Essay Example on The Human Stain: Identity, Change, and Freedom

The Human Stain creates a platform that gives Roth an opportunity to explore numerous concepts like the loss of identity, personal change, and the demystification of the Jewish tradition in an appropriate and scholarly way. The story focuses on Coleman silk, a man facing tough decisions to identify and reinvent the racial identity in search of personal identity and Freedom. The significant issues portrayed by the book in the modern day are the ethnic and cultural identity, political sincerity, and ethical insincerity. Society plays a vital role in containing race, which proved to be an important factor in the novel. The modern society in the novel is demonstrated through how people can escape the racial discrimination and injustices by escaping the just like Silk. He was forced to relinquish his race to be able to realize the state of total individuality. Coleman Silk is covered by a livelihood stain that makes him abandon the personal history and blackness to pursue a new sense of belongingness. The process of unchaining people from discrimination, social injustices, and the negativity created by the people's connection to ethnic groups are adequately portrayed in the novel, and they represent the human stain.

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Coleman Silk is forced to quit from his position due to the alleged cases of racism directed towards him. The American identity is a prominent culture that enables the Americans to fully identify themselves on where they come from, how they talk, look like, and how they are grouped in the American identity. The American identity in the novel is demonstrated by the fact that the novel illustrates how the stain affects people's lives and how people overcome to conquer the challenges beforehand. The stain in the novel represents marks on the skin and the experiences that constructed the identity of people and the moral suffering they are exposed to in life (Roth, p. 12). The ideology of human stain is used to clearly show people develop socially and individually into their own identities. The idea of the American identity in modernity indicates how people live with an attitude that directs them to explore possibilities of action, usually both the negative and positive. The social existence of the people creates a variety of contemporary solutions and experiences that enable people to adjust their needs and requirements according to the demands of specific settings and duties.

Human beings are known to acquire identity through different levels of associations, affiliations, and membership within the social grouping of the families, schools, and professions that they exist. The political thoughts, neighborhood, racial, and ethnic roots also play a critical role in the creating of people's identity that collectively translates to the American identity. The culture and personality of the American people are closely related, and they represent the social and self-identity of the people. The racial identity of people is deeply associated with the social establishments of people, and it indicates people's perception of a given racial group. The American identity creates a sense of cultural belongingness with people creating a sense of unity in societies. People aim to acquire social and self-identity through social control that enables the people to possess the selfhood and dependency on social factors adequately. In the human stain, the American identity connection is represented on the struggles of Coleman Silk. He struggles to acquire a personal identity against the expectations of society. Racial discrimination disadvantages exist in society, but Coleman Silk, an African- American confronts the issues by passing himself as a white man (Roth, p.120). He bypasses the social demand and uses his position as people's mouthpiece to establish other ways to reclaim his personal identity.

The American identity requires people to establish means to conquer social injustices to realize self-identity. Coleman went ahead and avoided his black history; he tried to escape the social prejudices and bias, and he fails to find Freedom. The avoiding of his racial history becomes a stumbling block, and he is reminded of the fact that the American identity culture requires persons to be proud of their social identity to pursue their self-identity. The American dream creates a sense of individuality through the recognition of the fact that humans have separate identities from external appearance. The American identity promotes the need for the people to adopt the collective identity that ensures that all racial groups are well integrated into society.

The racial pressures made Coleman denounce the racial background, and they led to him adopting individualism rather than collectivism. The Human Stain is significantly valued and celebrated by readers on the way it creates awareness on the existing social discrimination that contributes considerably to people denying their racial backgrounds and other aspects. The racial identity created in the novel demonstrates how people struggle to free themselves from a series of oppression and discrimination. People's struggles are used to shape the spatial and people's American identity. In striving to meet the American identity, Coleman Silk aims to acquire his own identity and authenticity; “He recognized that to conventional people for whom everything was ready-made and rigidly unalterable, what he was doing would never look correct. But to dare to be nothing more than correct ever had been his aim. The objective was for his fate to be determined not by the ignorant, hate-filled intentions of a hostile world but, to whatever degree humanly possible, by his own resolve. Why accept life on any other terms?” (Roth, 2001, p. 120-121)

Racial pressure is caused by dominant groups in the society that forces the minority to undergo passing for people to acquire a new identity. The novel creates the need to eliminate racial discrimination in communities to ensure that people live in the sense of equality with no cases of discrimination. The new identity of separation from the black racial identity with no ethnic and racial background provides no additional help but only alienates him. The American dream aims to create cooperation among all citizens of all racial backgrounds. Coleman Silk's passing is, however, not the betrayal of his own or selfishness but the struggles people go through to realize the American identity. Cooperation among people leads to individuals aiming to create opportunities for growth in societies. The human stain creates and develops reliable support for racial discussions in America, especially in the efforts to realize the American identity and dream.

The local and global phenomena interact in the way Coleman Silk uses ethnic and racial identity to illustrate the struggles of human beings. Coleman exchanges local and global traditions in the society to ensure that he achieves his desired target. Coleman is a black American citizen who passes his identity to become white and aims to attain self-identity at the expense of his society. The exchange of the local and global domains creates an interaction framework where Coleman juggles between traditions to follow the consequences of what he chooses to pursue. Interaction of local and global domains in this context leads to a series of strained relationships with the children, family, and society at large. In the efforts to fight and escape racism in American society, Silk avoids the fight by pursuing personal happiness. The global and local phenomena interaction in the novel builds the ways in which Silk aims to change and configure an inventive social identity through asserting the American dream ideology. The human stain brings up the Jewish-American as the leading local and global interaction perspective. The struggle of life and traditions among the people in this group of citizenship illustrates how the search for truth and identity is a massive task in society.

The Human Stain focuses on the ideology of identity and racism in the societies that involve the interaction of local and global phenomena. The racial discrimination aspect nearly destroyed the status of Coleman. The secrecy and self-transformation determine the self-identity of individuals in societies due to the social pressures created by the majority of people. The human stain novel majorly focuses on assessing and creating awareness on identity in societies and how the people can negotiate the challenges to realize their targets. The interaction of local and global domains in the community creates a multicultural America that established the American Jewish concept in the novel. The ideas in the novel create a history and in-depth discussion of racial treatment and self-identity among people. Coleman passes into the white race to become a Jewish professor in the multicultural society and is affected by hid actions due to social and family resentment against his actions.

Coleman's denial, ambition, and secrecy developed into the creation and establishment of the new identity. "The aggression embedded in his behavior seems to be related to the secret gnawing his mind. Could it be because who he really was entirely his secret? He did love secrets. The secret of nobody's knowing what was going on in your head, thinking whatever you wanted to think with no way of anybody's knowing" (Roth, 2001, p. 100)

The new identifying the new environment ensures that the existing old ties are eliminated to ensure Coleman achieves his ultimate benefits of the new identity. The way in which Coleman avoids his history of the social injustices exposes him to self-slavery of his lies and secrets. The personal and social Freedom is realized through the proper justification of social crimes. Local and global interactions have possibilities to be exposed to positive and negative actions, and people have the ability to acquire lessons from them. Coleman silk gets to learn a lesson like "Freedom is dangerous. Freedom is very dangerous. And nothing is on your terms for long" (Roth, 2001, p. 145). The Jewish and American identity interactions create an assimilation environment which reveals how societies are integrated and how equality and equity is hard to achieve.

The construction and reconstruction of social groups in environments create unfair treatment and categorization of others as second class citizens. Passing was utilized as a method of racial change to ensure that individuals fight for selfhood to realize the ultimate goals. Denial and acceptance of social identity by Coleman silk are considered a process of identity formation. People are shaped by the social identity in the geographical spaces they exist in through values and codes of conduct. The geographic, social, and personal influence creates teachings and ideals that need to be adopted in efforts to develop their own identity to avoid being haunted by the inner self. Coleman Silk adopted a white identity that subsequently undermined his family and social values and generally betrayed his race. In the aim to evade racial discrimination to realize a fulfilling and liberating lifestyle was met with a stumbling block that at last ruined his ultimate dreams.

The creation of personal and social identity is achieved through the social interactions that facilitate the proper interpretation of people's responses. Coleman considered his racial background as a stumbling block to the efforts to pursue a good lifestyle instead of building on his racial experience to realize his dreams. Göncüoglu (p.5) indicated that identity defines an individual through the psychological, intellectual, and social context of selfhood.