The Human Stain

The chapter’s first line outlines the plot:

It was in the summer of 1998 that my neighbor Coleman Silk—who, before retiring two years earlier, had been a classics professor at nearby Athena College for some twenty-odd years as well as serving for sixteen more years as the dean of faculty—confided to me that, at the age of seventy-one, he was having an affair with a thirty-four-year-old cleaning woman who worked down at the college (1).

The incident that instigates Coleman’s early retirement occurs when he uses an alleged racial epithet directed at students. While referring to two students who have not yet come to class, he asks, “Does anyone know these people? Do they exist or are they spooks?” (6) The new Dean of Faculty calls Coleman into his office, which shocks Coleman. Coleman must then defend himself against charges of racism, as the two students in question are African American. Coleman insists he was using the term “spooks” to mean specter or ghost, since the students were absent. However, students and fellow faculty members accuse Coleman of being racist. In the resulting chaos, he chooses to resign. His wife, Iris, also dies.

After arranging for Iris’s burial, Coleman goes to Nathan’s house to ask him to write the story of his downfall, which Coleman deems absurd.