when he travels by train. He is ordered by a train conductor to move to a colored sleeping-car although he has paid first-class fare. Dr. Miller finds that unlike the
one for Whites, the colored sleeping-car has low quality. The novel reveals the practice of racism toward black people and
Mulattoes. The majority of white characters always discriminate the Blacks and Mulattoes while the black and mulatto characters continually gets discriminative
treatments. The story also tells about the real race riot that happened in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898 in which “the total death toll as high as 250”
http:ncpedia.orgwilmington-race-riot.
B. Approach of the Study
The writer uses sociocultural-historical approach to analyze the novel. According to Mary Rohrberger and Samuel H. Woods, Jr. in Reading and Writing
about Literature , sociocultural-historical approach is the way to locate the real
work in reference to the civilization that produced it. The critics should understand “the social milieu in which a work was created” 1971: 9. Therefore,
sociocultural-historical approach is an approach that is used to understand a literary work by observing the social, cultural, and historical background of the
literary work.
In this study, the writer observes the social, cultural, and historical background of Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition. The writer finds that The
Marrow of Tradition set in the late nineteenth century when the practice of racism
such as racial segregation and lynching still existed in the United States of America and were striking phenomena in the American South. Therefore, the
writer analyzes the practice of racism revealed in The Marrow of Tradition to see how it reflects the practice of racism that really happened in the United States of
America in the late nineteenth century. Sociocultural-historical approach is most suitable for this study because
the topic of this study is the practice of racism experienced by the Blacks and Mulattoes in the late nineteenth century United States of America in Chesnutt’s
The Marrow of Tradition .
It is impossible to understand the topic without knowledge of the practice of racism against black people and Mulattoes that
happened at that time in the United States of America.
C. Method of the Study
The method used in this study is library research. Library research is a research method in which a researcher collects information using existing
resources such as encyclopedias, glossaries, books, and the internet. The writer uses two kinds of sources in conducting this study: the primary
and secondary sources. The primary source is Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition.
The secondary sources are books on racism against black people; Mulattoes in the United States of America, slavery in the United States of
America, lynching, and Ku Klux Klan namely The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People
written by Boyer, et al, Hickman’s The Devil and the One Drop Rule: Racial Categories, African Americans, and the US Census
, Blake’s A Short History of American Life
, Wood’s Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940
, and Horn’s Invisible Empire: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan 1866-1871
.
There are some steps in conducting this study. The first step is reading the novel to understand what the novel tells about. The second step is choosing the
topic and formulating the problems. The third step is collecting theories and reviews that are needed to answer the problems. The next step is answering the
problems using the theories and reviews. The last step is drawing conclusion.
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CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS
