20 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
and judgments is the assumption that there are impure, indecent actions that
cannot be allowed within civilization. Coleman and Faunia’s relationship, due
to the age difference and educational differences, falls under this category. But
the novel’s actions and narration suggest that “impurity” is a state of being
human, not a defect of it. As Faunia explains in the novel’s title passage: “The
human stain.... We leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint.... It’s
why all the cleansing is a joke. A barbaric joke at that. The fantasy of purity is
appalling.” Students might consider how the book suggests that such impuri-
ties as “cruelty, abuse, error, excrement, semen,” are simply part of the human
condition. Can purification occur without ruining what makes us human in
the first place? How does the novel argue various sides of this question? See
D. A. Boxwell’s article on cultural conflict in the novel to begin formulating an
approach to this topic. Bonnie Lyons is useful in this context, as well.
- Students might also consider the concept of tragedy in its various manifesta-
tions in The Human Stain. As a professor of classics, Coleman is intensely
aware of Greek tragic conventions and even relates much of his life to the
Greek tragedies that he has spent so much time studying. The epigraph from
Sophocles invites readers to see this story as a tragedy, and students might
look to Lyons’s and Rankine’s essays for more perspectives on this issue. We
witness Coleman Silk’s rise to power as dean of faculty, his fall at Athena Col-
lege, and then a further fall into the depths of tragedy with his death. In addi-
tion to references to the classic Greek tragedies, the novel is also concerned
with Shakespearean tragedies, specifically Julius Caesar. Coleman’s father was
intensely interested in Shakespeare (so much so that he gave all of his chil-
dren Shakespearean middle names) and Coleman’s story reads much like one
of these tragedies: the tale is divided into five chapters (corresponding to the
number of acts of a Shakespearean tragedy). Students might also consider
how allusions to Shakespearean and classical tragedy affect their reading of
Coleman Silk’s life. Do these allusions make Coleman seem more tragic? Less
tragic? How does Coleman’s awareness of classical tragedy affect the way he
reads his own life? Rankine discusses the relationship between Roth’s novel
and classical models, especially Sophocles’ Oedipus cycle.
- The novel can also be defined as metafictional, that is, a piece of fiction about
fiction. The presence of Nathan Zuckerman establishes the fictional status of
the story: readers recognize that Zuckerman is narrating the story and also
that Zuckerman is a creation of Roth. Moreover, the reader is led through the
actual gathering of information and writing of this novel by Nathan Zucker-
man. In many ways, it is possible to see the novel as commentary on how sto-
ries are created and what makes them fictional in the first place, for the novel
makes perfectly clear that the story is Zuckerman’s imagination at work on
events that he witnesses, hears about, or surmises. But Zuckerman’s status as
a fictional character also shows how Roth may use the same process in creat-
ing the novel we read. How do Zuckerman the narrator and Zuckerman the
author differ, and why might Roth choose to highlight this separation?
- Much is made in the book about a person’s formal education: because Cole-
man is a professor and Faunia is illiterate, most people assume that he is
