The Marrow of Tradition · Chapter
XX: A Shocking Crime explained
Old Mrs.
What happens
Old Mrs. Ochiltree is found murdered in her home, her cedar chest broken open. Dinah, her cook, rushes to inform Mrs. Carteret, who hurries to the scene. Mrs. Carteret, motivated by concern over potentially damaging papers her aunt may have kept, searches the chest but finds only old deeds and letters. The news spreads quickly, and a coroner's jury returns a verdict of murder by persons unknown during a burglary. Suspicion immediately falls on the black community, and a white committee forms to find the perpetrator, while many black residents go into hiding to avoid potential lynching.
Themes in this chapter
Racial Injustice
The automatic suspicion of the black community and the threat of lynching highlight systemic racial injustice.
Violence and Mob Rule
The murder itself and the immediate formation of a lynch-minded committee demonstrate the prevalence of mob rule over legal process.
Family and Heritage
Mrs. Carteret's primary concern is protecting her family's reputation and suppressing evidence of her father's secret marriage.
Characters to notice
- Polly Ochiltree
Found murdered in her home, her cedar chest broken open.
- Dinah
Mrs. Ochiltree's cook who discovers the body and alerts Mrs. Carteret.
- Olivia Carteret
Hurries to the scene, motivated by concern over her aunt's papers and the family secret.
- Little Dodie
Present during Dinah's frantic arrival, being prepared for the day.
Key passages
“Suspicion was at once directed toward the negroes, as it always is when an unexplained crime is committed in a Southern community.”
The immediate assumption was that a Black person committed the crime, a common pattern in the South.
Illustrates the reflexive racism that drives the plot.
“The spontaneous activity of the whites was accompanied by a visible shrinkage of the colored population.”
As white residents organized, Black residents began to disappear from public view.
Highlights the fear of lynching and the lack of legal protection for Black citizens.