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Summary Of Charles W. Chesnutt's The House Behind The Cedar

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Charles W. Chesnutt was an author that had a unique style of writing. In his story, The House Behind The Cedar there were four distinct ways he told some of the main plots. First, he tells us in vivid detail about how the wealthy whites and poor black lived and how they act. Then he tries to tell us the trails and tribulation of Rena and John in a way that makes us want to feel sorry and excited to see how they get out of it. Next, Charles writes about a love triangle, but with more depth. It seems like he wanted everyone to decide who is a better match for Rena. Lastly, he gives us a very sad ending where Rena dies that makes you wanna cry.

The life of the rich and poor can be interpreted in many ways, but what Charles did was make it feel like so real that you can picture it. For example “The girl was moving along a sanded walk, toward a gray, unpainted house, with a steep roof, broken by dormer windows.” (Fullbooks.com). He described the rich living on a hill and with their fancy mansion. Having the rich whites live in the big house on the hill and poor blacks live in old …show more content…

He makes them put on a new identity just to live a better life. John had an easy fitting, but we get to see Rena for the first time and people are hating her. Not for bad reasons, but because she so beautiful. Chesnutt tells how every man likes her, while every woman likes to be her. When Rena went to a party her brother said, ” A dozen women here would give a year off the latter end of life to be in your shoe to-night." (Fullbooks.com). For John, he was a white male and some help so he was able to fool crowd. It seemed Charles wanted to show two different way the same situation can go. Everyone does everything differently, and he wanted to give more thrills for both John And Rena.

Then One of them being for true love and the other just for the sake of having a pretty

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