Manipulation and Trickery in "The Passing of Grandison"

The cast of Charles Chestnutt’s “The Passing of Grandison” varies in race, age, and gender but in one way, they all act the same. Each of Chestnutt’s unique characters can be classified as a manipulator. Each character tries to enact power over other characters but ultimately each of these characters fall short with one exception. Ironically, the only character that is able to completely manipulate another is the character with the least amount of power: Grandison. Throughout the story, Chestnutt shows the reader a variety of different instances of failed manipulation and trickery to lead up to the ultimate climax of the story, when Grandison escapes with his family and friends.

The first manipulation in the story is laid out in the first full sentence explaining that Dick Owens’ actions were “done to please a woman.” This woman is Charity Lomax and her requests of Dick are the genesis of the entire plot. She plays on Dick’s desire to be with her in order to get him to act as she wants him to act. There is no tone of compromise in her dialogue with Dick. She lays out a clear ultimatum: “I’ll never love you, Dick Owens, until you have done something.” Her words are the persuasive element that cause Dick to try to free one of his father’s slaves. In fact, it is actually Charity who prods Dick to free one of his own slaves rather than someone else’s. Her actions clearly manipulate Dick into action with the intended goal of marrying a reformed man. However, this is certainly not what Charity gets. Really, Charity wants a man who wants to “dare something for humanity” but she gets Dick, who does “dare something” but it is not for humanity. He dares to try to free Grandison for Charity’s “love and affection.” He doesn’t want to help the world. He wants to marry Charity and, he does. Charity’s manipulation of Dick got the proper end results, but he certainly did not undergo any type of glorious transformation like she had wanted.

Motivated by Charity, Dick attempts to control the actions of two of the story’s other characters. First, he creates a fake desire to travel so that his farther will suggest a trip. Dick’s feigned spontaneity allows his father to unsuspectingly suggest that he bring Tom along on the trip. However, Dick’s trick doesn’t go all according to plan and when the Colonel agrees insists that Dick bring Grandison instead, the reader sees another failed attempt at controlling another individual, another plot gone awry.

Dick’s second manipulation, drawing most of the focus of the narrative, occurs when he tries to direct Grandison into running away. He drags Grandison to Canada and practically force feeds him abolition. Dick does everything in his power to try to motivate Grandison to run away but it all seems for naught. It seems that, he can lead a slave to Canada, but he can’t make him free; that needs to come from Grandison. Furthermore, after Dick does finally manage to get rid of Grandison, he is not able to make him stay away; Grandison comes home months after being left in Canada. Dick is helpless to manipulate Grandison into doing his will. Though Grandison does eventually leave, it is at his own behest, not as a result of Dick’s trickery.

It seems that Grandison’s reticence to run away comes from his respect for his slave life under Colonel Owens. He directly tells the Colonel that “I sh’d jes’ reckon I is better off, suh den tem low-down free niggers, suh!” Owens treats Grandison with an elevated level of respect for a slave. He gives him rum and tobacco to keep Grandison happy. Until the twist at the end of the story, it appears that Owens’ kind tactics have worked and that Grandison really does feel so thankful towards the Colonel that he would choose slavery over freedom. However, the reader eventually learns that this is not true and that Grandison is simply waiting for the perfect moment to flee. Colonel Owens’ treatment of Grandison is yet another example Chestnutt gives of one character’s failed manipulation of another.

In the first four sections of the story, Chestnutt establishes a pattern. He shows over and over again that trickery does not work. At first it appears that the moral of this story might be something along these same lines, that dishonesty and deception never work. However, in the end the reader sees that it does work out, but only from the character who is least suspected of trickery. Grandison is the only one whose manipulation comes to fruition when he and his eight closest family members escape. Grandison played the role of the loyal slave so well that he was put into a position where escape for himself and his friends would be possible. The moral behind the story drastically shifts after this breakout. Instead of teaching of a lesson, Chestnutt has given a depiction of a reversal as old as the Bible. “The Passing of Grandison” is a story about the last becoming the first (Mat. 20:16), about the chief becoming the servant (Mat. 20:27). “The Passing of Grandison” is ultimately a story about the trickster becoming the tricked.