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Charles W. Chesnutt's Fayetteville: A (Virtual) Literary Tour Introduction This website provides information about some of the sites and people of Fayetteville and surrounding areas that are depicted in the fiction of Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932). Recognized by many scholars as the first important African-American writer of fiction, Chesnutt had a complex relationship with the region where he grew up and attended school. While Chesnutt's desire to escape the South and the limitations and frustrations he faced as a man of a mixed-race heritage is evident from his journals and his fiction, his memories of places and people provided the basis for many of his fictional characters and locations. Chesnutt's description of his fictional character Rena's memory of Patesville can accurately be applied to Chesnutt's own memory of Fayetteville. He writes: "The brain cells never lose the impressions of youth, and Rena's Patesville life was not far enough removed to have lost its distinctness of outline. Of the two, the present was more of a dream, the past more vivid reality." In view of the many local sites that are described in Chesnutt's fiction, it seems that Chesnutt's own Fayetteville life never "lost its distinctness of outline" in his thoughts. These sites and people Chesnutt remembered, however, are more than just convenient fictional settings. This virtual tour will attempt to show how locations and people in the southeastern North Carolina reflect some of Chesnutt's larger literary themes. Understanding Chesnutt's use of these sites and locations will enhance one's understanding of Chesnutt's fiction as a whole. Continue with TourBack to index
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