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Chapter Three
Summary: Chapter Three
Stella’s desire to stay in New Orleans after reluctantly agreeing to leave Mallard was baffling to Desiree. When Desiree and Stella arrived in New Orleans they were lucky enough to find a job at Dixie Laundry from a shift supervisor named Mae who felt sorry for them. Farrah Thibodeaux, a girl a year older from Mallard, had moved to New Orleans and gave them a place to stay on the floor of her apartment. After months of living in the city, Desiree began doubting their move and the longevity of their lives in New Orleans, though she never revealed her apprehensions to Stella, feeling responsible for being the one who had uprooted Stella from Mallard in the first place.
A week after Desiree shoved Early Jones at The Surly Goat, rumors surrounding her relationship with Early abounded. While the people of Mallard could rationalize Stella passing for white, Desiree’s choice to marry a dark-skinned man was unfathomable and they believed it could only lead to trouble. In need of a job, Desiree begins working at Lou’s Egg House. It is there at the diner that she sees Early again and he reveals that he was hired by Sam to find her. Desiree tells Early that Stella had gotten a job as a secretary at the Maison Blanche building by passing as white and had just disappeared one day a year after getting the job. Early extends his services as a hunter and offers to find Stella for Desiree.
After picking up a job in Texas, Early fondly thinks about Desiree before calling Sam to tell him that he has lost Desiree’s trace. While Early is away on a new job in Eula, Texas he calls Desiree frequently. To everyone’s surprise, Desiree has actually stayed in Mallard longer than they expected, with Jude’s presence becoming a constant topic of conversation since they are not used to living among a dark-skinned child. In one of their conversations, Early tells Desiree how his parents had left him one day with his aunt and uncle. This prompts Desiree to remember how after her father died, their Aunt Sophie had offered to take one of the twins off of Adele’s hands and the ensuing fear that Stella and Desiree felt at the thought of being separated.
Early proceeds to tell Desiree about how he moved to Baton Rouge and spent four years in prison after getting in trouble with the law. He hopes that his criminal record isn’t a problem, and reextends his offer to find Stella. After Desiree confides in Adele about Early’s offer, Adele tells Desiree a story about the first time Stella passed as a white person, and laments the uselessness in looking for Stella because Stella does not want to be found.
When Early returns to Mallard he is introduced to Jude, who is quiet and shy toward him, just as she was when she met Adele. On the ride to New Orleans to search for clues as to Stella’s whereabouts, Desiree explains to Early that Jude’s shyness resembles Stella more than Desiree or Sam. Unable to find any clues about Stella’s whereabouts from the apartment that they once shared in New Orleans, Desiree calls Farrah who tells her that the last time she saw Stella she was with a white man. Early convinces Desiree to pretend to pass as white in order to get information about Stella’s whereabouts from Stella’s old job at the department store. The secretary at the department store tells Desiree that Stella’s last known address was in Boston, Massachusetts. Desiree and Early return to Mallard, Early vowing to investigate the address in Boston before moving on to a new job. Desiree, though apprehensive about Early’s motives, lets her guard down and spends the night with him.
Analysis: Chapter Three
Throughout the novel, the performance of whiteness exposes realities of white hypocrisy and white privilege. In this chapter, when Desiree first enters into the department store, the name of which means “white house” in French, she enters as her Black self. She is nervous and is ultimately asked by a security guard to leave. This illustrates that the perception of Blackness in a white space both increases scrutiny and suspicion from authority figures and creates a sense of precariousness, fear, and uncertainty for the Black subject of that scrutiny. When Desiree returns to the store while performing the role of a white woman, she is breezy, free, and expects to get what she wants. In turn, the white space opens to her, and the security guard and other employees go out of their way to accommodate her. Early, as an observer and hunter of people, knows how to coach Desiree into her performance of whiteness. Desiree, an actress at heart, knows how to play white: act entitled. Ironically, she is actually playing the role of Stella. Though Stella is not white, she learned long ago how to perform whiteness to gain white privilege.
Throughout this chapter, Bennett explores the relationship between the past and present as characters both pursue the past and try to escape it. When Early stands on Desiree’s mother’s front porch in the very spot where he first met Desiree more than a decade ago, he seems like a ghost from Desiree’s past revisiting her in the present. Desiree and Early’s shared history emerges in their current lives as they both remember the attraction that existed between their younger selves. Throughout Desiree and Early’s journey to track down Stella, Desiree struggles with her decision to find her sister. Desiree’s need for Stella has kept Desiree somewhat trapped in the past, while Stella has moved on by metaphorically killing her past self and disappearing. Bennett compares passing as white to faking one’s death, and this metaphor drives home how profoundly Stella has buried the very past Desiree and Early are digging up. Though the past provides Desiree with pleasant memories of her sister, it is also haunting and difficult to endure in the present.
