Summary

Thinking back to his childhood, the narrator in “The Frenchman” related a memory of the seventh grade when he participated in a play. His gym teacher, Mr Whitley, had written this racist play, Death Mansion, portraying stereotypical and offensive versions of different cultures. The narrator played the role of Louis the Frenchman, dressed in a pencil mustache, beret and pink scarf. Due to the youth of the cast, the narrator and his classmates were unaware of their offensive roles. It is not until they perform the play in front of their families that they are aware that anything is amiss. The jokes in the play are met with silence and the “sound of the parents in the audience shifting in their seats, fidgeting in collective discomfort” (107). Due to the reception they receive, the children recognized that there was...