Charles Chesnutt

While racial identity was an obvious theme in the story The Sheriff's Children, one really interesting aspect of the plot was how the sheriff and the prisoner switch positions, almost as if they have switched racial identities. When the prisoner has the pistol in his hand the sheriff was surprised and had "relied on the Negro's cowardice and subordination in the presence of an armed white man as a matter of course." When the positions had switched, the sheriff took upon the typical slave reaction and was forced to "submit quietly". The idea of submitting quietly really seems to relate to the African American struggle throughout the course of history. While they don't remain silent forever, they are forced in many aspects like a lack of education or more obviously, being punished for speaking.
The juxtaposition of the prisoner with the sheriff's white daughter is interesting because I think the sheriff finally realizes in that moment that they are both his children, and that they both deserve fatherly attention.
Knowing a little more about Chesnutt's life, it's really evident how his own life experience parallels into the story. Chestnutt, being of mixed race (7/8 white) but being identified as legally black in the South, wasn't really accepted by either race, much like the prisoner who is also mixed race. "Free in name, but despised and scorned and set aside by the people to whose race I belong far more than to that of my mother." This quote was especially interesting because just like Chesnutt who looks more white than black, the prisoner isn't accepted by the white culture and is treated almost like a slave, even after the Civil War. A common theme in much of Chesnutt's writings was the unsuccessful reconstruction of racial issues in the South after the Civil War.