Jan 1, 2010
The Passing of Grandison | The Passing of Grandison
At a glance:
- Author: Charles Waddell Chesnutt
- First Published: 1899
- Type of Plot: Satire, regional, realism
- Time of Work: The 1850's
- Setting: A plantation in Kentucky and the North
- Principal Characters: Dick Owens, Charity Lomax, Colonel Owens, Grandison
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: African Americans, Discrimination, Freedom, North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, South or Southerners, Abolitionists, Nineteenth century, Slavery or slaves, Plantations or plantation life, Loyalty, Ambition, Kentucky
- Locales: Kentucky, North (U.S.)
The Story
“The Passing of Grandison” is told in the third person and primarily limited to
the consciousness of Dick Owens, the cynical and lazy young heir to a large plantation in
Kentucky. His desire to win the hand of his sweetheart Charity Lomax leads him on a mission to
accomplish something of humanitarian import. Given his character and the contradictions of the
South, however, his efforts can have only an ironic result.
Set in the early 1850's just after the passage of the federal Fugitive Slave Law, the
story begins with the highly publicized trial and...
[The entire page is 1373 words long]
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