The Human Curtain Character Analysis

Final: The Human Stain The Human Stain is a complex, emotionally exhausting, and unnerving book. The characters are diverse and engage the reader through a variety of socially sensitive issues. The chapters throughout the story capture themes of racial divide, identity struggles, tragic unconditional love and social economic status. The course theme of “Otherness” are riddled in Philip Roth’s novel The Human Stain. Classifying “Otherness” as an Individual who is perceived by the group as not belonging, as being different in some fundamental way. (The Other, p1). The following is an exploration of the charters: Coleman Silk, Faunia Farley and Silk’s mother in the themes of race, identity and social class. The character of Coleman Silk, an educated professor and past dean of Athens …show more content…
The author tackles the sensitive topic of racial passing, on page 136 when Coleman Silk tells his mother that he is passing as an “Iris Gittelman’s” the novel reads “She wasn’t even surprised when he told her he was going to get married and that the girl was white. She wasn’t even surprised when he told her that the girl didn’t know he was colored”. This concept of racial passing provides an example of “Otherness” in that Coleman’s perception of wanting to be part of the social successful norm. This concept of passing depicted in the movie “The Devil in the Blue Dress”, the female charter passing as a white woman finds herself in a dangerous blackmail scheme with a strong political male figure. She strives to keep her secret, but in the end, all was exposed. The belief of a better existence passing as white should make society take notice that perhaps fairness does not spread across all of society. The culture has changed through the last decades, but there is still a tremendous amount of disparity in society. Globalization has influenced “Otherness”, both positive and negative. Haters hate more with a larger audience; however new generations