Illiteracy

Our discussion concerning letters in passing narratives results in a necessity to discuss those who do not have access to reading or writing those letters, particularly since literacy was historically systemically unavailable for many Black Americans. Although literacy seems like a given for most individuals today, in the early twentieth century, “the teaching of reading was vexed from the inception of the modern school” because scholars feared the repercussions of widespread literacy (Frank 46). Thus, for an individual to pass as white, especially in the time of The House Behind the Cedars, literacy was crucial. Chesnutt explores this relationship in The House Behind the Cedars—John and Rena can read and write, but their Black mother, Molly, cannot. Philip Roth also explores illiteracy in The Human Stain, but he creates a fundamentally different relationship. Faunia, born wealthy and white, chooses to “pass” as illiterate, which makes Roth’s commentary less about the politics of who is literate and more about identity and the literate object. Ultimately, both authors present illiteracy in a way that emphasizes its cruciality both in society and in passing narratives.

Although at first it may seem like a relatively unimportant detail, Molly’s illiteracy plays a major role in Chesnutt’s commentary in The House Behind the Cedars. Through her relationship to the letters she dictates and receives, Chesnutt demonstrates why, beyond their skin color, her children could pass but she never could. Letters theoretically parallel passing, but Molly is excluded from writing/reading those letters, symbolizing her inability to access the white world her children occupy. This symbolism also works in tandem with Chesnutt’s broader political message. Molly’s illiteracy exists as what literary critic Helga Ramsey-Kurz calls “the non-literate without,” where someone is illiterate within a literate culture (259). Ramsey-Kurz categorizes these non-literate people in a different context from those living in societies without literacy. She claims that instead of discomfort or idealism, “their appearance evokes fears of contamination or feelings of hatred…for insistently reminding their suppressors of the wrongs they have to suffer” (261). She also argues that writers like Chesnutt who craft narratives surrounding the non-literate other “problematize a politics of segregation focused on the belief that racial and social differences justify and necessitate the maintenance of cultural asymmetries” (263). These authors also “assert that the orality of their non-literate characters, though both vital and valuable, cannot make up for the cultural marginality that they also suffer on account of their scriptlessness” (Ramsey-Kurz 263). Although Molly is not the main character in The House Behind the Cedars, she plays a prominent role in the plot. Her illiteracy propels the story forward and juxtaposes the letters her children use to communicate, emphasizing its political importance to Chesnutt. Therefore, it must be a focal point of our analysis of Chesnutt’s commentary.

Indeed, her illiteracy both instigates and solidifies the novel’s most important plot twists. When Rena chooses to pass into her brother’s white world, she still yearns for a way to communicate with her mother. John designs a system where “she could have her letters written, inclose them in…envelopes, and deposit them in the post-office with her own hand” so that nobody else in their hometown, Patesville, would know his address (Chesnutt 64). One day, Rena receives a letter from her mother saying that she is not “very well,” and immediately Rena leaves for Patesville (Chesnutt 65). Unbeknownst to Rena, her white lover Tryon also travels to Patesville at the same time she does—thus he will see her within a context where he knows she is not white. Judge Straight, a white man influential in John’s passing, discovers this predicament and attempts to inform Molly by writing her a letter. However, when she receives it, she says, “I wonder…what old Judge Straight can be writin’ to me about,” but neither she nor the messenger “can…read writin’” (Chesnutt 86). She concludes that “it’s somethin’” about her “taxes,” and does not warn Rena to stay out of the public eye to avoid Tryon (Chesnutt 86). Molly’s illiteracy detains her from aiding her daughter in this critical moment. Chesnutt purposefully creates this disconnect between Judge Straight’s privileged white world and Molly’s underprivileged one. It emphasizes the minimal efforts those in power make to help those without power (like Molly) and how unhelpful those efforts often end up being. Straight assumes Molly will be able to read whatever he sends to her, but Chesnutt recognizes the oppression against the Black community which made illiteracy all too common. He also recognizes the change that actually needs to occur—broadly accessible education for all races. By hinging Rena’s exposure on illiteracy, he highlights its prevalence in his community and calls attention to the need to rectify that oppression.

As a white woman, Faunia’s feigned illiteracy in The Human Stain does not symbolize the oppression she experiences. Rather, she pretends to be illiterate to “achieve distance from the symbolic order” (Holroyd 56). After escaping from an abusive home life, she no longer wishes to be part of that symbolic order and instead attempts to ally herself with those (like Molly) who have not had access to education. She molds her life to resemble this “abused, illiterate woman” by working as a janitor, a station far below the one she once occupied (Roth 38). After her death, her diary exposes her literacy to Nathan Zuckerman; in fact, he finds out about her “passing” around the time he discovers Coleman Silk’s racial passing. Roth thus writes these two different “passing” characters in parallel: Coleman passes and accesses more privilege, while Faunia passes into a less privileged part of society—and both successfully hide their identities until death. Faunia chooses to exclude herself from Coleman’s academic world, giving her an inability to connect with Coleman completely. This disconnect resembles Molly’s but must be interpreted differently because Faunia purposefully removes herself from society’s upper echelons. Through making Faunia identify as someone without the ability to read, something now uncommon in the United States even among the least privileged, Roth challenges the boundaries of how people can define themselves. By constructing these two people who pass for opposite reasons, Roth creates room for individuals to craft both more and less privileged identities for themselves, widening the possibilities for such self-identification and ultimately emphasizing the importance of creating one’s own identity. This interpretation is supported by Kathleen Pfeiffer’s argument that, when we look at the passer as “a figure who values individualism,” we see that “passing offers a problematic but potentially legitimate expression of American individualism” (2). Roth thus creates not one but two passing characters, each representing a different facet of society someone could pass as. His depiction of illiteracy differs from Chesnutt’s—however, they both appear in passing narratives where writing plays a prominent role, necessitating their inclusion.

Literacy, letter-writing, and passing are inextricably linked—Roth and Chesnutt certainly agree there. Where writing is an important theme, the dichotomy between literacy/illiteracy will also exist. Chesnutt uses Molly’s illiteracy to make a broader point about whom society oppresses and who might have the privilege to pass into white society. He has the same aims as the authors Ramsey-Kurz analyzes. He hopes to keep awake a “collective memory of cultural exclusion” and to “present this memory as an essential part of [his] own cultural heritage, and make [his] readers see it as central to their understanding of themselves as writers” (Ramsey-Kurz 264). That Chesnutt spent many of his formative years educating underprivileged Black children supports this interpretation of his goal (Glass 74). Roth, on the other hand, creates a kind of backward passing, where a privileged person passes as someone with less privilege, ultimately exploring the boundaries of passing and the ability to craft one’s own identity outside of societal codes. Both writers use the close relationship between illiteracy and letters to strengthen their overall messages, cementing illiteracy as an important counterpoint to letter-writing in passing narratives.

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