Yearly Archives: 2014

Roxy

This entry was posted in Pudd'nhead Wilson and tagged african-american bi-racial female multi-racial white on February 12, 2014 by Betsy Huang

Character: Roxanna

Source Text: Twain, Mark, and R. D. Gooder. Pudd’nhead Wilson and Other Tales. Oxford [England: Oxford UP, 1992. Print.

Entry Author: Shalyn Hopley

Roxanna, more often referred to as Roxy, is one-sixteenth black. Roxy is one of two mixed race characters at the center of Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson. Roxy is a slave, but “to all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but her one sixteenth of her which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and made her a negro,” (Twain 8). She is described as looking as white, but her mannerisms are fitting of a black slave. Roxy is the caretaker for two boys, her own son and the white son of her masters. Both children are indistinguishable without clothing by the master of the house. Roxy’s actions regarding the children are central to the plot of Twain’s novella. In a fit of panic about the possibility of her own child being sold “down the river”, Roxy decides to kill herself and her child. Before carrying out the act, she dressed both herself and her son in their finest clothing. Upon seeing her child, she realizes she can switch the children, which she does, and pass her son off as the master. The children, Tom, the master’s son, and Chambers, her own child, are given each other identities in infancy and it is this action that carries the novel forward.

Roxy is a complicated character, drawn complexly at the center of the complications of an illogical system of blood. Roxy eventually is freed by her master Driscoll and works her own way on a river boat. She watches Tom, who was originally Chambers, grow into a spoiled child who scorns her. She reveals to Tom his heritage, and they together concoct schemes, yet she is still betrayed by Tom who sells her back into slavery down the river. While Roxy’s actions are revolutionary and challenge the status quo on face value, they ultimately are problematic. Firstly her actions are not openly defiant, nor are they the most ethical. Her switch is like an “eye for an eye,” a child for a child. She condemns Chambers to a life of slavery and the possibility of being sold down the river. While she subverts the system by having a “black” child in the position of master and a white child in the position of slave, she has not found a means to truly affect change. She has made one individual change while the system remains intact. Additionally, her actions are ultimately righted with disastrous consequences for all involved. Tom is condemned to slavery, sold to the men to whom he owed gambling debts; Chambers rises into a class he is unable to fit into due to his upbringing; Roxy’s heart was broken by the misfortunes that have befallen her son and the child she condemned to slavery. Roxy may try to challenge the status quo in Dawson’s Landing but she is not successful, her actions producing no victories, the system of blood continued.

Magiere

This entry was posted in Dhampir and tagged dead female monster multi-racial on February 12, 2014 by Betsy Huang

Character: Magiere

Source Text: Gene Roddenberry, Hendee, Barb, and J. C. Hendee. Dhampir. New York: Roc, 2003. Print.

Entry Author: Peter Murphy

“In the years before Leesil, all she had was loneliness, which turned to hardness, which turned to cold hatred of anyone superstitious. A mother she’d never known was long dead, and her father had abandoned her to a life among cruel peasants who punished her for being spawned by him. Why would she want to remember such things? Why would she want to look back? There was nothing worth concern in the past (Dhampir 214).”

Magiere is one of three protagonists in a low magic, low technology fantasy setting. She is a mix of vampire, a form of noble dead, and human in a world where humans and elves are the primary inhabitants. Other races exist or have existed, but operate outside the zone of society covered by the books.Her primary occupation is vampire hunting, an activity for which she was effectively bred. In the presence of vampires, she gains superhuman speed and strength as well as a sort of bloodlust. Prior to the start of the series, she works as a charlatan by pretending to slay vampires for superstitious villagers. She meets Leesil, a half-elf, and is inspired to journey with him, but rapidly finds kinship with him because he is similarly isolated from society. The two, along with a fey dog named Chap, slay vampires while searching for a greater understanding of their identities. Magiere, later in the series, finds that she is constructed from a ritual necessary to combine the living and dead.

Later, among the elves, she experiences considerable distrust and loathing for being a dhampir; the world is only now recovering from some apocalyptic event resulting from hordes of undead. With her vampiric heritage, Magiere represents to the elves, who still remember the danger posed by undead and especially “noble dead” who are capable of thought, the ultimate form of miscegenation. Magiere is frequently confronted by what it means to have her legacy and is required to grapple with the idea of part of her being parasitic. In the novel, there is little to be redeemed by most undead. The vampires she faces are required to kill people and obey the orders of their master, the individual who conscripted them into unlife, but many feel no moral complications from their life.

Magiere is noble, certainly, and loyal to her friends, but is not the typical adventurer. All she wants to do is settle down, but she is dragged to adventure by her urgent need for self-knowledge and her loyalty to Leesil. She is forward thinking, but compelled by the past.

Thomas Chambers

This entry was posted in Pudd'nhead Wilson and tagged african-american male multi-racial on February 12, 2014 by Betsy Huang

Character: Thomas Driscoll

Source Text: Twain, Mark and Sidney E. Berger. Pudd’nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins: Authoritative Texts, Textual Introduction and Tables of Variants, Criticism. New York: Norton, 2005.

Entry Author: Jonah Beukman

Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson satirizes a culture in which titles and nobility hold significant value. The dominant culture in the novel, which is one of affluence and “whiteness”, is proven to be superficial and false. Twain indicts a society that equates whiteness with nobility and blackness with bad character and complicates this notion with Thomas Driscoll, who is mixed race; his identity is not fixed and his malevolence as a character cannot be linked to biological determinism. Both Tom and his brother Chambers are one-thirtysecond white, yet Chambers is made out to be a benevolent character, whereas Tom is seen as wicked. His role in the social and societal settings of the novel is that of an antagonist, seen mostly in the act of selling his mother, Roxana, down the river as a slave. Yet he is not entirely unsympathetic, and Mark Twain complicates the notion of Tom’s “wicked” identity being due to his race. Tom’s identity as a mixed-race character is put into question in the following passage:

It was the “nigger” in him asserting its humility, and [Tom] blushed and was abashed. And the “nigger” in him was surprised when the white friend put out his hand for a shake

with him. He found the “nigger” in him involuntarily giving the road, on the sidewalk, to the white rowdy and loafer. When Rowena, the dearest thing his heart knew, invited him

in, the “nigger” in him made an embarrassed excuse and was afraid to enter and sit with the dread white folks on equal terms. The “nigger” in him went shrinking and skulking here and there and yonder, and fancying it saw suspicion in all faces, tones, and gestures (49).

Mark Twain puts into question several dichotomies here which relate to mixed-race and mixed identity. He satirizes the notion that being black is synonymous with being meek and unassertive, while complicating Tom’s actions as a character. “The ‘nigger’ in Tom” refuses to acknowledge white individuals. He “involuntarily gives the road” to white individuals who are not necessarily worthy of his respect as an act of deference. The word involuntarily suggests that at least part of Tom’s identity is inherent regardless of race, despite Twain’s false and superficial claim that “blackness” is on par with being evil. Tom also refuses to accept Rowena, “the dearest thing [that] his heart knew” inside, indicating that his black identity satirically informs sexual meekness as well. Tom goes “shrinking and skulking here and there and yonder” as a further indicator of Twain’s indictment of the waywardness of Black individuals. Black individuals may be wayward, according to Twain, but Tom’s mixed race and his acknowledgment of the dual identities that comes from both his “white” and “black” identities make him a character that defies the status quo. Twain himself defies the status quo as an author here through Tom’s duality in identity, which represents a prototype in post-structuralist thought

Saleem Sinai

This entry was posted in Midnight's Children and tagged Indian male white on February 12, 2014 by Cheryl Turner Elwell

Character: Saleem Sinai

Source Text: Rushdie, Salman. Midnight’s Children. 25th Anniversary ed. New York: Random House, 2006. .

Entry Author: Shalyn Hopley

Saleem Sinai is the illegitimate son of William Methwold, a white British officer, and Vanita, a poor Indian street performer’s wife. However, Saleem is born at the same moment as Shiva, the son of Amhed and Amina Sinai, a wealthy Kashmiri family moved to Bombay. Shiva and Saleem are switched at birth by Mary Pereira, and Saleem is raised as the Sinai’s son without them knowing. Saleem is the protagonist and narrator of Midnight’s Children yet his birth and the revelation of his mixed race heritage do not occur until about a fifth of the way through the book. The beginning portion of his story is spent describing his family history. Yet, with Saleem’s birth the audience discovers that this history is not that of his biological family but that of his unwitting adoptive family. Rather than tell the story of his poor Indian mother, his colonizing British father, and their extra-marital affair, he has chosen to tell the story of his Kashmiri family. Saleem interestingly acknowledges his mixed-race heritage and gives it a significant place in the story, including its revelation during one of the turning points of the novel—his birth, which coincides with the partition of Indian and Indian independence (132); still while acknowledging his mixed race parentage, he is privileging a monoracial identity, and even discounting the significance of his parentage saying “…there’s something more important than that. It’s this: when we eventually discovered the crime of Mary Pereira, we all found that it made no difference! I was still their son: they remained my parents.” (131).Saleem’s mixed birth however cannot be so easily discounted in the significance to the story. Saleem’s status as a mixed race character and child who not truly his parent’s child is symbolic of the status of India at the time of his birth. He is the result of colonization, and evidence of an Indian divided by foreign powers who are on their way out. He speaks of himself and the other midnight’s children, “children were being born who were only partially the offspring of their parents—the children of midnight where also the children of the time: fathered, you understand, by history.” Saleem, and his mixed heritage, becomes central to Rushdie’s allegorical tale of Indian independence.Saleem and his fellow Midnight’s children usher in a new period in India’s history, and in the novel, are granted with special abilities which destine them to stand out in both society and history. Much of Saleem’s personal history is interwoven with Indian history, his action being key to some of the wars in India. Eventually, his existence and that of his cohorts becomes central to Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. She declares the state of Emergency to imprison and sterilize the Midnight’s children, draining them not only of their reproductive abilities but their magical abilities and their hope (505). Her actions are tinged with a dark history of sterilizing the racial other, the undesirable elements of society so they and their progeny can no longer contribute to society. The power of the midnight’s children is intrinsically tied to their ability to reproduce, and so without powers and their ability to have children, they cannot affect the story of India. No longer connected to history, Saleem begins to fall apart, supposedly literally disintegrating at the young age of thirty-one.

Unborn Child

This entry was posted in Trailerpark and tagged bi-racial on February 12, 2014 by Betsy Huang

Character: Unborn Child

Source Text: Banks, Russell. “Black Man and White Woman in a Dark Green Rowboat.” Trailerpark. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 1981. 84-92. Print.

Entry Author: Jonah Beukman

Russell Banks ends his short story “Black Man and White Woman in a Dark Green Rowboat” with the line “it was very hot, and no one said anything” (92), emphasizing silence and omission as the dominant tropes in the story. The author hides the main plot point – the act of abortion – to the extent that it is made unclear and the titular characters fade into the background. Banks begins his story by setting the scene on the beach in the trailer park, emphasizing the barrenness of the setting and the mundane nature of the day. The main plot point of the story is never explicitly said, yet the reader must uncover what the two characters are speaking about by way of what is omitted. The unborn child is central to the plot in that the child puts into question the status quo of the trailer park and the lives of the two main characters in ways that are obscured by the story itself.

If the unborn child had been born, the status quo – represented in the silent, repressed, and racist lives that those in the trailer park lead – would change forever. Silence would have been impossible given the mixed-race child; one can even conjecture how the characters that Banks mentions at the beginning of the story could break free from repression and come alive to talk at length about the presence of the mixed race child. In Betsy Erkkila’s “Blood, Sex, and Other American Crosses”, the author writes the following about blood, saying that it was “a national fetish, a means of affirming political community, kinship, citizenship, and union at the same time that it became the grounds for exclusion, expulsion, negation, and extermination” (7). Though Erkkila is describing the fetishization of blood in the period of time following the Revolutionary War, the fact that mixed blood could be exclusionary and exterminatory is applicable to the period of time in which “Black Man and White Woman in a Dark Green Rowboat” is set, particularly in an insular community like the trailer park. The “mixed blood” of the child and the presence thereof would likely negate the silence and omission of what came before the child’s inception and lead to the physical expulsion of the two main characters from the park.

The lives of the two main characters are deeply affected by their decision to abort the unborn child, and abortion is suggested and represented in the short story in several ways. The reader is unsure what to pay attention to in the story—Banks comments on the color of the sky, the various murkiness and depth of the water, the act of fishing, and the color of the rowboat to suggest the act of abortion. Abortion is further suggested by the color of the rowboat—dark green—which conjures up images of vomit, excrement, sickness, and illness. Further, miscegenation is seen as a punishable act in the story as depicted in the fishing expedition, which serves as a metaphor for the sexual act. The black man is hurt when he attempts to plug up the tackle box, yet the white woman remains unscathed. The two characters and the trailer park as a whole repress their emotions and refuse to acknowledge the situation or their racist biases or attitudes (for example, the white woman’s father was said to “[hate] niggers” (88)). In refusing to acknowledge the act of abortion and the blood of the mixed race child, Banks offers a meditation on the presence and consequence of silence.

Works Cited

Erkkila, Betsy. “Blood Sex and Other American Crosses.” Mixed Bloods and Other Crosses: Rethinking American Literature from the Revolution to the Culture Wars. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2005. 1-36. Print.

James Fulton

This entry was posted in The Intuitionist and tagged bi-racial male on February 12, 2014 by Betsy Huang

Character: James Fulton

Source Text: Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist (1999)

Entry Author:

“I always knew they didn’t have the same daddy, but I didn’t know his (Fulton) was a white man.”
“Who else knows that Fulton was colored?”
“But he wasn’t who he was. He passed for white. He was colored.”
“Fulton’s hatred of himself and his lie of whiteness”

In Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist, James Fulton is the elusive, sought after inventor of the Intuitionist school of thought and author of four renowned volumes on theoretical transport. Although he passes away prior to the start of the novel, his legacy leaves a haunting omniscience that leaves much to be uncovered and explored as the story unfolds. For protagonist Lila Mae, the first black female elevator operator praised for her keen intuiting abilities, the struggle to discover the man behind James Fulton and his confidential theory on the “black box” becomes a testament to Lila Mae’s own self discovery.

As a pioneer of intuitionist ideology Fulton’s presence in the novel is largely indirect and unobtrusive, seeping through the text in brief interludes during Lila’s moments of deep contemplation. Throughout the narrative, excerpts from Fulton’s “Theoretical Elevators” are caught between chapters, and introduce certain sections of the book, though most indiscreetly. Like Lila Mae, we as readers attempt to uncover the mystery behind Fulton’s largely allegorical concepts such as the “thin man convention” and the “Occupant’s Fallacy” (38). At first glance, Fulton’s ideology seems highly probably in conjunction with dry, repetitious elevator terminology. In fact, the fallacy of the thin or obese man who is not considered for the standard occupancy of a residential elevator of 12 passengers seems highly believable, however, we as readers fail to notice the undeniable parallel between the “thin man convention” and Fulton’s secret analogies hidden within the text.
Though we are given little information on the character or background of Fulton, aside from the acclaimed excerpts strewn about the novel, his message is far from audible. For Fulton, the black box is “the second elevation” in which there is “no need for safety devices because there is only up…” (182), which is, in its entirety, the perfect ascension is a gateway towards a classless society unconstrained by racial boundaries. However, Lila Mae’s discovery of Fulton’s mixed racial background towards the novel’s conclusion lends contextual significance to Fulton’s claim for vertical uplift. In fact, Fulton’s identity as a figure of mixed racial inheritance, the combination of a white father and black mother, completely alters the arrangement of the fixed, pre-existing social and political backdrop of the novel. Prior to Lila Mae’s discovery, The Intuitionist’s world of elevator inspection is a metaphorical representation for a society hindered by social division, each group designated and confined to their own “boxes”. The tension between the Empiricists, a selective group of dominant white alpha males who dedicate their professions to rationality and reason, and the intuitionists, the seemingly inferior competitor who treats inspection with passion and gut feeling, elicits a symbolic comparison to a more palpable reality of racial hierarchical divisions.

Fulton’s hidden identity has allowed him to pass in a society that if revealed, would have never allowed him access or authorship of such a highly revered position. Because he looks white, he passes as someone with unquestionable agency in the field of Intuitionism, and one that he uses in efforts to reimagine a system already established. Concealed by texts administered for Intuitionist training, Fulton’s theories were a reminder of “the hatred of the corrupt order of [the] world, the keen longing for the next one, its next rules.” (232) As Lila Mae is forced to interpret what she terms, “a big joke,” “the perfect liar that world made him, mouthing a supreme fiction the world accepted as truth,” the black box becomes less of an obtainable object. Rather, it imagines a means for a presently unimaginable society, a place that would have accepted Fulton no matter what color he was to the rest of the world.

Tom Marvolo Riddle

This entry was posted in Harry Potter and tagged bi-racial male wizard on February 12, 2014 by Betsy Huang

Character: Voldemort

Source Text: Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter series. Bloomsbury, U.K.: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1997. Print.

Entry Author: Elizabeth Valinski

Tom Riddle was a half-blood wizard born to a muggle man and female witch. While younger, he had black hair, dark eyes, tall and considered handsome. After regaining his body in the fourth book, he had pale skin, skull-like face, slits for nostrils, red eyes and a skeletal body with unusually long fingers.

Known as Lord Voldemort, he is the heir of Salazar Slytherin and considered the most powerful Dark Wizard of all time. His mother gave his father a love potion without him knowing, and when it wore off and his mother became pregnant with him, his father left. His mother died in childbirth, and he was sent to a muggle orphanage until he attended Hogwarts. According to the Headmaster Dumbledore, Tom Riddle was the most talented student. He appeared to be extraordinarily handsome and extremely polite. However, deep under he was cruel, manipulative, psychopathic, and downright evil. He is soon called “Voldemort.”

Voldemort is the most hated wizard of all times because of his ideas and actions. He thought that purebloods should rule the Wizarding World, and was against muggles ever stepping foot there. Ironically, he is a half-blood, and his lack of accepting of who he really is eventually leads to his downfall. He is devoid of human responses as well as emotions and gets off murdering people, especially muggles, for fun.

“Voldemort: “You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore? Above such brutality, are you?”
Dumbledore: “We both know there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom. Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit.”
Voldemort: “There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!”
Dumbledore: “You are quite wrong. Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness.” (Order of the Phoenix)”

He is a key character because he is constantly striving to become all-powerful and advocates for pure-bloods only, but it is ironic because he struggles with accepting who he really is: a half-blood. It’s interesting to see the struggles of a mixed race human through magical realism. Voldemort wants to be heard and yearns for respect, but because of his inability to accept his mixed race, he becomes defensive and channels his frustration and anger through his murderous actions.

Roxana

This entry was posted in Pudd'nhead Wilson and tagged african-american black female white on February 12, 2014 by Betsy Huang

Character: Roxana

Source Text: Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson and those Extraordinary Twins (1894)

Entry Author:

Roxana is a slave woman. Over many years of racial mixing in her ancestry, she no
longer appears black, the 1/16 portion remaining no longer expressing itself. To
outside observers she is white, “of majestic form and stature, her attitudes were
imposing and statuesque, and her gestures and movements distinguished by a noble
and stately grace.”(9) It is interesting to note that her white skin allows her the
agency to switch her children, an act that would denied to a black skinned black
person. Black skinned characters do not appear to have the ability to exercise
agency in any meaningful way of their own. It is only when she is heard speaking
that those who do not know her understand that she is a slave and is black. She
considers herself to be black as well, and does not find that particularly odd. She is a
nurse maid to the children of Mr. Driscoll, as well as having a child herself. She
switches her child with the child of the Driscoll’s so that he may grow up to be a free
man. Other slaves around her recognize her to be a black person. They react to her
easily as a member of their community. (9) Although Roxy is unable to pass for white
because of her speech habits, which mark her as a member of the slave caste, she
recognizes that because her master is unable to distinguish between the two
children, that she would be able to free her son from a lifetime of bondage by
exchanging him with the son of her master. This demonstrates that Roxana
understands that race is only skin deep. She doesn’t see a reason that her son
couldn’t take the place of a white boy if he looks the same. The conventions of black
inferiority do not seem to have worked themselves into her head completely. If she is
able to switch the roles of her children by switching their places, they should be able
to function in their new positions well. Unfortunately this belief that the character of
whites and blacks is fundamentally the same is untrue for her, and her child behaves
very poorly. But this is not because he is black, but because he is a product of his
environment. Like Roxy, who is white in appearance but raised and acts black, her
child raised as a spoiled white boy acts like one. Roxy is unable to take great
measures to enact her own freedom, like running for her life, she does find a way to
reclaim some power through the exchange of her child. Ultimately, Roxana
demonstrates that the character of a person is determined by their upbringing and
social status, not by the genes which they carry. Although the nature and nurture
debate is cast into a strange new realm today, where genetics are beginning to be
found to be responsible for some elements of a persons behavior, at least
pathologically, Roxana is a representative of a train of though which states that all
human behavior is rooted in nurture.

Marcus

This entry was posted in Maintaining and tagged bi-racial male on February 12, 2014 by Betsy Huang

Character: Marcus

Source Text: Nate Creekmore, Maintaining (2007-2009)

Entry Author: Andrew Doig

Marcus is a high school student of indeterminate age. He is tall and lanky, with short cropped hair. He describes his complexion as “caramel.” He is a member of a middle class family, which is formed by his African American father, Caucasian mother, and his younger brother. Marcus is constantly questioning the implications of a mixed race identity in American society, and also what his mixed race identity means to himself. Although the comic strips are very funny, they regularly revolve around the exploration of this topic. Marcus’ mixed race identity is often an element in the other recurring theme throughout the comics, his teenage lust and desire for love. Sometimes his heritage helps him, and sometimes it does not in his hunt for love. His best friend Anton at times perceives him to be white, and at other times black. When he demonstrates that “all white people will chase after a frisbee” by throwing it, he forces Marcus to chase after the Frisbee. By fulfilling the stereotype that all white people will chase after a frisbee, Marcus appears to be fulfilling the white stereotype. But Anton is not persuaded by such simple categorization tests. Anton still prefers to give marcus the “black guy” handshake instead of the “white guy handshake” while he denies the same to an all white friend, demonstrating that Anton considers Marcus to still be black. For Anton, Marcus measure of blackness, Marcus is neither white nor black, but a mixture of the two. Marcus is constantly feeling anxious about his place, in ways that can feel like a portrayal of the “tragic mulatto”. In one strip he describes this feeling, saying “Sometimes I just feel like I don’t quite fit in with ANY group. Maybe thats just the funny thing about being mixed… a part of two worlds and yet fully accepted by neither. or maybe thats just the funny thing about being marcus…” We can see here though how the author is able to dissemble this trope by breaking it from the entirety of mixed people and placing it as a pathology on a single person, and also by the retort made by Anton who says “I gottwo notebooks full of funny things about you.” (May 09, 2007) By placing it among the absurd, Anton effectively destroys any truth quality that the “Tragic Mulatto” concept might have carried. This is not to say that Marcus is comfortable in his mixed race skin. He isn’t. He even struggles to describe to his younger brothers what it means to be in his mixed race position, in order that they can understand the world they are going to enter. He does this by suggesting that an Oreo is the perfect cookie to describe his situation, unafraid to assume the often disparaging mantle, but then retracting the statement as he does not see the two colors blending as the white portions and black portions have blended to form him into what he is. Marcus successfully inhabits a zone of both, even if it is difficult for him. This constant presentation of the difficulty of mixed life, as well as the analysis and subsequent humor from the absurdity of the positions and feelings that itcan create, no matter how real and devastating, is the basis for the humor in the strip.

Quadroon Nurse

This entry was posted in Quadroon Nurse The Awakening and tagged african-american Creole on February 12, 2014 by Betsy Huang

Character: Quadroon Nurse

Source Text: Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899)

Entry Author: Maraed Dickinson

Racial Mix: Categorized by narrator as “Quadroon,” a term used to designate a person of white and one-quarter African ancestry.

The plot of The Awakening unfolds among a close-knit community of affluent conservative Creoles living in New Orleans during the late 1800s. The novel, coinciding with the early women’s movement, focuses on the increasingly rebellious behavior of Edna Pontellier, who rejects society’s expectations and searches for an identity independent from her role as wife and mother.

As Edna becomes increasingly absent from her prescribed familial role, entering into an affair and eventually moving out of her family home, the Quadroon Nurse performs the role of caretaker and constant companion to Edna’s two young boys. The nurse remains at Edna’s disposal: either to free her of responsibility, allowing her to explore her identity crisis or, be easily dismissed, so Edna can entertain a fantasy of motherly affection for brief periods. Edna can ignore them or, in spurts of focused attention, let off steam from her conflict with Robert by blaming the supposedly negligent quadroon.

The nurse’s effect on the status quo offers some debate. On the one hand, she maintains the status quo and structure of the society by keeping its individual unit, the household, functional despite brewing discontent. Her oppression and resignation to her domestic duties preserves the family. At the same time, the nurse’s compliance frees Edna to explore outside her marriage and her prescribed role in the Creole society. Eventually, Edna’s exploration culminates in her complete breakage from society through her suicide.

The nurse’s ultimate role is to enable the freedom of others, even the two young boys she watches, who exercise their white male privilege despite their young age. Even the youngsters “[look] upon [the quadroon nurse] as a huge encumbrance, only good to button up waists and panties and to brush and part hair; since it seemed to be a law of society that hair must be parted and brushed,” (19). The young boys move about freely with “the quadroon following at the respectful distance which they [require] her to observe,” (30).

At times, the Quadroon Nurse reflects Edna’s discontent from the burden to perform her societal role, but mostly, she absorbs those tensions. The nurse is given little dimensions otherwise. When she leaves, she “vanishe[s],” allowing us no look into her outside life. However, the readers are allowed small glimpses into an internal mental world separated from her domestic duties. The novel introduces her with her customary activity off following the children around but “with a faraway, meditative air,” indicating that her she is not mentally invested in her duties (3). Despite her subservience, the nurse maintains her hidden world of inner thoughts…. At times she “follow[s] them with little quick steps, having assumed a fictitious animation and alacrity for the occasion,” (139).

Unlike affluent white women, her class and race determines that she will always be expected to be capable, and never told she is weak and cannot lift a finger. Her acceptance of her role seems racialized. Complying with Edna’s whim of portrait painting, “the quadroon sat for hours before Edna’s palette, patient as a savage,” (148). Her presence becomes a faint “pursuing voice … lifted in mild protest and entreaty,” mixed with the sounds of the children’s “escaping feet” – a marker of her Sisyphean duties (129).