Blurring the Boundaries. Rethinking “Americanness” in Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half

Abstract

Arguably, canonical representations of Americanness are built upon oppositions, which cannot but render anyone who does not fit the standard – white, male, heterosexual, and cis-gender – the “Other”. If it is inherently evident how the overlapping between these features and Americanness is not only simplistic and stereotypical, but incredibly problematic as well, this is emphasized even more by literary representations that challenge such association. In fact, these implode from within, as they are parodied, and dismantled. Hence, new paradigms for Americanness are created. Such boundaries between the “canonical” American and “the Other” are constantly blurred, shifted, caricatured and, finally, demolished in Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half. In the novel many of the characters are portrayed challenging these boundaries – especially, that of race, and of gender – through the performance of a fluid identity which allows them to abolish the barriers between different categories, and to emphasize how such boundaries are nothing but arbitrary constructions.

The aim of this paper, then, is to analyze how the characters who do not fit the traditional binary division between genders, and those who are able to shift between races - due to their physical appearance, and to their capability to introject and reproduce racial stereotypes – constantly blur canonical boundaries between the “stereotypical American” and “the Other”. Hence, these are parodied and dismantled, while new paradigms for Americanness – that allow the characters to transcend such boundaries – are created.

Moreover, the aim of this paper is to observe how the form of the novel mirrors the blurring, as various media – especially performative one, as photography, cinema, and theatre – intervene in the novel, hence signaling how the shift between boundaries is turned into a crucial thematic and formal element in The Vanishing Half.

As almost all of the characters are constantly seen performing – in performative acts, as theatrical performances, or in their daily lives – they incessantly shift their own identity, thus making it impossible for them to be enclosed in certain strict categories. And, in cases in which they seem to adhere to these categories, these are made implode from within. Thus, the construction of boundaries of the identity is made impossible, as the boundary between white and Black, heteronormative and non-heteronormative are constantly blurred.  Finally, then, the aim of this paper is to observe how this blurring concurs to the deconstruction of the traditional binary us/Other, which lies at the foundation of the construction of “canonical” Americanness, and how this novel exemplifies that the construction a new, more functional Americanness is to be found in blurred boundaries, in fluid identities, and through performativity.