“The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett (post 2): First third of novel continues both racial “passing” and multiple personality issues

The novel’s racial “passing” theme does not require that the protagonists, Desiree and Stella, be identical twin sisters. (Identical twins are a metaphor for multiple personality, because alternate personalities, sharing the same body, look identical.)

In addition, Desiree hears the voice of Stella (her missing identical twin sister) “in her own head” (1, p. 70). And when a nonpsychotic person hears rational voices in her head, it is probably the voice of an alternate personality.

Moreover, Desiree, a very light-skinned African-American, has married a very dark-skinned African-American man, and they have had a very dark-skinned daughter, Jude. But Desiree and Jude have had to flee from the marriage, because the husband, who had appeared to be a good man, has physically abused Desiree, who has fled with Jude to Desiree’s home town. She befriends a man named Early Jones, who, coincidentally, earns his living by hunting for missing persons (such as Stella, whose whereabouts are unknown).

And this is how Desiree compares her abusive husband and her friend Early: “Early was easy. He had no hidden sides” (1, p. 93), thus attributing her husband’s abusive behavior to “a hidden side,” which implies an abusive alternate personality, which had not been evident when she first married him, but which came out at times during the marriage.

Since there is no reason for a novel on racial “passing” to feature identical twins or have a protagonist hear voices in her head or have a husband with “a hidden side,” these suggestions of multiple personality are gratuitous. And when a novel has gratuitous suggestions of multiple personality, it probably reflects multiple personality trait in the author.

1. Brit Bennett. The Vanishing Half. New York, Riverhead Books, 2020.