Discoursal Formation of Identity in Philip Roth’s The Human Stain

Year 2019, Volume: 18 Issue: 3, 1015 - 1027, 02.07.2019

M. Önder Göncüoğlu

https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.487186

Abstract

Philip Roth’s The Human Stain (2000) simply tells the story of a New England classics professor, Coleman Silk, who is forced to quit his job for alleged racism. The charge is a lie, but the truth about Silk is more shocking because it turns out that for his entire adult life, Silk has been covering up the fact that he is neither Jewish nor white although he is actually a very light-skinned man. The stain given in the title of this novel stands for both a mark on the skin and the mark of our experienced-based stories and which, consequently construct our identities. This paper, therefore, analyzes how the idea of ‘stain’ is ironically inscribed both socially and individually into our identities.

Keywords

Stain, Identity, Social Pressure, Class Distinction, Bias, Race

Philip Roth’un The Human Stain Adlı Romanında Kimliğin Söylemsel İnşası

Abstract

Philip Roth’un The Human Stain (2000) adlı romanında sözde ırkçılık iddialarıyla
işinden ayrılmak zorunda kalan New-England’lı bir profesör olan Coleman Silk’in
hikâyesi anlatılır. İddia asılsız olsa da Silk hakkında daha şaşırtıcı başka
bir mesele ortaya çıkar. Buna göre ne Yahudi ne de beyaz ırka mensup biri olan
Silk aslında beyaz tenli bir siyahidir ve bu gerçeği tüm yetişkinlik hayatı
boyunca bir sır olarak saklamıştır. Romanın adında bulunan leke kelimesi ten
rengimizle ilgili ironik bir çağrışımı aklımıza getirirken, öznel yaşanmışlıkların
işareti olarak da düşünülebilir. Bu çalışma, leke kavramından hareketle kimlik
meselesinin hem sosyal hem de öznel tecrübeler ile söylem düzleminde nasıl inşa
edildiğini tartışmaktadır. 

Keywords

Leke, Kimlik, Sosyal Baskı, Sınıf Ayrımı, Ön-yargı, Irk

References

• Ashforth, E. B. (1989). Social identity theory and the organization. Concordia University, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, 20-39.
• Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a new modernity. London: Sage.
• Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (1995). The normal chaos of love. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Brauner, D. (2007). Philip Roth. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Cote, E. J., Levine, G. C. (2002). Identity formation, agency, and culture: A social psychological synthesis. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Franco Jr., D (2004). Being black, being jewish, and knowing the difference: Philip Roth's The Human Stain; Or, it depends on what the meaning of 'Clinton' is. Studies in American Jewish Literature 23: 91. Special Issue ed. Derek Parker Royal.
• Gergen, J., K. (1968). Personal consistency and the presentation of self. In C. Gordon & K. J. Gergen (Eds), The Self in Social Interaction, Vol. 1, 299-308. New York: Wiley.
• Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self identity: self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Hungerford, A. (2003). Bellow, Roth, and the secret of identity. The Holocaust of Texts: Genocide, Literature, and Personification . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 145.
• Hungerford, A. (2008). The American novel since 1945. Open Yale Courses. (16 Nov 2013), retrieved from http://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-291
• Maria Luiza C. de A. (2011). Racial passing in James Weldon Johnson’s the autobiography of an ex-colored Man and Philip Roth’s The Human Stain. (3 April 2016), retrieved from www.ufsj.edu.br/portal2.../Maria_Luiza.pdf
• Markus, H., and Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41.9, 954-969, doi:10.1037/0003-066X 41.9,
• Mills, W. C. (1998). Blackness visible. 1st ed. Ithaca: Cornell.
• Myrdal, G. (1996). An American dilemma. New York: Harper and Brothers.
• Parrish, T. (2007). Roth and ethnic identity. The Cambridge Companion to Philip Roth. (Ed.), Timothy Parrish. New York: Cambridge University Press, 127-141.
• Roth, P. (2000). The Human Stain. New York: Vintage Books.
• Royal, P., D. (2006). Plotting the frames of subjectivity: identity, death, and narrative in Philip Roth’s The Human Stain. Contemporary Literature, XLVII, 1 the University of Wisconsin System Spring, Vol. 47 Issue 1, 114-140, 0010-7484; E-ISSN 1548-9949/06/0001-0114.
• Tammy, C. (2001). Subjectivity, encyclopedia of postmodernism. (Ed.), Victor E. Taylor and Charles E. Winquist. London: Routledge, 382.
• Turner, C. J. (1985). Social categorization and the self-concept: A social cognitive theory of group behaviors in E.J. Lawler (Ed.), Advances in group Processes. Greenwich, Ct: JAI Press Vol. 2, 77-122.