The Human Stain by Philip Roth
"The Human Stain" is a novel by Philip Roth that explores themes of identity, race, and the complexities of human relationships. The story is narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, a writer who seeks solitude in a cottage in the Berkshires following a battle with prostate cancer. His quiet life is disrupted when Coleman Silk, a former dean at Athena College, bursts into his world, demanding Zuckerman document the fallout from a scandal that ruined his career and marriage. Silk's life becomes increasingly tumultuous as he faces accusations of racism after a seemingly innocuous question about absent students, which leads to tragic consequences.
The narrative delves into the hidden layers of Silk's identity, revealing that he had spent decades passing as white while concealing his African American heritage. Silk's relationship with Faunia Farley, a troubled woman with a tragic past, further complicates the story and adds depth to the exploration of love, loss, and societal judgment. As Zuckerman attempts to understand Silk's choices and the events surrounding their lives, the novel raises poignant questions about self-perception, societal expectations, and the masks people wear. Overall, "The Human Stain" serves as a profound commentary on the nature of identity and the often harsh realities of human existence.
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The Human Stain by Philip Roth
First published: 2000
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of plot: 1998-1999
Locale: The Berkshires, Massachusetts
Principal characters
Nathan Zuckerman , a famous novelistColeman Silk , a former college dean, now a professorFaunia Farley , Silk’s loverLester Farley , Faunia’s former husband and a Vietnam War veteranDelphine Roux , a college department chairpersonErnestine Silk , Coleman’s sister
The Story:
Nathan Zuckerman had retreated to a two-room cottage in the Berkshires in 1993 to escape the entanglements of life and write in peace. Shortly afterward, he had surgery for prostate cancer, which left him impotent and incontinent and caused him to withdraw even further from other people. He has since regained his strength and accommodates himself to his condition the best he can. His solitude is interrupted one April afternoon in 1996 by a knock on his door. When he opens it, Coleman Silk barges into his life, demanding that Zuckerman write the story of how his own colleagues at Athena College had murdered his wife.
Silk had been dean of the faculty at Athena, a small liberal-arts college, for sixteen years before returning to the classroom in 1995. As dean he had been a powerful force, raising the standards and prestige of the college and leaving his share of bruised and disgruntled faculty egos along the way (including the ego of Delphine Roux, a young professor of French literature who has a love-hate relationship with Silk). In the spring of Silk’s second semester back in the classroom, his life and career are shattered by his new enemies and by identity politics, political correctness, and his own ego. After two students fail to appear in class by the end of the first several weeks of the semester, he asks the class whether the two really exist or whether they are “spooks.” The students, it turns out, are African Americans, and Silk is accused of insensitivity and racism.
After several months of student demonstrations and demands, false accusations, and an investigation encouraged by Roux—during which none of Silk’s colleagues defend him—his wife dies of a stroke, and he angrily resigns. Although Zuckerman tells Silk that he should write the book himself, they begin to spend time together and become friends. Silk works on the book for two years, but his rage increases rather than diminishes as he tries to write about what he remembers. One Saturday night, early in the summer of 1998, however, he seems to transform. As the radio plays songs from the 1940’s, Silk dances around on his porch (he even gets Zuckerman to waltz with him a bit), says that he has decided to abandon the book and move on, and tells Zuckerman that he has begun an affair with Faunia Farley, a part-time farmhand and janitor at the college, who is half his age.
It is the summer of the saga between U.S. president Bill Clinton and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, a time when “the persecuting spirit” of sanctimony is loose in the land. At Athena College, Silk’s affair is seen as every bit as scandalous as that of Clinton, because “everyone knows” (as an anonymous note to Silk claims) that Silk is sexually exploiting a vulnerable and ignorant young woman. However, Faunia, like Silk, is not who she seems.
Although she admits to being illiterate, Faunia was born into material privilege. Her stepfather, however, had sexually abused her, so she ran away from home, at age fourteen, and spent a dozen hard years on the road before she married Lester Farley, a local Vietnam War veteran. They had two children and tried to run a small farm, but Lester suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome and became increasingly violent, beating her and twice sending her to the hospital. One night, after Lester and Faunia had divorced, Faunia had been sitting in a pickup truck with her date. While she was outside, her apartment caught fire, killing her and Lester’s son and daughter. Lester blamed her for the tragedy, and she later tried to kill herself, twice. By the time she met Silk, she still had the ashes of her children in urns under her bed. Lester continued to stalk her. Silk and Faunia, now a couple, are stalked by Lester as well.
The return of sex so late in life is overwhelmingly powerful to Silk. Besides, as it now becomes clear, he is not the conventional man he had always seemed to be. In 1946, Silk had cut himself off from his African American family to cross the color line and pass as white and Jewish. For nearly fifty years he hid this secret from everyone in his life, including his wife and four children.
Zuckerman learns about Silk’s passing as white only after he meets Silk’s sister, Ernestine, at Silk’s funeral. Silk and Faunia’s car had been forced off a road one night in November, killing both of them. Although the police had ruled that the deaths were accidental, rumors spread through town that Silk and Faunia had had a murder-suicide pact, encouraged by a deranged Silk. Zuckerman, however, remains convinced that Lester must have forced them off the road. These and other unanswered questions lead Zuckerman to spend the next several years trying to make sense of Silk’s and Faunia’s deaths. Why did Silk choose to live his life as he did? Did he tell Faunia his secret in their last days together? What was going through her mind during their affair? Zuckerman’s questions lead to his writing a novel, The Human Stain.
Bibliography
Halio, Jay L., and Ben Siegel, eds. Turning up the Flame: Philip Roth’s Later Novels. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2005. This collection includes essays on the novels in Roth’s American trilogy, examining as well the issues of tragedy and race in The Human Stain.
Parrish, Timothy, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Philip Roth. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. A collection of eleven original scholarly essays that critique Roth’s fiction, examining themes such as sexuality and cultural identity. An excellent introduction to Roth’s works. Includes a chronology.
Posnock, Ross. Philip Roth’s Rude Truth: The Art of Immaturity. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006. An important study of Roth and his work that includes a chapter on The Human Stain.
Remnick, David. Reporting: Writings from “The New Yorker.” New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. This collection of articles published in The New Yorker includes a fine profile of Roth.
Royal, Derek Parker, ed. Philip Roth: New Perspectives on an American Author. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2005. A wide-ranging collection of “new perspectives” on Roth’s works that includes essays on The Human Stain. Also includes an extensive bibliography.
Safer, Elaine B. Mocking the Age: The Later Novels of Philip Roth. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Focuses on the connection between comedy and tragedy in Roth’s later novels.
Shechner, Mark. Up Society’s Ass, Copper: Rereading Philip Roth. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003. A book based on thirty years of writing about Roth by one of his more provocative and consistently interesting critics.
Shostak, Debra. Philip Roth—Countertexts, Counterlives. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004. An outstanding thematic investigation of Roth’s works.