Identity in the Professor\'s Daughter

¶ … Identity in the Professor's Daughter

In Emily Raboteau's novel, the Professor's Daughter, protagonist Emma Boudreaux is frequently asked the question, "What are you?" Having lived in a broken family with an emotionally absent father and an ostentatious brother, Emma's identity, ethnically, socially, and personally, was "a question mark" (Raboteau, Professor's 2). After the death of her brother, Bernie, and abandonment of her father, Bernard Jr., her confusion, anger, and hurt grew. Emma progressed through college feeling abandoned by her brother and father, struggling to find herself "in a world in which she [felt] like an outsider" (Bardleson 245), with a family history that haunted her. Raboteau responds to the question "What are you?" By making clear that "what" people are is more than skin deep, as she allows the reader to observe several characters, biracial, black, and white in their familial, social, and educational environments.

The only two biracial characters in the novel, Emma and her brother, Bernie, were simultaneously compared as the same person, and contrasted as two completely separate people. Bernie refers to Emma as "an extension of himself" (Raboteau, Professor's 2) and therefore they were one in the same. However, while Emma was uncertain of her identity, Bernie was certain of his, proclaimed it, and even invented his identity himself. Bernie "took great pains to learn how to talk Black," (Raboteau, Professor's 1) and shaved his head "to pass for the whole of one half of what he was" (Raboteau, Professor's 3). He defined himself by changing his looks and his speech. Emma, on the other hand, defined who she was by distancing herself from the question as she responded "My father is black and my mother is white and my brother is a vegetable" (Raboteau, Professor's 3). This does not describe her identity, but rather describes the identity of those around her.

The reader's understanding of Emma and Bernie was not limited to the characters' perceptions of themselves, however, and through their experiences, the reader could form his or her own interpretations of "what" these characters were. Emma was an uncertain girl, but a smart one who attended Yale. In her relationship with out-of-her-league Lou, the reader discovered that she also short-changed herself to avoid further abandonment because "belonging to Lou was better than being alone" (Raboteau, Professor's 253). Emma also had an indecisive, impulsive side to her that revealed her instinct to run away as she relocated from New Jersey, to Yale, New Orleans, New York, and finally Brazil. Bernie, however, was quite content to stay where he was. He was unable to read until he was eleven years old, but made no attempts to improve his mind in the way that Emma did as she sped through books such as Wuthering Heights (Raboteau, Professor's 13). He preferred to spend his time leisurely stoned (Raboteau, Professor's 26) or drunk, playing his saxophone, which ultimately led to his demise (Raboteau, Professor's 23). Through Bernie and Emma, Raboteau was able to explore and explain how varied the identities of a biracial person could be, from confident, prideful, and foolish, to uncertain, diligent, and broken.

There were more than a few black personalities that Raboteau introduced in the novel, and put side-by-side, no two people could be more dissimilar than Emma's father, Professor Bernard Boudreaux Jr., and Professor Lester's wife, Meteke. Bernard Jr.'s identity was formed, in large part, by the social conditions he had to endure growing up. His identity when compared to his Uncle Luscious much resembled the contrasting identities of Emma and Bernie. While Luscious was fairly content to stay home gigging frogs (Raboteau, Professor's 46), Bernard Jr. was moving on to bigger and better things, leaving to attend St. Ignatius Prep instead (Raboteau, Professor's 127). Whether he was being tripped on the bus at home (Raboteau, Professor's 35) or tormented at St. Ignatius Prep by his white peers, Bernard Jr. was constantly subjected to pain and humiliation, until he decided, one evening, to be "better than [his tormentors] . . . untouchable" (Raboteau, Professor's 147). From that moment on he became "impervious to pain," (Raboteau, Professor's 150) therefore apparently emotionless, fierce in anger, and rash, as displayed by his impulsive violence against his wife's sister Patty (Raboteau, Professor's 210).

Professor Lester's wife, Meteke, was a lamb. An Ethiopian woman, one could not be more black than she was. She was described by Raboteau as "graceful, delicately boned, long-necked, big-eyed, and soft spoken" (Professor's 71). She was greatly disturbed by the White Buffalo deer hunting party because she identified and sympathised with the deer. Unlike the rash temper Bernard Jr. displayed in times of conflict, Meteke was almost silent in her pain and anguish, to the point that her husband begged her to talk to him, resorting to offers for tea, food, and foot massages to ease her tensions and cheer her (Raboteau, Professor's 72). Professor Lester was fairly clueless about what ailed her, as she chose to steer around his questioning rather than answer him directly. One evening in bed she turned away from him, and when he asked why she seemed upset she responded "I'm tired," rather than confiding in him her fear for the dear (Raboteau, Professor's 83). The reader saw very little of who Meteke was before she married Professor Lester, so her identity was only really articulated in her response to the White Buffalo. In this case, two back individuals represent two very different characters on a broad spectrum of unique identities.

The comparison that is most interesting may be between the characters of Lynn (Bernard Jr.'s wife), and her sister, Patty. They both had the same upbringing, but that youth resulted in two very different identities. Lynn was a strong woman with unquestionable morals. Throughout the novel the reader saw Lynn caring lovingly for her children, petting Bernie "like a puppy dog" (Raboteau, Professor's 4), and keeping a journal of Emma's stubborn, reoccuring rash in order to some day be able to discover the cause of it, after doctors were found to be of no help (Raboteau, Professor's 97). She also tried to be resourceful, sometimes succeeding, such as in times when she purchased "upscale, slightly damaged yardsale finds" at bargain prices (Raboteau, Professor's 10) and sometimes failing, such as in times when her attempts to involve Bernie and Emma in cleaning fell through as a result of her inconsistency (Raboteau, Professor's 11). She was also a loyal and forgiving individual, evidenced by her determination to stay by her husband despite the pain of his apathy and the fear of his unfaithfulness (Raboteau, Professor's 206). Lynn's forgiving nature is also evinced by her rapid acceptance of Patty's apology for her sexual assault on Bernard Jr. (Raboteau, Professor's 185).