35 pages • 1 hour read
Philip RothThe Human Stain
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “What Do You Do With the Kid Who Can’t Read?”
Coleman sits on a bench at Athena College, listening to two young, male faculty members debate the details of the ongoing impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. Coleman leaves and walks across campus. He spots Faunia sitting around, joking with her fellow janitors. It is at this moment that Coleman realizes why people are so upset about their affair. Coleman remembers watching one of his daughter’s teaching sessions with a child who couldn’t read well. Then he imagines his daughter trying to teach Faunia how to read. Lisa, his daughter, asked him once, “What do you do with the kid who can’t read?” (161). Coleman realizes that, in his case, he made that kid his lover, so he goes to a payphone to call his son, Jeff, and tell him the relationship is over. Coleman plans to end the affair.
The narration then switches to Faunia’s point of view, and rather than thinking about the suffering in her life (which is what Coleman assumes she is thinking about), Faunia actually thinks about crows and how much she feels an affinity with them: “I am a crow. I know it. I know it!” (169)
In the meantime, Coleman calls Jeff. During the conversation, Jeff reveals to Coleman that his children believe a rumor that Faunia was pregnant, aborted Coleman’s child, and then attempted suicide. Coleman becomes furious and rants at Jeff, who hangs up on Coleman. Coleman has always suspected that his unhappy son, Mark, knows Coleman’s secret of passing. With this latest rumor, Coleman suspects all of his children of paying retribution for their father keeping his family history a secret. Coleman recalls a time he had almost told Iris, but then decided against it, as Iris was consoling a friend whose husband had kept an affair secret for several years. He also recalls being thrown out of a brothel while he was in the Navy and the terror he felt at possibly being exposed.
The rest of the chapter details Coleman’s relationship with Delphine Roux: the way he intimidated her during her interview, and, later, their terse conversation addressing a student complaint that Coleman taught writers who used language “degrading to women” (184). The narration switches to Delphine’s point-of-view, revealing that Delphine believes Coleman is fixated on her. Delphine also believes that Coleman wants to ruin Faunia’s life as a substitute for ruining Delphine’s. Delphine scrawls out the “Everybody knows…” note revealed in Chapter 1 in a rage, without intending to send it. She carries it in her bag for a month before mailing it, just after experiencing a perceived romantic rejection from a man.
Chapter 3 Analysis
There are more than four pages of strictly dialogue opening this chapter. This is another example of Roth’s technical playfulness, in addition to the frequent switches of narration and point-of-view. The dialogue is the sexually-explicit conversation between the two young, male faculty members, which serves to underscore the relevance of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal as an important backdrop to the action of the novel. These men determine that Monica Lewinsky is shallow, empty, and putting on a performance: “The sincere performance is everything” (147). These men assert that if President Clinton had treated her more brutally and less politely, there would have been an unbreakable pact of secrecy between them. This foreshadows the more tender nature of Coleman and Faunia’s affair toward the end of the novel. It also underscores the futility of keeping secrets. Everyone’s secrets are exposed by the end of the novel, be it on a small scale or a larger one.
Roth supports the theme of futile secrets with shifts in narration. At first, both Faunia and Delphine are speaking from a third-person point-of-view; both then switch to the first person. In both cases, the first-person perspective of the female characters reveals that their thoughts, inclinations, and motivations are nothing like what the men assume them to be. Coleman assumes Faunia is relieved to be relaxing in the sunshine and is thinking about how much of her life has been suffering abuse from men. Rather, Faunia is thinking about crows.
Coleman is also wrong in his perception of Professor Roux. When she first came to Athena College, Professor Roux was very nervous and intimidated by Coleman. At the same time, she prided herself on being a superior intellectual and could not fathom why she could not impress him. His dismissal of her professionally was a blow that she does not recover from in the novel. She mistakes her obsession with Coleman as his obsession with her, and she personalizes everything that Coleman does. His affair with Faunia becomes a way for him to enact revenge on Professor Roux, in her twisted perception. As a French woman living in a country that is not her own and an elite intellectual living in a rural area, Professor Roux craves connection. Since she is unable to find it, she fixates instead on Coleman and his shortcomings.
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