Trust And Deception In The Passing Of Grandison

The Roles of Trust and Deception in “The Passing of Grandison”

Trust and deception are a pair and there cannot be one without the other. Anyone can manipulate the two. If trust is put into the wrong person, they will be deceptive and turn on anyone for their own benefit. If deception is overlooked, it may lead to serious consequences. They hold very important roles in society and contribute greatly to literature. The story “The Passing of Grandison” by Charles W. Chesnutt shows how trust and deception can coincide, resist, and create power, which can all be manipulated by someone and shape other people's mentality to get what they want.

Foremost, trust and deception play key roles in this story. Deception leads everyone to think the opposite

They sway the decisions that Grandison, Dick, and Colonel made over the time lapse of the story. They both kept trust in each other, which is why there were no problems on their trip at the start. Grandison trusted Dick to take care of him so that no one tried to take him away and Dick trusted Grandison to not run away, even though he wanted him to. This gave the men a stable mentality to where they would not have suspected what each other was planning. It convinced both men that their deceptive plans were safe to execute. Dick assumed Grandison would never leave slavery by choice and if he would not leave, then Dick would never get the woman to marry him. This mentality led Dick to leave Grandison behind without any warning. Meanwhile, Grandison grew the mentality that he was trusted enough to get away with escaping the plantation with his family. Therefore, after Dick left Grandison behind, “Four weeks later, Grandison, tattered and worn out, appears back at the plantation, having escaped from freedom and seeking his former slave status. Colonel Owens thinks this is further vindication of the southern way of life and another indication that slaves prefer to remain as dependents of kindly masters” (Howard). The deception continued shaping Colonels cast of mind up until Grandison left on the boat with his family.

To conclude the previous statements, trust and deception can coincide, resist, and create power, which

“The Passing of Grandison by Charles Waddell Chesnutt.” Salem Press Encyclopedia of Literature, 2022. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=ers&AN=117482250&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Osinubi, Viktor. “Privileging the African Metaphysics of Presence in American Slave Culture:The Example of Charles W. Chesnutt’s ‘The Passing of Grandison. ’”Studiesin theLiteraryImagination,vol.43no.2Fall2010,pp.4762.EBSCOhost,search.ebscohos t.com/ login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType= ip,shib&db=lkh&AN=66234772&site=lrc-plus.

Williams, Patricia A. R., and Earl Paulus Murphy. "Charles Waddell Chesnutt." Critical Survey of Short Fiction: American Writers, edited by Charles E. May, Salem Press, 2012. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?bookId=239&ar ticleName=CSSFA M _10810120000104&searchText=the%20passing%20of%20grandison&searchOperators=exact&category=Literature. Accessed 17 Mar. 2023.

Wright, Susan Prothro, and Ernestine Pickens Glass. Passing in the Works of Charles W. Chesnutt.UniversityPressofMississippi,2010.EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.c om/login.asp x?direct=true&AuthTy pe=ip,shib&db=nlebk&AN=3108