The Conjure Woman

After reading The Conjure Woman, I started to wonder if most African American folktales involved supernatural events. John and Annie, the white couple, reacted very differently to the ex-slave’s stories and it made me wonder how African-American folktales were actually received by the public after the Civil War. Was Charles Chesnutt’s collection of stories representative of how society perceived these folktales? Furthermore, since most African-American tales were mostly passed on orally, the tales would be subject to variations. However, in order for people to learn about these tales, they would have to hear about them in person or read about them. Consequently, for someone to read the tales, there must have been a point in which oral becomes written, and it would be interesting to understand this process, particularly since this would have been the point where the public would receive the tales.

In order to look into these questions, I would first look into the history of Charles Chesnutt. Since The Conjure Woman was not completely wholly by him but rather shaped by his editors, this could help with studying how the folktales transitioned from oral to written. Was it typical that white people were necessary for this transition, or was Charles Chesnutt simply an exception? I would also plan to look into other African American writers during the times of slavery and the Reconstruction period because that time frame would have corresponded with the novel. It would also provide some insight into how other people were involved in African American folktale, and whether there were similarities.