Cheryl Turner Elwell

Bertha Mason

This entry was posted in Jane Eyre and tagged Creole female on by
janeeyreCharacter: Bertha Mason

Source Text:  Brontë, Charlotte. “Jane Eyre.” Introduction and Notes. Ed. Stevie Davies. N.p.: Penguin Classics, 2006. Print.

Entry Author:  Crystal Carpenter

Bertha Antoinetta Mason is the mysterious and problematic character placed in Rochester’s and Jane’s life to provide shock value and growth to the progression of the storyline. Bertha’s purpose was to be set apart from Jane in intellect, appearance, delicateness, and sanity, because Brontë uses her as ‘a throw away’ character to cause a distraction as a way to hit a certain romantic climax between Jane and Rochester. Bertha is chained and bound to the assumptions of her culture, in that she is physically locked away and verbally abused because of her mixed race. Words like beast, strange wild animal, dark, grizzled hair, wild mane, hyena, maniac, purple face, and bloated features are used to define BerthaBronte’s representation of Bertha…develops two lines of argument: that Bertha is “imagined as white – or as passing as white – In the novel’s retrospective narrative,” and that she “become[s] black” in “the form in which she becomes visible in the novel.” That form, she argues, is marked by racial stereotypes of the “non-white” (Thomas 1).Bertha is forced to play a role in the degradation of her lineage without her side of the story ever being told. The reader accepts how Bertha is described by Rochester – “Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations! Her mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman and a drunkard! …Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points” (Brontë 337) – as truth because being a white wealthy aristocrat gentleman is perceived as credible; and the reader wants Jane and Rochester’s romance to flourish.

Bertha is left without a voice and in place of it is a growl. Her character depicts the masculine nocturnal beast that wanders Thornfield Hall at night and hides during the day. Bertha has a brother, Richard Mason, who is never depicted in any way as beast like. He is treated like an English gentleman, which is interesting because he comes from the same family line as Bertha. Brontë is making a reference to how woman are locked away in the domestic sphere, forced to comply with men as the head in the public sphere.

It is, of course, taken from Jane Eyre, where the madwoman, Bertha Mason, is quite literally confined in an attic, but it becomes emblematic of the female subversive desire to challenge all-pervasive patriarchal standards – a desire which can be expressed only through images of irrationality, passion, and imprisonment (Foster 95).

Women writers had no choice but to have multiple undertones within their work. Bertha’s character is compromised for the advancement of feminist’s rights. However, for the sake of the feminist movement Bertha’s race and self-worth is being sacrificed. During the 19th century the progression of white woman was the objective, not woman of color. Bertha is a symbol for many cultures exploited and repressed by the British Empire. Brontë writing Bertha as the “mad woman” represents the fear that the English had if miscegenation was to occur between the British and “other” cultures. Racial lines would be blurred and mixed race children would be the product of imperial reign, which would ruin the racial dominance of the British over their colonies. Brontë locking Bertha away is a way to control and stop further assimilation with the English culture.

Creole: Generally, the term signifies a European native of the West Indies but it can also refer to persons of mixed race or black people (Davies 567).

 

Work cited:

Foster, Shirley. “Monsters and Madwomen – The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer

and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination by Sandra M. Gilbert; Susan Gubar.”

NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 14.1 (1980): 94-96. JSTOR. Web. 7 Nov. 2013.

Thomas, Sue. “The Tropical Extravagance of Bertha Mason.” Victorian Literature and Culture

27.1 (1999): 1-17. JSTOR. Web. 7 Nov. 2013.

Georges

This entry was posted in The Mulatto and tagged black male white on by
GeorgesCharacter: Georges

Source Text:  Séjour, Victor. “The Mulatto.” The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Ed. Henry L. Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay. Second ed. N.p.: Penguin Classics, 2003. Print.

Entry Author:  Crystal Carpenter

“Master,” he said…But you know, do you not, that a Negro’s as vile as a dog; society rejects him; men detest him, the laws curse him.” This begins the second paragraph of The Mulatto, a story told by an older freed slave. Slaves were forced to believe the life whites provided was the best for them. The slaves who rebelled were punished so there was no risk of an uprising. This story is about Georges (a mixed race, tragic mulatto) searching for his identity in the name of the father he does not know.The story begins with the rape of Laïsa by her master, Alfred, which leads to the birth of Georges. Not knowing who his father is causes some identity confliction. Georges would beg his mother for the name of his father hoping this would help him gain some of his identity. Georges held on to the closest father figure he knew, his master, Alfred. These symptoms of identity confliction are a natural trope of the tragic mulatto’s characterization.

The tragic mulatto/a is normally characterized as a mixed-race figure who finds him- or herself depressed, suicidal, fratricidal, and/or patricidal due either to a lack of identity or to an innate, biological corruption. According to the stereotype, these individuals do not know whether they fit into white society or into black society and are often made to choose between their dual identities, passing either into whiteness (the most familiar trope) or into blackness (Daut 2).

The tragic mulatto, based on gender, is depicted differently. Both have similar aspects but men usually have an oedipal complex. The plot for a male tragic mulatto usually goes through a pattern of identity confliction, loss, power reversal, revenge and rebellion (and sometimes death). Georges use his revenge on Alfred as a way to reverse Alfred’s power over him, and rebelling against his father in an emblematic way. Any slave born out of “the violation of identity caused by miscegenation” (Daut 12) becomes more intense in their revenge and need to kill – as a way to sever the ties between the absent father. Once Georges has reversed the power roles and now holds Alfred’s fate in his grasp, he will seek justice for his mother, wife, and himself by making Alfred the victim. After Georges has discovered that Alfred is his father he commits his final act as the tragic mulatto, taking his own life. Georges as the tragic mulatto stirs mixed emotions within the reader, because his fictional story as a mixed race slave becomes real to the reader. The motivation of his actions was not to kill for the sake of it, but to right the wrong Alfred would not. If Georges had known Alfred was his father he would not have killed him so readily. This is what makes Georges so tragic he became entwined in a false identity of passionate revenge, and never had the chance to mend his own identity.

 

 

 

Work Cited

Daut, Marlene L. “”Sons of White Fathers”: Mulatto Vengeance and the Haitian Revolution in

Victor Séjour’s “The Mulatto”.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 65.1 (2010): 1-37. JSTOR.

Web. 8 Nov. 2013.

Squeak/Mary Agnes

This entry was posted in The Color Purple and tagged black female South white on by
The Color PurpleCharacter: Squeak/Mary Agnes

Source Text:  Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. The United States of America: Harcourt, 1982. Print.

Entry Author:  Claire Tierney

Squeak is a minor character in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, but she is essential, as she is the only character expressly identified as mixed race, having both white and black ancestry. Squeak’s story is one of growth and transformation. Squeak becomes Mary Agnes, and in the process becomes strong, independent, and appreciated.She is called Squeak because she is quiet, and assumed to be ineffectual. She is often called “little Squeak”,  as she has been conditioned by society to respond affectionately and feebly to everyone, especially the men, around her. She constantly calls her lover Harpo “baby” and cries when she is ignored (84). She believes her light skin is the primary reason Harpo is with her, suggesting her race is a large aspect of her identity. She asks Harpo, “Do you really love me, or just my color?” (97).Initially Squeak begins a life with Harpo after Sophia leaves him, creating a natural point of comparison between the two females. At the beginning of the novel, Squeak acts as a foil to the thick-skinned and confident Sophia, who does not accept disrespect from anyone, male or female. After Sophia is imprisoned for defending herself against the mayor’s assault, the characters are distraught, and are considering solutions when Squeak asks, “What can we do?” (90). Squeak figures out she is the blood-relative of the white warden, and Celie and the other women “dress Squeak like a white woman” (93).She is passing for a white woman when she goes to the prison to plead for Sophia’s release, only to return having been raped by the warden. This event changes Squeak, causing her to realize her power and self-worth. Her first words to Harpo after he recognizes she has been attacked are “Shut Up, Harpo. I’m telling it” (95).After she is raped, she fights against Harpo just as Sophia did, and ultimately leaves him just as Sophia did. She becomes a singer like Shug, providing herself with a job that relies on her feminine singing voice, which is “high, sort of mewing” according to Celie(98). While she initially sings Shug’s songs at the juke joint, she eventually writes her own. Additionally, she helps Sophia take care of the Mayor’s children. In doing this, she becomes a part of a community of strong women of color.

Squeak’s character is shaped largely by her relativity to the other women in the novel. Readers are introduced to her as Harpo’s new girl, where she is slightly villainized as she is seen as Sophia’s replacement. This is evidenced when Squeak’s teeth are knocked out by Sophia during a confrontation. By the end of the novel, Mary Agnes’s character is as dependable and competent as any of the other female characters, and this forces the characters and readers to respect her. This transformation and this sense of separation from the other characters is evident in her song,

They calls me yellow,

like yellow be my name

They calls me yellow

like yellow be my name

But if yellow is a name

Why ain’t black the same

Well, if I say hey black girl

Lord, she try to ruin my game

(99).

Squeak stands strong with the other women in the novel, while also claiming her own independence and identity as a woman of mixed race, as an outsider looking in. This separateness becomes a point of independence for Mary Agnes. At the novel’s beginning Squeak is an outsider in her world. She stood pale in comparison to strong characters like Shug and Sophia. By the end of the novel, she proves that she is not to be compared to other women, that she stands alone.

Frankenstein’s Creature

This entry was posted in Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus and tagged alive dead human male monster non-human on by
FrankensteinCharacter: Frankenstein’s Creature

Source Text:  Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. New York: Illustrated Editions, 1932. Print.

Entry Author:  Claire Tierney

Mary Shelley originally published Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus in 1818.  The epistolary novel details the story of Dr. Frankenstein as he creates a human made of disparate parts, which he gathers from countless dead bodies. It is possible that he is created from several bodies of different race and ethnicity. Nevertheless, background is undoubtedly mixed, so he is perceived as an outsider and as disturbing. Every character who sees or interacts with the monster is both frightened and disgusted by him, even his creator, who reacts with “breathless horror as disgust filled [his] heart” upon first seeing him(52). His creature soon leaves and the doctor becomes depressed and ill. Meanwhile the creature lives as an outside observer of society, becoming eloquently spoken well-versed in classical literature. He has a human brain; it is his physical appearance which labels him non-human and uncanny.

Frankenstein’s creature is not only mixed with respect to his physicality, but he is also mixed with regard to his identity. Torn between human and nonhuman, he was created “for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body” (51). He is stuck between two binaries, alive and dead. The doctor’s creature is forced to live on the outskirts of civilization as all who encounter him find him abject and horrific.

After living in solitude for a time, the monster finds his creator and asks nothing more of him than to create a partner so that he could be less lonely. As a mixed character, the monster has no community or others with which to identify. Dr. Frankenstein finds the notion of a female monster to even more terrifying and reviling than his male creation, saying, “shall I create another like yourself, whose joint wickedness might desolate the world?” (151). Frankenstein’s discomfort with a female monster has many implications, including a fear of female sexuality, as well as a fear of the two creature’s reproducing and creating proof of their relations. This discomfort with a complication to the feminine ideal is comparable to society’s discomfort with female mixed race, in that multi-racial women are portrayed to be exotic, yet tamable.The Doctor’s fear of his creature reproducing is also reflective of society’s fear of containing the non-dominant binary, of creating something which cannot be contained. By giving the creature his own life-force, his own ability to create life, he is giving up control of this new “race”.

The Doctor reluctantly agrees, yet never follows through on his promise to create a female. The creature is angered and forced to violence, which impels Dr. Frankenstein to devote his life to the destruction of his creation. He fails in his search, and his creature is last seen by the narrator walking into the cold northern tundra, “lost in darkness and distance” (239).

The title’s allusion to Prometheus compares Dr. Frankenstein’s creature to a heroic figure in Greek mythology responsible for providing humanity with fire, a intellectual and progressive achievement. Prometheus is created from clay, an origin not dissimilar to Frankenstein’s patchwork configuration. His punishment is tragic, as he is to be eternally tortured.

Frankenstein fits the trope of the tragic mulatto, never fitting into any culture, forever an outsider in his own world. Frankenstein suffers because no one is like him. No One exists who is the same as him, physically, culturally, or racially. Frankenstein is a gothic novel, acting as mirror to societal fears of of the unknown, and the abject. Just as humanity repeatedly finds the notion of fellow humans that look and sound different to be threatening, so Frankenstein is perceived as a menace.

Sophie Mol

This entry was posted in The God of Small Things and tagged Caucasian England female Indian Western white on by
The God of Small ThingsCharacter: Sophie Mol 

Source Text:  Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks,2008. Print.Entry Author:  Apollonia Roman

In the multi-layered novel The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, Sophie Mol is the half Caucasian, half Indian nine year old visiting her two younger cousins in India. Even though there are several other tragedies in the book, including the molestation of her cousin Estha and the death of the “untouchable” Ammu, Sophie’s death is the locus from which the entire novel revolves, even though she is physically present in only a few chapters. While tragedies are covered up, Sophie’s rises to importance because is part white and has been raised in the west. Her Westernness makes her special in the novel. She is the only character who is referred to with any excitement by the others.

Sophie has been raised in England away from her biological Indian father, Chacko. Chacko uses his education at Oxford University in England to elevate himself in his Indian family, with whom he currently lives. He previously married  Sophie’s mother, Margaret Kochamma, to combine his most proud accomplishments: receiving an education and obtaining a white wife (Roy 114). Sophie and Margaret have come to visit Sophie’s Indian relatives in Ayemenem after the death of Sophie’s step-father, Joe, who she “loves most in d’world” (Roy 72). Joe is everything Chacko is not; he is “steady, solvent, thin…a wedge of light” and presumably white (Roy 118). Sophie idolizes him and regards him as her true father, while Chacko is just her less important “realdad” (Roy 72).  This gravitation towards a man so different in personality and race both elevates and distances Sophie from her Indian family and father.

Sophie’s only physical likeness to her “realdad” is a similar nose, “she had [her grandfather’s] nose waiting inside of hers” (Roy 68). This nose is sign of intelligence, “a moth-loving nose,” an “entomologist’s nose,” because it is something that gives educated Chacko pride (Roy 68). In contrast, Sophie’s white skin is described as much as her nose. This attribute is what differentiates her most from Chacko and his side of the family, binds her intimately with the white Margaret and biologically unrelated Joe. Her seven year old cousin Rahel describes her skin as precious, “she’s very delicate, if she gets dirty she’ll die” (Roy 100). After this statement, Rahel goes on to list Sophie’s other beautiful attributes: her hair, teeth, and legs. Yet, Sophie’s skin color takes precedence as her most impressive feature.

Every event in the novel, past, present, and future, refer, revolve, and lead up to the death of Sophie Mol. This is likely important because her “whiteness” makes her more valuable to her Indian family. “White” is mentioned nearly one hundred times throughout the novel, including references to white saris, lilies, insects, clouds, hair, etc. This imagery consistently reminds the reader that “white” is beautiful, fragile, and something to be treasured. Sophie Mol is treated as if she is such, even though she is obstinate, often speaking without reservations to her cousins. On page 73 Sophie declares that she doesn’t love her Indian family because she doesn’t know them. She is able to escape chastisement for infractions her cousins are not, such as being rude at the dinner table (Roy 153). The importance of Sophie’s fair skin eclipses her actions to her Indian family; she becomes more precious for her symbolically Western features makes her the crux of Roy’s critique on the problematic perception and reactions to class differences and reactions in the novel.

Escalator

This entry was posted in The Intuitionist and tagged non-human on by

 

The IntuitionistCharacter:  The Escalator

Source Text:  Whitehead, Colson. The Intuitionist. New York: Anchor, 1999.

Entry Author:  Alexandra Katechis

 

The escalator is an imagined “character” developed from Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist (1999). The escalator’s mixed race lineage is pulled from its nature as half stair and half elevator. In this poem, the escalator is personified in order to parse out the available material in the escalator’s status as mixed race. The poem explores the ability of the escalator to exist as stairs (black) but never achieve the status of elevator (white). The hardest task of the poem is to fulfill the standards of legitimacy as mixed race. Is it fair to say that the escalator is mixed race? Does the metaphor translate? If so, do we simply hear the confident and militant voice of Huey diagnosing the escalator with a case of “afro denial”?

 

Escalator

Ascension abbreviated: auto-manglia of up;

Brokering the blasphemously black (broken)

Crawl toward climax; we collapse like a dead star.

Drudgery of metal monotony, dour doldrum drip:

Exotica of oneness, twoness, sameness—

Flora of this frightfully frigid dream.

Go and do not come back to me. Take this

Hysteria of homogeneity,

Intoxication with inclination and precipice,

Just bad luck. Otherwise, let me

Know you are still there, your knuckles of

Laudanum, bitterest lullabies of a long wet tongue—

Melancholia, my eternal diagonal alias.

Naked as the word, the world, I rise, I rust.

Offal in the organism optimized by a

Plastic parasite for usefulness. If I

Quit this quixotic business of belonging—

Radically, selfishly—to two realities at once, in my

Stillness I am halved, not splendidly split but

Torturously torn, embers of a tremendous spark.

Usward is our only up.

Verticality—venom and verve—

Wanton, wistful mistress of whispers and hums—

Executioner and executor of the exquisite wish. Can

You bear what dreams may come?
Zenith promises only down.

Caliban

This entry was posted in William Shakespeare: Collected Works and tagged animal beast devil human male man on by

 

CalibanCharacter:  Caliban

Source Text:  Shakespeare, William. “The Tempest.” William Shakespeare: Collected Works. Ed. Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen. London: Wordsworth Editions, 1996. 1135-1159.

Entry Author:  Alexandra Katechis

 

Caliban of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610-1611) is the half human and half beast native to the island upon Prospero and his daughter have adopted. This poem strives to emphasize the ambiguity of Caliban’s parentage. The poem also explores the many forms he might appear as (man, beast, animal, devil). The point of view will be first person, so that the speaker can draw the reader into the pain of being reviled and enslaved as a result of physical difference and suspected inferiority. Additionally, this poem attempts to emphasize the struggle between Caliban’s inner humanity and outer bestiality. Caliban’s aggressive voice is evoked in order to fully flesh out this sense of injustice which is so central to his humanness.

 

Caliban

Acerbic article of Algiers, I am the son of Sycorax, antithesis of Ariel, and yet

Brother. What family has not forsaken me, banished and abandoned me in basest beastly

Condition, which does cull cruelty from civility. When did censure reach such consensus?

Duke of Milan, Prospero, doest thou attend me? Thy crippled devil did befriend thee. This

Eden I ennobled onto you, you, who conducts the eulogy of my only claim to the

Flesh of this Earth. Foiled by my own manhood, which did enflame thy eyes before fruition:

Godless, ghastly love for Miranda, o gracious nonpareil, who gave me voice to groan,

Howl, hatch into this hostile realm. What hellfire has my humanity bought? Master,

Imposter, sinuous ivy of incantation and vile thought, ignominy of my inheritance, my isle.

Jealousy betrays this jape of justice, which does lengthen my jailor’s sentence of solitude.

King and keeper of my soul, strengthen the knot of thy goddess who does tempt me. Thy

Leal servant licks at lust and knows no limit to its loathsome breath which you have lent me:

Mooncalf monster, cry out the wicked; only good men mark my root in our maker’s mind. A

Naked native truth to which I am nailed, bound nose to navel by a plague of nymphs. The

Orphan obeys, instrument of this diabolical orchestra of occult hymns. And so

Perdition is my immortality, part served on this pelagic stage, the rest in pandemonium’s pit.

Quiet quivers of mine own heart do sometimes feign forgiveness, quintessence of thy fool’s wit.

Reason can no longer rebuke the rabid refrain of my repugnance, reborn the same in every

Strain of this savage’s story. Spirit, sprite, and simplest man: subject to the sorcerer of quill,

Trick and thrill, the madman’s slight of hand. Sing out my threnody, tale of a tyrannical torment.

Ugly underworld, ubiquitous cacophony, and my prison, molded from past paradise by the

Villain who knows naught else but to rule and part. I am the victim of the minister of fate

Whose rapture is my worldly woe, whose rejoice is bitterest curse and weakest foe.

Exculpate me, or else scorn this half-worn existence as do all others who drink his poison ink.

Yesterday’s heart can no more be broken. I have no other.

Zealotry has no parallel, no pardon.

Spock

This entry was posted in Star Trek and tagged human vulcan on by

startrek

Character: Spock

Source Text:  Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek (1966-1969)

  • Roddenberry, Gene. Star Trek. 1966-1969. Streaming media.
  • “Journey to Babel.” Star Trek CBS. 17 Nov. 1967. Television.
  • “Spectre of the Gun.” Star Trek. CBS. 25 Oct. 1968. Television.
  • “Amok Time.” Star Trek. CBS. 15 Sept. 1967. Television.

Entry Author:  Erin O’Kelly

Sometimes first officer, sometimes captain, but always Mister, the half-Vulcan, half-Human Spock is an iconic figure in science fiction television. For the majority of his televised life he holds the post of science officer and second-in-command of the USS Enterprise. His self-chosen role as largely Vulcan is relied on in the show: he’s the science officer, their logical person, the one who comes up with the plans and double-checks other peoples’ ideas. Sometimes he is directly involved in a given episode’s conflict, as when he and Kirk are forced to fight for the favor of a Vulcan woman (“Amok Time”, 1967). Sometimes he is part of an intergalactic object lesson, as in the episode where the crew grows suspicious and mistrustful of Spock because of his topical resemblance to a Romulan. More often than not, though, Spock is a fixed part of the crew, more notable for his Vulcanic displays of dependable, logical nature and his interactions with his crewmates than anything specifically involving his mixed heritage.

His heritage, however, dogs him throughout the series. In general he prefers to embrace his Vulcan appearance and heritage, with its logic and lack of emotion; a query exploring his feelings or probing the true motive of some decision – which may be based in emotion, eh Spock? – is most often met with a raised eyebrow and bland response. He’s sparing with details about his life before the Enterprise, but the series does draw out details of his heritage over time. It comes out in the 1967 episode “Journey to Babel” that Spock fits a traditional neither-here-nor-there mixed-race trope: as a child he was bullied and harassed because of his heritage, because the other children saw him as failing to measure up to the Vulcan ideal of emotionless logic. He was raised on the Vulcan homeworld in the Vulcan tradition and enrolled in Starfleet against his father’s wishes (“Journey to Babel”, 1967), causing a rift in the family even though his judgment and competence are highly respected in Starfleet. Brought up with constant reminders of what he is not on planet Vulcan, yet unable to pass for human (more emotionally than physically, since on more than one occasion he dons a hat to hide his ears and goes unremarked among humans), he’s found a home in Starfleet where he can be judged as he is, not as he should be.

One of the more interesting aspects of Spock’s mixed heritage in the relatively judgment-free environment that is the Enterprise is the flexibility with which he emphasizes each side of his heritage, and when, and for what reason. While he generally pretends that he is entirely Vulcan in body and mind, it is accepted that this is a pretense – nearly every episode, someone on the crew asks with a smile whether he’s absolutely positive that there’s no emotional reason for a piece of behavior. Captain Kirk in particular asks these questions with a twinkle in his eye, and often receives cryptic or quietly telling answers.

Yet Spock wields his emotional, human half with remarkable dexterity when necessary. In the episode “Spectre of the Gun”, when mysterious aliens create a powerful illusion that traps the away team and appears to kill Chekov, he reminds his grieving crewmates that he is, in fact, half human – a rare display of solidarity indeed, given that the majority of his emotional interaction with the crew is conducted via poker face and subtle allusion. Conversely, in the episode “The Immunity Syndrome” he has a bonding moment of concern for Kirk with Dr. McCoy by emphasizing that “even [he], a half-Vulcan”, can be deeply concerned about a friend. He emphasizes halves of his heritage depending on the situation, if he emphasizes any at all – by doing so, Mr. Spock has made himself a place where he can choose how to present his identity and have that decision respected by his colleagues.

Golden Gray

This entry was posted in Jazz and tagged black part black white on by

jazz_coverCharacter: Golden GraySource Text:  Morrison, Toni. Jazz. New York: Vintage International, 2004.

Entry Author:  Shalyn Hopley

Golden Gray is the son of white Vera Louise Gray and black Henry LesTroy. Jazz is not really a story featuring Golden Gray, yet his presence in the story is potent. Golden Gray is the product of an illicit relationship between the daughter of a wealthy Colonel from Vesper County, Vera Louise, and “a Negro boy out from Vienna” (140). Golden Gray is conceived during one her rides with the boy out to the woods, and when Vera Louise tells her parents she is pregnant, wordlessly her family gives her money to “die, or live if you like, elsewhere”, disowning her and her child. Vera and one of the novel’s main character’s (Violet’s) grandmother, True Belle, a slave woman belonging to her family, go to Baltimore and raise the child.Golden Gray is an enigmatic presence in the novel, his real personality and significance hard to determine as he is described over and over by different characters, at times the narrator even restarting her tale of Golden Gray to rewrite what she has already written of him. Golden Gray is named Gray for his mother and the color of his eyes, and golden for his skin tone (139). He is raised as an adopted white child, rather than the son of a black slave and Vera, by Vera and True Belle and is said to be the “light of both their lives” (139). When Golden Gray is told the story of his mixed race heritage, he leaves home to meet and confront his father, Henry LesTroy. Yet on his way there, he happens upon a dark-skinned pregnant woman in the woods who he startles, her attempt to flee ending in her injury. He brings the unconscious woman to the house of his father, where she births the child she is carrying. When his father returns home, he helps Golden with the woman and quickly disarms Golden’s potentially murderous intentions, asking Golden Gray what he expected when he came to find his father (172). Instead, Golden Gray runs away with “Wild”, the woman. Wild is implied to be the mother of Joe Trace, Violet’s husband. Henry LesTroy becomes a father figure for Joe.

While the general content of Golden’s story remains the same, the narrator begins her tale of his venture to Virginia three times, only being satisfied the final time after berating herself for not seeing his motivations:

What was I thinking of? How could I have imagined him so poorly? Not noticed the hurt that was not linked to the color of his skin, or the blood that beat beneath it. But to some other thing that longed for authenticity, for a right to be in this place, effortlessly without needing to acquire a false face, a laughless grin, a talking posture. I have been careless and stupid and it infuriates me to discover (again) how unreliable I am. (160)

The narrator’s claims to know Golden Gray’s story are erased by this passage. She is unreliable, unable to know the true complexity of even this minor character.

Why is Golden Gray present in Jazz? He is connected to all these characters from the main plot, but his own story can at best be considered a supplement, and at worst a tangent. Yet his story is there, highlighting the complicated interwoven histories of the main characters and highlighting the unknowable nature of humanity and human love.

Coleman Silk

This entry was posted in The Human Stain and tagged black Jewish light-skinned passing white on by
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.