light-skinned


Bertha Mason

Jane Eyre

Character: Berthda Mason

Source Text:   Charlotte Brönte, Jane Eyre (1847)

Entry Author: Turner

Bertha Mason is Edward Rochester’s first wife from Spanish Town, Jamaica. Jane describes her as “purple…the lips swelled and dark”, “savage” with “thick and dark hair” and altogether reminiscent of a vampire (270). She is likewise compared to a beast, specifically a hyena, emphasizing again “dark, grizzled hair” (278). Rochester married her at the suggestion of his money-hungry father and brother and realized too late that she was apparently “bad, mad, and embruted” (278) with “a nature the most gross, impure, depraved” (291). Rochester has not a single kind word for her, save for the impression he first had of her: “tall dark and majestic”, so that Rochester was “dazzled, stimulated: my senses were excited” (290). Rochester depicts Mason as an exotic, dangerous temptress, incapable of modesty, intelligent conversation, or the domesticity 19th century England so cherished. He repeatedly emphasizes her failure to conform to his values: “…her nature wholly alien to [his], her tastes obnoxious to [his]…[he] should never have a quiet and settled household…” (291). Mason provides a perfect and hated Other juxtaposed against the pale, small, reserved Jane Eyre—educated, modest, and sexually chaste. She is “a quiet little figure”, “childish and slender”, and compared to a tiny English bird, the linnet (297). Bertha Mason serves to emphasize Jane’s value as an English woman, with “garb and manner restricted by rule”, a “flower”, an “elf”, a “good angel”, where his first wife had been a “hideous demon” (298-300). Rochester sees each woman in terms of extremes—neither are simply human, but an angel or a little spirit and a beast or a demon. Mason helps to define and accentuate Jane’s value, and by extension, England’s—for when Rochester compares the West Indies to Hell, he also is desperate to “go home to God” (293), so that England, or civilized Europe, is also the heaven to foreign “hell”. After all, it is “a fresh wind from Europe” (293) that prevents Rochester from committing suicide and renews him with hope and a sense of guidance—in a sense, it restores his sanity, especially where suicide would have been an act of insanity. In leaving, however, he brings a piece of this foreign “madness” with him, i.e. Bertha Mason.

Mason is also essential to moving the plot forward. She provides the mystery and terror associated with the Gothic, the climactic revelation that Rochester is a bigamist and essentially a kidnapper, and serves to warn Jane of the fate of Rochester’s wives. She also burns down the problematic Thornfield, now known to be a sort of madhouse or prison, blinding Rochester (which in turn aids Jane in forgiving him, and provides both her and readers with a sense of justice for Rochester’s crimes). She is a sacrificial animal, an interruption to surface-level appearances, which hold a madness of their own, and somewhat ironically, a guardian angel to Jane.


Annelies Mellema

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Character: Annelis Mellma

Source Text: Toer, Pramoedya Ananta This Earth of Mankind

Entry Author: Mike Steigman

Annelies Mellema is the illegitimate daughter of Dutch settler, Herman Mellema, and Javanese (Indonesian) Concubine, Nyai Ontosoroh. She is the sister of Robert Suurhoff. Both he and Annelies are part Javanese, part Dutch or “Mixed-blood”, as referred to in the novel. Both Mr. Mellema and Nyai rushed to board a ship when she was in labor so Robert could be born a Dutch citizen, but to no avail.

Annelies’ introduction begins thus, “In front of us stood a girl, white-skinned, refined, European face, hair and eyes of a Native” (25). Her description is told through Minke, the protagonist’s perspective. Minke is Javanese, yet fluent in Dutch and Western studies thanks to his schooling. Annelies on the other hand stays home, assisting her mother in working the fields and raising animals.

She acts incredibly childish throughout the narrative, with all decisions imposed upon her. mother, love interest, father, doctor and brother all and forcibly make decisions for her. Her will is frail and she falls ill at the slightest touch, namely without Minke’s presence, continually drugged by the family doctor until Minke returns to her.

Once she wakes up from being drugged, the doctor tells Minke to “‘Have pity on this child. She cannot face violence or harshness. She dreams of someone who will love her, who will give her pure love. She feels like she is living alone, by herself, without knowing the world’” (202).

Considered the “better child” between herself, and her mixed brother Robert Mellema, she maintains the farm with her mother, Nyai. Robert Mellema had also dropped out of school and “for him there would be nothing greater than to become a European and for all Natives to bow down to him (67). He desires to pass as Dutch, but is unable to do so due to lack of education and his darker skin color. Annelies leans toward her Javanese identity based off her close relationship with her mother. Nyai has told her stories about how Herman Mellema had slowly turned an incredibly evil man after Nyai had attempted to educate herself to be fluent in Dutch and Western studies. Ever since, Nyai has decided to keep Annelies out of schools. Coupled with Robert Mellema sexually assaulting her, Annelies wants nothing to do with her “Dutch” side of the family.

Before he and Nyai had met, Herman Mellema was married and had a son. His biological son visits and accuses him of having “committed a blood sin, a crime against blood” (99).
The text concludes with her forced departure from Java, being the illegitimate wife of the main character and the illegitimate daughter of Nyai in the eyes of Dutch law. The courts then decide to send her off to Europe. Once she exits the safe haven of her home, she leaves Nyai and the main character, the two natives or Dutch-educated “pure-bloods” alone in the house, newly confiscated by the government.

The first installment in the Buru Quartet, This Earth of Mankind was originally an oral story shared between Indonesian prisoners. When Pramoedya Ananta Toer transcribed the text to paper, he sought to ‘correct the accepted version of the history of the ride of Indonesian nationalism’ through Annelies, who embodies the frailty of the nation, the instability of relationships as a counterpart to Minke and Nyai, both pure-blood Natives well-versed in Dutch teachings yet rendered powerless.

Annelies’ weakness is a microcosm of the relationship between colonizer and colonized. As an involuntary ambassador of the tragic princess, the walking manifestation of the union between ‘civilization’ and ‘barbarism’, she is wiped out by the end of the novel. As she exits, any hope of reconciliation between the Natives and the Dutch is systematically erased.


Lila Mae Watson

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Character:
Lila Mae Watson

Source Text:  Whitehead, Colson. The Intuitionist.  New York: Anchor Books, 2000. Print.

Entry Author: James Tyler

It is unclear at the outset as to whether Lila Mae Watson is half-black, or as to whether her skin tone enables her to obtain a greater form of acceptance from her white colleagues, or to “pass.” Colson Whitehead chooses to focus marginally on Lila Mae’s relations with her father, who was black and who taught her “white folks can turn on you any minute,” but little mention is made of her mother (Whitehead 23). Although it is made clear that they occupied the same house, when Lila Mae recalls her elevator repairman father showing her and her mother his uniform, it is never made clear as to whether her mother might have been half-black. Aesthetically, Lila Mae exemplifies a “mixed-race” paradigm by her acceptance within a political minority, “the Intuitionists.” Within this political minority, she holds the unique and isolated status as the only black woman “Intuitionist.”

Watson finds herself within a racial identity equation of James Fulton and Pompey, both African American characters who choose to “pass” within white society, although Fulton’s identity is not made clear until well into the novel’s climax. As such, Lila Mae leads a lonely existence in the dark, with few African American role models other than Pompey, who is a conformist, and who appeases the white community, because success as an elevator inspector will ensure a better life for his family. Lila Mae is more determined and more of an individual, even if she has the capacity to be self-centered. She remains focused in the face of obstacles, and openly questions her culpability in the failed elevator inspection, rightfully insistent that there is something more to this situation and embarking on a “quest” to uncover the details in relation to the accident, and, in effect, finds herself discovering more about her own racial identity in the process. Effectively, Colson Whitehead inserts Lila Mae within the context of one of the oldest literary traditions, the “Quest” narrative, a narrative also ascribed to Danny in Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat and Lila Mae’s literary ancestor, Janie Mae Crawford, in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.

On this “quest,” Lila Mae is undeterred and un-intimidated when thugs invade her apartment, when she uncovers the deception of Natchez’s, and certainly when Chancre’s cohorts kidnap her. Still, Watson is compliant to a degree. She calmly accepts her Inspectors Academy room, a converted janitor’s closet. She is excruciatingly polite, even when under pressure, and she dresses conservatively and neatly, clearly invested in not doing anything to offend the sensibilities of a predominately white environment, and fully aware of the significance of her role as a black woman elevator inspector. Like Conrad’s Jewel in Lord Jim, Lila Mae is objectified by those around her; but while Jewel is objectified in a conventional sense, Lila Mae is utilized shamelessly by the Intuitionists for political gain, as proof of their diverse credentials, in contrast with the more conservative Empiricists. Lila Mae is an invaluable political tool as the only female, black elevator inspector, who just happens to be an Intuitionist. As such, whether or not she is willing to admit it or assume kinship with Pompey, she, in effect, is “passing” to a degree, as well.This is where her resemblance to James Fulton, the figurative father of Intuitionism, is most crucial. Both Lila Mae and James Fulton emerge as essential to the novel’s message, and are intrinsically linked to the novel’s theme of social advancement in the context of identity politics. Both hail from a period in which the only African Americans allowed in the department store were employees, although Fulton had more direct experience. James Fulton, a light-skinned black man, plagued by the necessity of “passing” racially, singles out Lila Mae Watson out in his private journals for a significant role within the Intuitionists. This leads one to wonder exactly to what degree he empathized with Lila Mae Watson. “He notices he has written Lila Mae is the one in the margins of his notebook,” Whitehead writes. “That’s right… She doesn’t know what she’s in for, he thinks, dismissing her from his mind” (Whitehead 253).



Coleman Silk

humanstain_coverCharacter:  Coleman Silk

Source Text:  Roth, Philip. The Human Stain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Print.

Entry Author:  Claire McDonald

Coleman Silk is a Jewish professor who teaches classics at Athena College. After spending his academic career as a professor and dean of the college, Silk is accused of making a racist remark about two of his students. Although this accusation is false, Silk is heavily criticized by his fellow professors, which leads him to resign in protest. Following his resignation, Silk begins a friendship with Nathan Zuckerman, an author who acts as the narrator of The Human Stain. At their first meeting, Silk commands that Zuckerman write the story of Silk’s perceived racism and actual innocence. He tells Zuckerman to write his story, but Zuckerman does not know the entirety of Silk’s story until Silk’s death in a car accident.After Silk’s death, Zuckerman learns from Silk’s sister that Silk is not Jewish, as he had known him to be. Instead, Silk is revealed to be a light-skinned black man passing for white. Silk first began to pass as white at a young age, when his boxing instructor, who was known to teach boxing to Jewish teenagers, told him not to mention his race at a match. Silk is told to allow other people to construct their own ideas of him, and this means that he is assumed to be Jewish because of his appearance and his affiliation with this particular instructor. This realization eventually led to Silk’s decision to pass for white and Jewish in all aspects of his life; he is hired by Athena College under the assumption that he is Jewish, and his wife and children all know him as a white Jewish man. It must be noted that Silk grew up before the Civil Rights Movement, and during his childhood and adolescence he was forced to see his highly intelligent father be belittled and mistreated at his menial jobs because of his blackness. This is not a fate that Silk wanted for himself, so he makes the choice to reject his blackness because he thinks that this will enable him to have the life that he wants to live.

Silk’s hidden identity is important to The Human Stain because it reveals an important aspect of the confines of freedom at this point in time. Silk can only obtain the freedom to live his life as he chooses if he is willing to give up his identity as a black man; this shows the institutionalized racism present in academia during the mid-20th century. His choice to pass as white also presents an interesting look at the definition of freedom. After being told that Silk lived his life as a white Jewish man, Zuckerman wonders if Silk’s choice to pass is the ultimate example of American individualism. By this, he means that Silk has completely prioritized his own success over the well-being of anyone else, including his mother, siblings, wife, and children. Roth essentially uses race to convey conflicting definitions of freedom and personal choice as they relate to the general sense of morality present in the U.S. at this moment in history.