Short Story "Mammy Rose"

Short Story "Mammy Rose"

This short story written in the 1910 yearbook is titled "Mammy Rose" and centers around a young man Marse Roberts who has lost hope at being successful. However an older "colored" woman comes upon him, and they reconnect as she took care of him when he was younger. Although Roberts states that a lot of what he became is due to the help of Mammy Rose, she refuses to take credit and instead tells him how wonderful his mother was. She then says that she will stay with him, clean his house, and gives him money because it was what she promised his mother when he died. This short story plays into the common trope of black servants and enslaved people being grateful to serve. The narrative of Mammy Rose is also written in "negro" dialect, depending on misspells to portray black people as inferior, and exaggerated to express inferiority.

Virginia Baptist Historical Society, The Spider (1910): 226. Available online via the UR Scholarship Repository.

The Spider, University of Richmond

1910

English

Spider226-1910.pdf

Richmond (Va).