The Goophered Grapevine

“It had been at one time a thriving plantation, but shiftless cultivation had well-nigh exhausted the soil. There had been a vineyard of some extent on the place, but it had not been attended to since the war, and had fallen into utter neglect.” 

The narrator describes the McAdoo plantation in this quote. His use of the word “shiftless” reflects a stereotypical attitude toward Southerners and the judgmental attitudes that Northerners like the narrator had towards the defeated South.

“We drove between the decayed gate-posts—the gate itself had long since disappeared—and up the straight, sandy lane to the open space where a dwelling-house had once stood. But the house had fallen a victim to the fortunes of war, and nothing remained of it except the brick pillars upon which the sills had rested.”

The big house is one of the iconic representations of the antebellum South. This image of the ruined plantation is symbolic of the destruction of slaveholding society by the American Civil War. The presence of the ruin is also an important part of the regional setting.

“‘Lawd bless yer, sur, I knows all about it. Dey ain na'er a man in dis settlement w’at won' tell yer ole Julius McAdoo 'uz bawn an' raise' on dis yer same plantation. Is you de Norv'n gemman w'at 's gwine ter buy de ole vimya'd?’” 

Julius McAdoo, the narrator of the interpolated story, speaks in dialect. In keeping with the realistic representation associated with literary realism, Chesnutt uses dialect to portray the unique language of the region.