Book Review - The Human Stain

Defying Circumstances and the resulting Glory and Grief

In an article titled “Passing as Tragedy: Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, the Oedipus Myth, and the Self-Made Man”, Patrice D. Rankine, a professor of Purdue University, Indiana critically analyses Roth’s work drawing comparisons to similar stories in the Greek Mythology (The Iliad), The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson, and Ralph Ellison’s Juneteenth.

Rankine writes: “Passing occurs because of the myth of “whiteness,” which structures cultural ideals of success, propriety, and normalcy. Whiteness is as foundational as the frontier to New World identity. The idea of whiteness, however, obscures the ethnic realities of all Americans and their journey out of slavery into freedom. That both Bliss and Coleman Silk, neither of who bears obvious marks of blackness, cannot ostensibly escape the reality of race is the conundrum of identity for every American. Each character in The Human Stain serves to illuminate the distinctly American dilemma of passing and the ultimately tragic nature of the event.” (106).

The point Rankine is making in the above quotation is that everyone in America irrespective of their skin color, origins, religion, or ethnic background, is somehow enslaved and is journeying towards freedom. This includes even the ethnically Euro-American immigrant populations and the local-born White people. Rankine is of the opinion that everyone in this country is enslaved in their own skin, only when they achieve the American Dream of success in career, family, and fame will they become white, until then irrespective of their skin color people remain enslaved and can’t escape.

In other words Rankine’s strong opinion is that in order to escape one’s reality, it is important to succeed professionally and gain notoriety. Only this will validate one’s Whiteness, the journey undertaken by each individual in the course of this journey is what Rankine refers to as “Passing” (101). Since Rankine is critiquing The Human Stain, the context of the quote appears to be changing of race from black to white. In the book the protagonist has passed as white all his life. I don’t agree with this statement that everyone in America is enslaved or feels so. Even though statement is made in the context of The Human Stain, it continues to be irrelevant because the narrative is set in the late 1990s, centuries after slavery abolished and decades after Civil Rights movement succeeded. I contest Rankine’s statement because people here are working to achieve the “American Dream” of professional and financial success, peaceful and contented family life and the pursuit of happiness. Nor is it true that “Whiteness” automatically reflect success, propriety, and normalcy. In the current scenario with an African-American president ruling the country and a colored individual heading the supreme court, “whiteness” as a notion of success seems only a myth.

I strongly believe that the novel under study has more to do with an individual trying to surpass the narrow boundaries of race and ethnicity, than passing. True Coleman Silk has passed as white all his life, but that was not a deliberate attempt to mislead the rest of the world, he did it in pursuit of professional success and to achieve his dreams of professorship and academic achievements.

Rankine suggests that passing presents a dilemma to all Americans and always ends in a tragedy, which is not true. Coleman Silk achieves his goals as a professor, academic and educator he achieves the great heights of professional success, going to NYU making straight As and climbing the academic ladder to become the dean of a college. The tragedy that strikes him is in the aftermath of his achievements, it is a political event in which Silk becomes a scapegoat than victim. As far his personal tragedies, that has nothing to do with passing, because during the course of the narrative it is revealed that Faunia knew of his blackness all along and still chose to have a relationship with him. The fact that Faunia’s ex goes into a maniacal rage and eliminates Silk doesn’t qualify as a tragedy of the latter’s life.

The real tragedy of Coleman’s life in my opinion is the fact that Coleman and his wife had not slept together for years (716) and had a rocky marriage in their personal life despite presenting the pretty picture of a happy couple to the outside world. The triumph in this tragedy is Coleman’s because in the face of adversity the couple come together and put up a fight as one and not as two separate individuals. The crises and character demolition due to the racism charge on Silk is something of a professional tragedy (721).

All along the life script of Silk, he has been fiercely independent and lived apart of his family. He wanted to live by himself and become a poet or a playwright far more than go to NYU or achieve a degree (806). One thing Coleman couldn’t do all through his life was to identify himself by skin-color or race. He wanted to be a human, and an American and that is it. He couldn’t bring himself to tell his first girlfriend that he was colored and that gave him lot of heartache and tension (814), even though he tries to rehearse and repeat he is unsuccessful. When Silk meets Iris and decides to marry her he chooses not to identify himself and let her make her assessment of his race. The farewell conversation that he has with his mother on this subject in page 833 could be vaguely considered as the passing.

In an attempt to attribute Rankine’s claim that that “each character in The Human Stain serves to illuminate the distinctly American dilemma of passing,” to the life of Delphine Roux one of Silk’s detractors, I still find no evidence of passing. There is an attempt to achieve the American dream by all means possible, even if it means character assassination of someone else. Delphine is shown as an individual who had a problem of exposure right from her childhood (876). She wanted notoriety and at the same time anonymity, which is a greater dilemma than that of passing. When she migrates to America she effectively becomes deprived of family, friends, and country – “depaysee” (955). This again is not passing but someone trying fervently to adapt to a new culture and situation.

Summing up, I believe that Rankine in the above quote is trying to make it appear as if everyone in America is experiencing the dilemma of passing and that every passing ends in a tragedy. And that being white is to be successful and normal. Both these concepts are irrelevant according to me. People – locals and immigrants alike – in America are working hard to achieve success in their profession, family and society. In no way is anyone trying to change their race or skin color or trying to pass off as someone they are not. And everyone who achieves success in America by immigrating to this country doesn’t end up in a tragedy.

Works Cited

Roth, Philip. The American Trilogy. New York, NY: The Library of America, 2011. Print.

Rankine, Patrice D. “Passing as Tragedy: Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, the Oedipus Myth, and the Self-Made Man”. Critique. 47.1 (Fall 2005). 101-12. Print.

Challenges of Immersion and Assimilation as portrayed in American Pastoral

American Pastoral (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Derek Royal Parker, in an article titled “Fictional Realms of Possibility,” writes, “Roth has his protagonists reimagine their realities and establish a space where they can renegotiate their subjectivity, especially within the perimeters of ethnic identity. By reimagining, I mean that the protagonists of the particular works – in most cases of Roth’s fiction, Nathan Zuckerman – take their lives and create a counter-reality to that which they are experiencing. These imaginings suggest a multifaceted sense of self, freeing up the subject to explore possibilities that are not confined to one fixed notion of what it means to be an American writer, a man, or a Jew.” (2).

Essentially, Royal, a professor at the Prairie View A & M University, is making the point that in Roth often writes his stories in such a way that they run along two parallel tracks, the first one being the reality of the narrator and the second the imagined self. In case of American Pastoral, the story starts off with the narrator Zuckerman describing his youth and the icons that he looked up to in Weequahic High School, Newark. The blue eyed blonde athlete who looked more Aryan than Jew (10), one who excelled in three different sports, was a local hero for not just Zuckerman but the entire Jewish community of Weequahic. As the prose progresses the reader comes to understand that the hero of this story is Swede the blue-eyed blond athlete of Jewish descent.

At this point Roth diverges and advances several years ahead and creates a situation where Zuckerman meets his idol Swede. At the encounter Swede recognizes Zuckerman and even remembers his field name which makes the latter gush with a multitude of emotions, pride, happiness, excitement, etc. Then Swede invites Zuckerman to meet discuss the prospect of writing a tribute to his father. That situation is the beginning of the transition between the reality and imagination. Zuckerman begins to interact with Swede and he comes to the conclusion that his childhood idol is intellectually inferior to him which comes as a shock, because Roth leads us to believe that heroes should be flawless. Once the flaw is found then that is the harbinger of the protagonist’s downfall. The rest of the novel is the “counter-reality” that Zuckerman experiences as he imagines Swede’s life and narrates the same.

Royal is saying that Roth’s works often deal with his protagonists negotiating through life in some sort of an imagined world. Their trials and tribulations often result from the fact that they are torn between two worlds – real and imagined. A big influence on Roth’s protagonists is their ethnic identity and how the character perceives it. In American Pastoral Swede identifies himself as American, much to the displeasure of his father (Lou Levov) who believes in sticking to the roots. Lou is of the opinion that because Swede doesn’t know anything about the history of his people (Jews), their sufferings and persecution, he is happy with his American identity and oblivious of what the rest of the world may think.

I believe American Pastoral is much more than a story of Swede as imagined by Zuckerman. This novel presents to the reader a bird’s eye view of the tumultuous times of the Vietnam War era and the disturbances that it brought to the American soil. The novel also places heavy emphasis on the concept of immigration and assimilation into American culture. There is conflict amongst the characters in the story of what they identify themselves as, where they belong and in which direction they are headed. All these make the American Pastoral an extremely complicated, yet very interesting reading. Through the story Roth deals with the subject of individualism in an American context, the story explores the challenges faced by individuals as they negotiate through the world and create their own identities – an American, Jew, Jewish-American, Man, Woman, Businessman, etc.

Critics like Royal may disagree with my analysis of American Pastoral, because he of the opinion that Roth has dealt with the subject of assimilation and immigration as a facet of imagination of the narrator and protagonist and not in reality. Though it is true that that there is a multiple arguments and counter arguments, indictments and defenses presented in American Pastoral the main theme of the book continues to be the story of Swede Levov and his family as imagined by Zuckerman. Even though there is considerable amount of reimagining of reality by Zuckerman in this novel, the fact remains that the setting of the story is in the tumultuous 1960s and the disturbances is what made the story of Swede so tragic and interesting.

I think Royal is right to a certain extent when he writes, “The individual can define himself as observant or secular, as America or Israeli, or as consciously ethnic or assimilated, many times all at once, as if trying on different hats.” But I still maintain that Roth is trying to present to the reader a story narrated by his alter ego Zuckerman, the story of Swede with a strong emphasis on the context of the period in which it is set in.

I am not saying that Royal’s observation that this story presents the continuous transition from the real and imagined worlds is wrong. I just believe that instead of focusing on the Roth’s play of worlds and turn of phrase, I would concentrate on the content of the story which is basically that of Swede as imagined and presented by Zuckerman. At this point it is possible that Royal and other critics may argue that Roth’s work became a topic discussion only because of his expert juxtaposing of real and imagined in the same tone which almost misleads the reader. In other words, their position is that the story is less important than the literary talents displayed by Roth.

I would still maintain that American Pastoral is like a continuous dialogue between people with somewhat conflicting and somewhat similar thoughts, beliefs, predicaments, and crises. Almost in every situation in the book the characters are either defending their belief or trying to interrogate the other’s stance on a particular subject. Be it Lou arguing with Dawn about her faith; Swede arguing with Rita Cohen about her beliefs; or even Merry arguing with her Mother it is all the same concept – defending their stand on a particular subject.

Works Cited Roth, Philip. American Pastoral. Miami, FL: Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc, 1997. 3-59. Print.
Royal, Derek P. "Fictional Realms of Possibility." Studies in American Jewish Literature 20: 1-16. Print.