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The Doll By Charles Chesnutt

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Charles Chesnutt’s “The Doll” is a story of seeking truth, facing discrimination, and making bold choices for the sake of one’s own livelihood. Through Tom Taylor’s slow-building narrative, Chesnutt reveals the complications keeping the barber from exacting his revenge on the man who murdered his father, Colonel Forsyth. Despite having the perfect opportunity to do so, Tom remains steadfast in the face of the colonel’s taunts, ultimately deciding to stay silent. Aside from highlighting Tom’s emotional turmoil throughout the tale, “The Doll” also ponders how black Americans are to advance and protect themselves, especially as individuals within a societal system built against that very idea of social mobility. The story therefore …show more content…

19-21). While not explicitly stated, Chesnutt depicts and criticizes such factors by using the events of “The Doll.”
Firstly, the narrator does not directly reveal Tom’s race or appearance in the first page of the text, thus distinguishing the significance of perception in race relations. He infers it insteads through a brief observation from the colonel’s perspective, following an extensive description of Tom’s barber shop and his fellow barbers: “The barber was apparently about forty, with a brown complexion, clean-cut features and curly hair. Committed by circumstances to a career of personal service, he had lifted it by intelligence, tact and industry to the dignity of a successful business” (Chesnutt 248). Chesnutt’s decision to depict Tom and his barber shop through the two white characters’ eyes sets the tone for this tale. Contrary to allowing Tom to vouch for his own appearance and establishment, Chesnutt demonstrates the way in which his livelihood is perceived by those outside of his community, prior to his formal introduction to the readers. This imposes the story’s implicit narrative and Tom’s core dilemma—how his worth as a black man will always

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