35 pages • 1 hour read
The Human Stain
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Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “Slipping the Punch”
Coleman goes to visit his lawyer, Nelson Primus, to see if there is any possible legal action he can take against Lester. Nelson urges Coleman to end the affair with Faunia, insisting “something much worse” (80) than Farley’s trespassing will come of it. Coleman leaves Nelson, telling him, “I never again want to hear that self-admiring voice of yours or see your smug fucking lily-white face” (81).
Next, Coleman visits Athena College and reminisces about his African American childhood in East Orange, New Jersey. Coleman recalls starting to take boxing classes and keeping it a secret from his family. When they find out, at first his father refuses to let Coleman “Silky Silk” continue boxing. But then Coleman’s father changes his mind and insists he learn from Doc Chizner, a former dentist who teaches Jewish boys from upper-class families how to fight. Traveling with Doc Chizner to a fight at West Point, Doc tells Coleman not to mention that he is Black: “If nothing comes up, you don’t bring it up” (98).
At his father’s insistence, Coleman attends Howard University in Washington, D.C. It is his first experience in the segregated South, and he struggles. When his father dies, Coleman immediately withdraws from Howard and enlists in the US Navy (during World War II). While enlisting, he marks his race as “white” on the form. When he returns from the war, he enrolls at NYU, writes and studies poetry, boxes, and falls in a love with a white girl named Steena Palsson. Without telling her he’s Black, Coleman takes Steena home to East Orange to have Sunday dinner with his mother and his sister. Everyone is very polite and pleasant, but on the train on the way home, Steena says suddenly she can’t be in the relationship and leaves Coleman on the train. She doesn’t see him again until four years later, after he is married to Iris Gittelman.
After Steena leaves him, Coleman meets Iris. Coleman tells Iris that he is Jewish and that Silk is an Ellis-Island version of Silberzweig. When Coleman and Iris decide to get married, Coleman travels alone to East Orange to tell his mother that he is marrying a white woman and is going to live as a white man. Coleman sees his mother’s anguish, and realizes he is devastating her with this news, “[m]urdering her on behalf of his exhilarating notion of freedom” (138). The chapter ends with Coleman’s brother, Walt, calling Coleman that same night and forbidding him to see or contact their mother ever again. Walt uses the same epithet to slur Coleman that Coleman used previously in the chapter: “Don’t you dare ever show your lily-white face around that house again” (145).
Chapter 2 Analysis
Chapter 2 reveals Coleman’s deepest secret: not the scandal of having an affair with a woman 37 years younger than him, but the truth of being an African American man who has passed as white since he was 19 years old. Roth complicates the narration by using different perspectives. In Chapter 2, Coleman can tell his story and reveal a major plot point, even though the reader knows that Nathan cannot possibly know these details. This literary device is known as dramatic irony, where readers know clues that some or all protagonists/characters don’t know.
This chapter also offers insight into Coleman’s motivations for passing: his pain and frustration at experiencing racism in the segregated South at Howard, and his heartbreak when his first love, Steena, leaves him after learning he’s Black.
The title of the chapter, “Slipping the Punch,” speaks to Coleman’s boxing style, as his first boxing coach tells Coleman his main strength is as a counterpuncher. Slipping the punch is a defensive technique in boxing, and it means to avoid a direct hit. It is also a euphemism for refusing to give a direct answer. The first time Coleman passes as white is at a boxing match. He feels both power and pleasure. Coleman knows this power and pleasure comes from not telling his secret: “in being counterconfessional in the same way you were a counterpuncher” (100).
This insight into Coleman’s past also reveals Coleman’s sheer determination to live his life according to his own plan. He keeps his boxing a secret from his family. He drops out of Howard University as soon as his father dies. The excitement of creating a new life by declaring his race as white on the US Navy enrollment forms is a thrilling concept for him.
However, the self-invention and constructed identity does not hold up to the pressure of humiliation and harassment, first by his colleagues at Athena College and then by Lester. In a different form of irony, Coleman uses the epithet “lily-white face” to curse his lawyer. His own brother then uses this same epithet later as a curse toward Coleman after learning that Coleman is passing for white.
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