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Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Vanishing Half, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race and Identity
Loss, Memory, and Inheritance
Companionship, Support, and Independence
Class and Privilege
Summary
Analysis
It’s 1982, and Jude spends most of her time thinking about whether or not she’ll get into medical school. Reese and Desiree are both confident she’ll get in, but she isn’t so sure, so she devotes herself to studying. Otherwise, she leads a quiet life with Reese. Sometimes, when they’re walking on the street, she thinks she sees Stella, though it never turns out to be her. Still, ever since she thought she saw Stella at the party she catered (the one where she spilled the wine), Jude can’t keep herself from looking for her aunt wherever she goes.
Jude’s fixation on finding Stella possibly has to do with the fact that Jude herself could never have lived the life of a white woman. Unlike Stella, Jude is too dark to pass as white—much to her dismay as a child living in the colorist environment of Mallard. She has tried to lighten her skin, but nothing she did ended up changing anything. Consequently, she has never had the privilege of posing as a white person in order to reap the benefits of being white in a racist society. The fact that Stella has done this therefore fascinates Jude.
Themes
When Jude dropped the bottle of wine at the party that night several years ago, her employer fired her on the spot. She was upset when she went home, but Reese tried to soothe her by saying she could just get a different job. Jude then revealed that she’d been working as a caterer because she wanted to help pay for Reese’s top surgery. Although he pointed out that he never asked for her help in this regard, he wasn’t angry. In the ensuing years, Jude thought about Stella constantly. She even asked her mother if she still thought about Stella, but Desiree said she didn’t, saying that it felt to her like Stella no longer existed at all.
Both Stella and Desiree deal with loss by focusing on the present. They both miss each other, but instead of wallowing in sorrow, they think about moving on. But Jude can’t help but think about Stella, perhaps because she feels as if she has been robbed of having a relationship with her aunt. It’s not necessarily that she lost an aunt, but that she never got to experience what it was like to know her mother’s sister in the first place.
Themes
Barry gets cast in the chorus of a low-budget musical. When Jude and Reese go to support him on opening night, Jude is astonished to discover that the musical’s lead actress is the girl with the bright blue eyes she saw at the party she catered several years ago. Jude learns from reading the playbill that the girl’s name is Kennedy Sanders. After the musical, Jude waits outside until Kennedy comes out. To her surprise, Kennedy actually recognizes her, and they have a short conversation in which Jude flatters her by saying she was excellent onstage—she wasn’t actually very good, but Jude wants to endear herself to Kennedy in order to get information out of her.
Jude’s desire to find Stella again is apparent in the fact that she goes out of her way to talk to Kennedy. The two young women are cousins, but neither of them knows that for sure—Jude suspects that it might be the case, but she needs to get closer to Kennedy in order to find out. As a result, she tries to develop a companionship of sorts with Kennedy, though this companionship is based on little more than Jude’s fixation on finding Stella.
Themes
Kennedy mentions that her parents disapprove of her acting career, instead wanting her to focus on school and pursue a practical profession. Later, Jude asks Barry about Kennedy, and he says that she’s a spoiled rich girl. Jude is intrigued, but she’s still not completely confident that Kennedy’s mother is Stella—the woman she saw at the party several years ago looked like Stella, but Jude can’t be sure. Overcome with curiosity, she goes to the musical again and finds Kennedy, claiming that she’s there to see Barry. Kennedy invites her into her dressing room and asks her for help as she gets ready. As she gets changed, Kennedy mentions that her mother is from Louisiana and that her maiden name is Vignes.
Jude and Kennedy have led very different lives. Whereas Jude grew up without much money and faced constant racism and colorism in Mallard, Kennedy grew up very wealthy and has never faced any sort of discrimination or bigotry. The difference between their lives thus emphasizes just how much importance American society places on racial identity, generally giving white people more opportunities and a chance to live free a life free of adversity.
Themes
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