the history of his hero, a classmate at Gladstone College thirty-five years earlier. The novel is a nonlinear direct address narrative, flashing from the present, in which Meshach attempts to make emotional contact with his estranged daughter Carol through the act of sharing his story, to the past, in which closely alternating segments in the lives of Meshach and Cager establish the contrast between them. The tragedy of the novel is...
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