History views the southern black woman as a plump, witty, superstitious, mother-figure with a bandana around her hair and a deep, loud chuckle.  Like the stereotypical mammy figure, Mammy Jane illustrates strong superstitions several times throughout Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition.  Auntie Jane’s fixation with baby Dodie’s mole plays a key role in her beliefs and supports her portrayal as the traditional mammy caricature.  The white characters throughout the novel laugh at Mammy as if to portray her as the object of Chesnutt's wit, and she gets a very different reaction than other African American characters in the book.  According to the author's goals for the novel, it is apparent that character of Mammy is used in critiquing this stereotype as false.  In working toward a moral extinction of stereotype in regards to race, Chesnutt mimics the stereotype in the character of Mammy Jane by comparing her to a more realistic portrayal of African American ideals.

The audience first view's Jane's naïveté when Dodie is first brought to her after birth.  She states how beautiful the baby is, but holds back from telling the Carterets she “was not entirely at ease concerning the child.  She had discovered, under its left ear, a small mole, which led her to fear that the child was born for bad luck.”  She goes on to say that if the child was of another social status or race, she would have feared a death by “judicial strangulation” (Marrow, 10).  Nobody else seems to take such a birthmark to heart, but it seems to Aunt Jane that such a mark is not to be taken lightly.  Chesnutt states that Jane, “like some better informed people in all ages, found religion not inconsistent with a strong vein of superstition” and “felt her fears for the baby’s future much relieved when the rector had made the sign of the cross and sprinkled little Dodie with the water from the carved marble font” (Marrow, 12).  Chesnutt very lightly sets up his audience to view Mammy Jane as illogical in her beliefs in that she is willing to believe without considering if her thoughts are coherent, and he picks fun at her inability to recognize the difference between superstition and "true" religion.  Though this view is only slightly evident, it becomes more obvious throughout the novel.  Mammy fits the stereotypical southern view of the "darky" as child-like and imaginative in "conjuring up" solutions to Dodie's circumstances. 

Chesnutt uses the superstitious aspect of African American folk tradition in several other works as well.  The stereotypical black caricature is also present in Chesnutt’s “The Wife of His Youth” and “The Conjure Woman.”  In an early southern review, Anne Pendleton critiques this aspect of the author’s traditional African American characters by stating, "The author of this collection of stories writes very well and makes interesting matter of his tales of Negro superstition, astuteness and wit.  Nevertheless, to a Southern mind there is just the least suspicion of a false note in his delineations of Negro character" (Marrow, 36).  This same concept is illustrated in The Marrow of Tradition when old Mammy Jane first sees little Dodie and exclaims, “Bless its ’ittle hea’t!  it’s de ve’y spit an’ image er its pappy!”  Chesnutt goes on to say, “The doctor smiled.  The major laughed aloud.  Jane’s unconscious witticism, or conscious flattery, whichever it might be, was a welcome diversion from the tense strain of the last few hours” (Marrow, 9).  Like a child, Aunt Jane seems unaware of her own wit while her white family finds comfort in her humor.  The child resembles mature humanity only as much as can be expected of a newly-born infant.  Though the audience finds solace in Jane, they also find her adolescent, forming to the southern stereotype of a black woman.

Superstition steps further into importance when Mammy Jane decides to take action to keep bad luck from finding its way to her old mistress’s grandson.  When the child was just a few days old, “she filled a small vial with water in which the infant had been washed, and took it to a certain wise old black woman, who lived on the farther edge of the town and was well known to be versed in witchcraft and conjuration.”  Aunt Jane buried the vial in the back yard during the full moon for good luck and to “ward off evil” (Marrow, 10).  Jane fits further into the stereotypical African American woman, while the audience is forced believe more in the falseness of her character.  At this point it is ridiculous to believe her superstitious efforts are actually the reason Dodie is still alive, and the audience loses a little sympathy for her as her wittiness disappears throughout the rest of the novel.

With Auntie Jane’s more stereotypical portrayal, it also becomes apparent that other African American characters are becoming less stereotypical.  A more definite line is drawn between traditional characters like Sandy and Mammy Jane and non-traditional characters such as Janet and Dr. Miller.  The doctor and his wife are intelligent, passive, fresh, and up-standing.  This does not fit the typecast of the worn out slave with the frank personality.  One author states, “Southern nostalgia for the ‘old Negro,’ and the selfless servant of plantation myth, had his negative counterpart in Southern disparagement of the ‘new Negro’” (McWilliams, 82).  This author goes on to state that this portrayal is directly relevant to many of Chesnutt’s stories, including The Marrow of Tradition.  Characters like old Mammy Jane were a more sentimentalized version of the post-war black.  While Dr. Miller and Janet are represented as down-to-earth and commonsense, Mammy seems impractical. 

Each time Aunt Jane strives to ward off evil for baby Dodie, his conditions become more fatal.  Mammy Jane continues to find Dodie in unfortunate circumstances that each time worsens his chances.  She reflects, “The mole under its ear, just at the point where the hangman’s knot would strike, had foreshadowed dire misfortune.  She had already observed several little things which had rendered her vaguely anxious” (Marrow, 46).  She went on to describe the case where the mysterious black cat ran from the nursery as she entered to find a depression on the child’s chest.  She became sure that the cat had been sucking the child’s breath, and she had appeared “just in the nick of time.”  After this instance, she uncovers the vial in the back yard to rejuvenate its potency, recovers it, and walks around it three times.  Though it can be argued that Jane is right about the mole as a sign that predicts Dodie's endangerment, she doesn't seem to ever help the circumstance that Dodie is in.  Each time she uses superstition to ward off the problem, Dodie finds more trouble to run into.  At this point, Chesnutt reasserts old Mammy Jane’s simplicity.  He states:

What this strange symbolism meant, or whence it derived its origin, Aunt Jane did not know.  The cross was there, and the Trinity, though Jane was scarcely conscious of these, at this moment, as religious emblems.  But she hoped, on general principles, that this performance would strengthen the charm and restore little Dodie’s luck.  It certainly had its moral effect upon Jane’s own mind, for she was able to sleep better, and contrived to impress Mrs. Carteret with her own hopefulness. (Marrow, 47) 

Mammy Jane can't seem to draw a line between religion and superstition.  Even though she makes Mrs. Carteret hopeful with her efforts, Chesnutt portrays Jane's uncertainty about her own beliefs as an unlikely character of the real African American perspective.  Chesnutt states that she was barely conscious of the religious emblems and depended more on the moral effort (or the simple idea that she was at least trying in some way or another) to help baby Dodie.

The mole continues to weigh on Jane's mind, and her ideas become more illogical with each new problem. When Clara sweeps the baby from her in excitement and starts dancing with him around the room, Jane tells her to be more careful.  Auntie Jane had not been able to stop thinking about Dodie’s “escape from strangulation” or from surgery.  Chesnutt explains that Jane did not know “whether this result had been brought about by her manipulation of the buried charm, or by the prayers which had been offered for the child, but was inclined to believe that both had cooperated to avert the threatened calamity” (Marrow, 104).  He goes on to explain that the mole’s influence might have seemed to lay low for a time, but it was only “awaiting its opportunity to strike at an unguarded spot” (Marrow, 105).  At this point, Mammy does not even consider the option of luck or the ability of the doctors caring for baby Dodie.  Superstition and religion are the only chances, or so Jane believes, little Dodie has for survival.  Though the audience’s sympathy rests with this character, Chesnutt makes it clear that such beliefs are irrational.

Auntie Jane is portrayed as yet even more foolish with each of Dodie’s newest situations.  When Dodie slips from the window, she goes so far as to say it was the fault of someone other that the person who was holding him.  Chesnutt states, “Mammy Jane entertained a theory of her own about the accident…Julia’s daughter, Janet, had been looking intently toward the window just before little Dodie had sprung from Clara’s arms” (Marrow, 108).  Mammy considers the idea of a spell or witchcraft. The impossibility of such a curse is not forgotten by the audience, but rather than setting up the audience to side against Jane Chesnutt portrays her as simply gullible and unlikely.  Although Olivia is thinking the same thing, her beliefs tell her it is more due to chance than to witchcraft.  Unlike Jane, Olivia did not believe it was a look from Janet's that caused the baby to fall from Clara's arms.  Olivia rather saw Janet having an affect on her fears.

I would contend that Chesnutt’s argument is completed through the death of Mammy Jane in the conclusion of the novel.  Auntie Jane seems to disappear from the limelight for a while in the confusion of Sandy’s predicament and the race riot, but when Dr. Miller finds her again it is on her death bed.  It is interesting that an important black man should be the one to find and leave Mammy in this position.  After she takes her last breathe Chesnutt states, “Perceiving that he could do no good, Miller hastened onward, sick at heart” (Marrow, 287).  Then when Jane’s beloved family finds her, Carteret too leaves her lying in the road.  Chesnutt could have easily made the character of Miller or Mr. Carteret save Jane's body for the proper burial, but there is a lot to be said about the stereotype being left behind.  The unlikely, yet preferred black character dies and is overlooked while the prominent black character lives.  All her efforts to fit into the important world is overlooked, and her death is quickly forgotten.  It is also important to consider what might have been done if Dr. Miller was the one found on the side of the road at this time.  I think this was Chesnutt’s final step in showing the death of a stereotype that never truly existed.

Mammy Jane remains fixated with baby Dodie’s mole throughout the story as a mark of death.  Yet, while Jane’s body is left quietly on the side of the road, Dodie is left with a chance of survival in the closing of the book.  This seems to be a cosmic irony that shows Mammy's superstitious efforts as false.  It also seems important that other black non-stereotypical characters live through the race riot while Mammy dies.  It is apparent that Chesnutt was working toward manipulating the white's views on race.  Though the idea of black perspectives is not put in “black and white,” Chesnutt does arguably make known his conviction that Aunt Jane does not portray the actual beliefs and ideals of African Americans at the turn of the century.