Summary of Goophered Grapevine. The story is set contemporary to the time of Chesnutt’s writing period. (Late 1800’s) The protagonist in the story is a northern man and his wife who are interested in buying a piece of land in North Carolina. Which happens to be an old grape vineyard… The husband and wife run into a black man sitting on a log eating a hateful of grapes. (“Respectable black man”).
When Henry hears that the couple is interested in purchasing the land he proceeds to tell them his very knowledge of the lands history… He says it’s “goophered” – bewitched. Long ago a man named Mars Dugal owned the property. His slaves and slaves from other plantations use to steal his (scuppernong).
He would set traps and stay up all night to try and catch them but couldn’t… Mars visits a woman on the other side of town that is known to have powers. He hires her to protect his grapevines with her powers… She does this by taking a grape-twig, seed, dirt, a snakes tooth, speckled hens gall, hair from the tail of a black cat and mixes it in a bottle of wine. She then buries it under an oak tree.
She tells the plantation workers that the vines are now goophered and if anyone eats a grape from the vine they will die within 12 months… Needless to say, the workers leave the grapes alone in fear they will die. They hear of a few instances where – an unknowing child, a man from out of town- eat the grapes and soon die. The next year a field hand dies- assumed he ate some bad grapes… Mars buys a new hand {Henry} to replace the deceased one and forgets to tell him about the vineyard hex.
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He eats some grapes on the sly – then was told of the cun jun witch who put a hex over the vineyard. He becomes sick immediately after… Mars takes Henry to see Aun’ Peggy because he wasn’t forewarned. and come back the following spring to see her. He does this and he is instantly healed… The following spring he sees her again and she makes him a drink and tells him to rub the sap from the trees on his head and this will also enable him to eat as many grapes as he’d like from the vines…
When the leaves on the vines begin to grow, so does the hair on his very baldhead. He grows a thick and lavish head of hair. But when the grapes begin to grow, his hair curls up into tight little balls just like the grapes on the vine. By the time the grapes are ready for harvest, he looks as if he has a bunch of grapes on his head… Every spring he obediently rubs the sap on his head- and this makes him grow stronger and stronger every year. But in the winters, he has terrible arthritis and his head loses all its hair…
Mars Dugal notices how each spring Henry turns into a strong and healthy worker. He decides to sell Henry for $1, 500 to another plantation owner. However, when winter falls Henry is once again plagued with arthritis… Mars buys Henry back for $500 and takes care of him all winter long.
(He does this because he knows he can keep selling him in the spring and make a good profit. ).
On the 5 th year of doing so, a stranger comes to Mars Dugal plantation and gives him pointers on how to grow an even better vineyard. The advice is bad and Mars almost loses his entire vineyard… Dugal decides to keep Henry so he can work on his own plantation.
The vines slowly wither and Henry is once again plagued by arthritis. His hair turns a yellow and falls out and soon thereafter Henry dies… So the black man telling the story strongly advises the Northern couple against buying the old vineyard. The only reason he is able to eat the grapes is because he can tell the old vines from the newly grown vines and those ones are not hexed…
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The couple ends up buying the old plantation. After they buy it they discover that the black man who told them the tale had been living in an old cabin on the property and had for a long time been selling and profiting from the vineyard. In the end, he works for the northern couple on their vineyard.
