"The Tenant" in Gaines's "In My Father's House"

There are varying things I could discuss for today's post in regards to In My Father's House (1978). However, I think for right now I just want to focus on a stylistic element of the novel that caught my attention on this read through. Specifically, I became intrigued by the elements of mystery and suspense that permeate the first parts of the novel but also continue through until the end of the novel. These elements appear in relation to the mysterious character who knocks on Virginia Colar's door on a rainy, winter night.

The stranger knocks on Virginia's door, and when she opens it, she sees "a thin, brown-skinned young man standing before her in a wet overcoat" with a "scraggly beard" and "Army field cap" asking if she has any rooms available (3). Virginia questions whether or not she should entertain providing a room for the young man, but her conscience overcomes her because she does not know where else he will go. Even though by-law the white motel should accept him, she knows that they will not do it. After agreeing to rent a room out to the man, he provides Virginia with some information. He tells her he is from Chicago, and she doesn't believe him. He tells her his name, Robert X, and she thinks about which group of people use "X" for their last name. At this point, Virginia again questions her decision to let Robert stay, but she acquiesces by continuing to wonder where else he will go.

From the opening scene, we, as readers, are left asking who Robert X is and why he has come to St. Adrienne. People see him walking through town at all hours of the night, Virginia hears him screaming in his sleep, and he stands out in the cold and rain in various spots throughout the community. All of this arouses suspicion among St. Adrienne's inhabitants, causing them to continually ask why Robert X has come to town. Robert tells them that he came to St. Adrienne to attend a men's conference and to meet a man. Robert X's appearance creates a sense of mystery at the beginning of the novel, and the continued lack of references to him by the name of Robert X throughout the first few chapters adds to this. We learn his supposed name on the third page of the novel, but after that initial introduction, he becomes referred to as "the tenant" by the novel's narrator.

When Elijah meets Robert on the street in chapter two, the men begin to talk. Every time Robert speaks, "the tenant" or "he" follows the verbal words. The act of referring to Robert not by the name he provides but by a generic term such as "tenant" essentially erases his agency at this point of the story because the narrator does not even acknowledge that Robert has a name, even it is not his given name. What does this do? If we think about the rest of the novel, the erasure of Robert's agency plays in to the struggles of Robert/Etienne in the text. He fails to protect his sister, and he fails, ultimately, to accomplish his mission in St. Adrienne. The "tenant" does not act, he only causes people to question.

More could be said here, but right now I'm not completely sure what I could say. What are your thoughts on this topic? Why is it important that he only becomes "the tenant" and not Robert X or Etienne at these early stages? Let me know in the comments below.

Gaines, Ernest J. In My Father's House. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978. Print.