Reading Reflection: The Conjure Woman

In The Conjure Woman by Charles W. Chestnutt, The conjure woman consists of stories that relate to a man or woman practicing hoodoo on individuals in order to help out a situation. Hoodoo is a type of “voodoo” that originated from West African, Native Americans and European spiritual traditions. It’s known as a “superstition” It usually consist of being practiced for selfish or hurtful intentions. In the Conjure Woman all of the stories are based on hoodoo towards the slaves and masters who have done wrong. Uncle Julius is the master of the plantation and tells his stories to slaves to make them believe him and not want to try anything smart on him. These slaves look up to him because when they are in a certain situation, they feel like they have no other hope. Even today that is still what human beings go through. They feel that when they are in need of help, they will believe anything that they feel will benefit them in the end. Today these people are more known as mediums or fortunetellers. People are always looking for the easy way out or the easy way in. These people have a sense of giving them a path of what to do in order to achieve it faster. In The Conjure Woman, one of the slaves, Annie, is sick. She doesn’t know what to do and freaks out. Uncle Julius comes and tells her a story about how having a rabbit’s foot will help her get better and that she would have never got sick in the first place if she had one. She is even more freaked out and listens to Julius’s story about how the rabbit foot works. He then takes one out from his pocket and all of the sudden Annie says she starts to feel better. This affect happens people who are in need and believe the superstition that is held in front of them, making these people have “powers” and looked at as almost a god because they can perform the supernatural.