When you"re young you do things that can be considered foolish when you"re older. Ryder was a young slave and he married Liza Jane. When he was older he forgot all about her. What's foolish about that is he didn't go and look for her after she had been sold down the river. Instead, he started a new life with her not in it. I think Charles Chesnutt looks at Mr. Ryder as a man who should have looked for his wife after the war.
The Blue Vein Society is a group of individuals that were mixed and considered more white than black because you could see their blue veins. In order to become a Blue Vein, one must have really light skin. Mr. Ryder was a man who used to be a slave and has chosen to forget his past and move on. He was sort of a leader of the Blue Veins and a well respected man. On top of all this, Mr. Ryder is throwing a ball and is planning on proposing to Molly Dixon, a woman that moved to Groveland and stole his heart. Up until now, he has forgotten all about his wife he married when he was young. .
I think Chesnutt's attitude toward the Blue Vein Society was that racism existed among race. The Blue Veins wouldn't let anybody without light skin or of low social status join their group. They thought of their selves as higher than the all blacks. When Mr. Ryder is faced with the situation with his wife and the Blue Veins, he asks them what they would do if they were in the shoes of the husband that Liza Jane was looking for. When all of them say that he should confront her, Mr. Ryder does just that. He introduces everyone to the woman he married when he was younger. I think Chesnutt made the story that way to show everyone how the Blue Veins should accept her because of her devotion of looking for her husband for the past twenty five years. .
Mr. Ryder, a slave in his past, moved to the north after the war and worked at a railroad company for many years. All through the years he never thought of his wife because he considered her gone from his life.
