49 pages • 1 hour read
The Ways of White Folks
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Stories 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Story 1 Summary: “Cora Unashamed”
The first story takes place in Melton, a small, unremarkable town. Cora Jenkins, a middle-aged Black woman, works for the White Studevant family. Townsfolk occasionally call Cora racial slurs, and the Studevants mistreat her. Born and raised in Melton herself, Cora doesn’t plan on leaving despite regularly facing racism. The oldest child in her family, Cora helped raise her siblings and even dropped out of school to help. All her siblings have moved away, and now Cora cares for her aging parents. Cora remembers having a White lover, Joe, and baring his child, a girl she named Josephine. Cora and Joe never married, but Cora happily took on her parental duties: “But the child was hers—a living bridge between two worlds. Let people talk” (6). Josephine dies from whooping cough, and Cora curses the heavens for taking her baby so soon. She returns to work, heartbroken, but finds solace caring for the Studevants’ own little girl, Jessie.
The years pass, and Cora continues to bond with Jessie. Jessie isn’t good in school, to her mother’s chagrin, but Cora helps serve as a mediator. Jessie develops a knack for cooking and further bonds with Cora in the kitchen, becoming closer with Cora than her own family. As Jessie graduates from high school, she tells Cora she’s pregnant. Cora, unashamed of Jessie’s situation, informs the members of the Studevant family, who don’t take the news well. Jessie’s mother takes her to Kansas City for 10 days. Cora, meanwhile, worries for Jessie and reflects on the death of Josephine. Jessie returns home and looks noticeably skinnier and unwell. Jessie can’t keep food down and dies a month later.
The Studevants hold a beautiful funeral. Friends and relatives attend. Cora attends, too, her presence creating noticeable tension at the ceremony. Cora moves to the casket to say a few last words. She screams, saying that the family terminated Jessie’s pregnancy and that Jessie died because of them. Cora shouts and mourns, then is taken away. She leaves and never returns to the Studevants’. The story ends with Cora settling into a routine of growing food in her family’s garden with her mother: “Anyhow, on the edge of Milton, the Jenkins n*****s, Pa and Ma and Cora, somehow manage to get along” (18).
Story 2 Summary: “Slave on the Block”
Michael and Anne Carraway, two White artists living in New York, love to take in Black culture. They don’t believe in donating to social services or philanthropy to help Black communities, believing Black people to be “simple” people whose cultural practices they don’t want to interfere with. When Michael and Anne visit Black communities, they’re met with skepticism: “As much as they loved Negroes, Negroes didn’t seem to love Michael and Anne” (20). They meet a handsome young Black man, Luther, and are delighted to discover he's looking for a job. They pay him to tend their small garden, and Luther bonds with Mattie, a Black woman also in the Carraway’s employment.
Anne starts to paint Luther working, eventually asking him to pose for her. Luther poses on a box so Anne can paint him as if he were a slave being sold. She titles the painting The Slave on the Block. Anne has Luther take off his clothes so the painting will be more accurate, and Luther tolerates the request. After work, Luther and Mattie agree the Carraways are strange: “They didn’t understand the vagaries of white folks, neither Luther nor Mattie, and they didn’t want to be bothered trying” (25). Michael and Anne ask Luther to pose and sing more and more. Luther loses his patience, and the Carraways blame Mattie, claiming she’s a bad influence. Luther and Mattie develop an intimate relationship and start sleeping in the same room in the house. Michael and Anne see themselves as liberal-minded and allow Luther and Mattie to have a relationship, but it still gives the Carraways an uneasy feeling.
Michael’s mother, Mrs. Carraway, comes to visit from Kansas City. Unlike Anne and Michael, Mrs. Carraway doesn’t like singing, especially from Black servants. Luther sings anyway. Mrs. Carraway scowls at Luther. Luther argues back, sending her into an angry fervor. Michael is forced to choose between his mother staying or Luther leaving, and he asks Luther to leave. Luther agrees to go, as does Mattie. Mattie comments that they’ve put up with enough, a statement that confuses Anne. Anne always thought she had done nothing but be nice. Luther and Mattie leave for good, and Anne’s painting remains unfinished.
Story 3 Summary: “Home”
Roy Williams, a violinist, returns home to Missouri after traveling abroad: “Roy had been away seven or eight years, wandering the world. He came back very well dressed, but awfully thin. He wasn’t well” (33). Roy suffers from a hemorrhage. He fears death and has returned home to see his family before his health deteriorates more. When he steps off the train, Roy’s nice clothing and appearance draw attention. A group of White men say they aren’t happy to see him. Roy walks away, and they call him the n-word. In Europe, Roy didn’t feel ostracized for being Black. Now, back at home in the South, he’s treated differently.
Roy’s family is ecstatic to see him. They prepare him a hearty meal. His family also plans a local concert so Roy can play for the town. The concert yields a large turnout of both Black and White townsfolk. Before playing, Roy looks out and pities the entire crowd, viewing them all as poor Southerners. He plays, envisioning the notes soaring over the White folks in the front seats to the Black audience in the back rows. After playing, Roy feels unwell. He nevertheless receives a warm reception: “When the concert was over, even some of the white folks shook Roy’s hand and said it was wonderful” (41). Miss Reese, a music teacher, talks to Roy about concerts and symphonies, and Roy enjoys talking deeply about music with her.
Roy goes to the White high school where Miss Reeves teaches to play for her students. He doesn’t feel well and plays badly. Miss Reeves is still overjoyed he came to play, but her students don’t share her appreciation. Roy’s health continues to decline. He goes for a nightly stroll, rejuvenated by the fresh air, and reminisces about discovering music and working hard to master it. He reaches the main street of town and hears various racial slurs but ignores them. Miss Reeves exits a shop, and the two talk about music more. Roy is struck on the side of the face. More and more men gang up on Roy and accuse him of attacking Miss Reeves. Their accusations grow increasingly dramatic, and they beat him relentlessly. Roy’s mouth fills with blood. He understands he won’t see his mother again. Then the mob takes Roy into the woods and hangs him.
Stories 1-3 Analysis
The first three stories of The Ways of White Folks establish topics that will continue to be addressed throughout the rest of the collection. Each story depicts Black main characters grappling with racism. By the second paragraph of the first story, the world of “Cora Unashamed” is established as a clearly racist one: “[Cora] was what the people referred to when they wanted to be polite, as a Negress, and when they wanted to be rude, as a n*****” (3). Cora’s own hometown is a threatening place because of the color of her skin. The third line of “Slave on the Block” does similar early worldbuilding. The Carraways are described as seeing “no use in helping a race that was already too charming and naïve and lovely for words” (19). The Carraways aren’t outwardly hostile to the Black community like Cora’s hometown, but the Carraways’ views are nevertheless flawed; they don’t look at their Black neighbors as equal to them.
In “Home,” Roy feels the color of his skin the moment he returns to the South, something he had forgotten about in Europe. His well-dressed style is enough to elicit a racist remark: “‘An uppty n*****,’ said the white loafers when they saw him standing, slim and elegant, on the station platform in the September sunlight” (34). With each story, Hughes quickly lets the reader know that his main characters grapple with racism, then uses each story to tackle that subject through a different viewpoint and in a different location. Cora is poor and ostracized by a majority-White town. In New York, the Carraways treat Black people like ornaments, and Luther gets caught in their fetishization. Roy is a talented and upstanding person but is killed because of his skin color. Hughes repurposes these character types and scenarios throughout the rest of the collection.
In each of the first three stories, class plays a key role in the conflict, another subject Hughes comments on throughout The Ways of White Folks. In Story 1, Cora’s employer mistreats her, but she feels incapable of leaving: “She worked for the Studevants, who treated her like a dog. She stood it. Had to stand it; or work for poorer white folks who would treat her worse; or go jobless” (3-4). Cora’s meager job prospects have trapped her in an exploitive and abusive position, an example of the dire situations the economically disadvantaged find themselves in. In “Slave on the Block,” Luther loses a job because he won’t give up the wages he’s earned: “But the Greek fired him because the boy wouldn’t give half his tips over to the proprietor” (22-23). Luther has two options: Be exploited or be jobless.
On the other hand, in “Home,” Roy has built a successful musical career. He sees poverty from an observational viewpoint. When playing at the church in his hometown, he notices: “The front rows were fifty cents and filled with white folks. The rest of the seats were a quarter and filled with Negroes” (39). Through Roy’s perspective, Hughes shows that entertainment is more luxurious for the wealthy. Each story finds the poor characters more disadvantaged than the wealthier ones, in terms of both employment and leisure. Hughes includes similar scenes throughout many of the remaining stories to create a constant reminder of the class struggle in the United States.
While each story circles around the same subject matter and themes, each ending is distinct and varies in tone. “Cora Unashamed” ends with Cora unemployed but still surviving and helping her parents. Her ending is a somber one, as her job was the most consistent form of income her family had. At the very least, Cora didn’t stay silent at the funeral. She spoke her mind because it was the right thing to do. Her ending suggests doing the right thing can come at a heavy price but is still worth doing. “Slave on the Block” concludes with Luther and Mattie leaving the Carraway house, their job prospects uncertain. Anne is crushed because of her unfinished painting: “‘Oh,’ Anne moaned distressfully, ‘my Boy on the Block!’” (30). Luther and Mattie feel liberated leaving the Carraways, whereas Anne suffers because of her misguided views. “Home” carries the more tragic ending, concluding with Roy’s lynching. His death serves as an important reminder of the violent history of racism.
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