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The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett a domestic fiction novel where these two twins disappeared, Desire and Stella Vignes. It starts off with background information about how Desire returns to a place where shes from a place called Mallard. Being gone at the age sixteen returning with an unexpected child that's negro. Everyone is shocked and have many questions to this sudden appearance and the young girl. Desire arrives as a diner where she takes care of her daughter attending to her. At this point of the book the focus is on Desire one of the twins. We see the book being narrated from general point of view giving us details of what's going on. We also hear from the town people that the twins have very much different personalities and that's what they remember from them. I think this book in a way has an individuality between the twins. This might somehow impact the book ending.

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The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, is a novel that tells the disappearance of the Vignes twins in Mallard, a small town of colored people. In the beginning of the novel, Desiree Vigne is spotted by the owner of the local diner with a child and a luggage. Desiree is seemingly coming back to the town she ran away from with Stella, her twin sister. For years, no one knew what had happened to the twins and expected them to emerge as dead. However when Desiree arrives with a black child, the townsfolk are shocked. The community is a southern black community, established by a man who wanted future generations of the town to have lighter and lighter skin in order to protect the community from oppressive white men. Ironically so, a group of white men murdered the father of the Vignes twins and the twins and their mother, Adele, were left fatherless. Desiree expressed throughout the start of the book that she disliked Mallard and hated the judgmental atmosphere that the town curated over time. I believe that this book is expressing how individuals break free from a homogeneous society and what encourages them to make a change.

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Brit Bennett's historical fiction novel "The Vanishing Half" depicts the runaway of a set of two light-skinned black girls who later go on to lead greatly different lives. The book starts with the introduction of the twins, as well as the town they reside. Mallard, a town built on the idea that perfection is indicated by the lightness of ones skin, is the birth place of the pair of twins (Desiree and Stella). Both girls are praised heavily for their perfect skin but bought seek out escape from their town. So far, we are only introduced to Desiree's daughter through the words of the town's folk and that Stella had become white. There's the question of what had happened to cause the sister's estrangement and what had occurred to cause Desiree to have a child with a black man. We don't have answers to these questions but we soon hope to find out something as we learn more about the story of the ladies. I assume we'll soon see themes of identity in the story and how society influences one's self image.

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In the book "The Vanishing Half" the story has unfolded as the twins are now grown adults and have different lives. As the reader i know of the perspectives of both Desire and Stella. There is also other characters like Jude, Kennedy, Blake, Reese and Loretta. Desire lives in her home town Mallard and Stella is lives Los Angeles, California with her husband Blake Sanders. She forms a family in a white neighborhood with her husband and daughter Kennedy. This black family moves in and everyone is very shocked and not pleased with this. Stella becomes familiar with the women Loretta and many things happen bring us to the future where Kennedy and Jude have grown into two different lives. Jude is in college studying while Kennedy is pursuing acting. Kennedy has no idea Jude is related to her. These conflicts in the story that bring to a similar theme. The racial conflict within the family. All of these conflicts are human to human and are internal.

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In the novel, "The Vanishing Half" the story continues as the twins grow up into adults and begin their families. At this point of the book, the perspective shifts from Desiree's point of view to her daughter Jude, where we are introduced to new characters and her love interest, Reese. Jude enrolls in college and moves away from Mallard where Desiree continues to live in with her mother Adele. Jude expresses her disgust for Mallard as she was 'the odd one out' and was constantly judged for being black. As the timeline progresses, we get another shift in the perspective of Stella, who we find out is married to a white man named Blake and has a daughter named Kennedy. They live in a white neighborhood and are fairly happy, though Stella develops extreme anxiety and is heavily traumatized from her experience in Mallard and has the same paranoia as a colored person living in a white neighborhood. The conflict shown thus far is internalized within the family because of the racial discrimination experienced by Jude and Stella. It connects to the human vs self conflict as Jude and Stella continue to fight their insecurities and heal from their trauma as a result of human vs human conflict.

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The “Vanishing Half” evolves as many years have passed since Desiree went back to town and Jude has grown up. Jude now attends college away from Mallard meeting new people, most notably her love interest, Blake. Not only that, we finally get a glimpse into the life of Desiree’s estranged twins life and the trials and tribulations she has faced after leaving everything she’s ever known. Stella now lives as a white woman, married to a white man and has since rejected her everything about her past. She is traumatized from her experiences at Mallard and raises her daughter, Kennedy, carefully to ensure she never perceives her true heritage. The story has managed to explore many conflicts, such as Human vs Self- shown through Stella’s denial of her identity and various traumas. Human vs Human, seen through the hostility held towards Jude for being black and Human vs Society, conveyed by the racism present in this time period.

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In Brit Bennett's "The Vanishing Half", the story goes on to follow the unfolding lives of the introduced twins, Desiree and Stella, as well as their children. Throughout the story, the readers watch as we are provided the perspective of all of the integral characters. Starting first with Desiree, we discover her past experience in an abusive relationship and her decision to return to the home that she'd ran away from. Then, we follow Jude to college, leaving her mother to pursue a life without the judgement Mallard gave her for being black. She meets her love interest from there, Jude. Leading further into the book, we finally move to see the lives of Stella and her daughter Kennedy. Stella lives a life of a lie, allowing herself to be perceived as white, living in a white neighborhood, and marrying a white man to have a white baby. There's not a moment where her perspective doesn't come off as anxiety-ridden or that she wasn't traumatized. Her interactions with her neighbors reflects this. In the end, this story displays the internalized inter-generational trauma ingrained in the people of Mallard and how it had followed them even when they have long and left. "The Vanishing Half'" presents a story of a human's conflict with ones self as well as others around them.

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In Vanishing half the main characters Stella and Desire Vignes. In the story we are seeing Stella's point of view and she has a family of her own away from Mallard. A daughter called Kennedy who is grown up and her husband Blake Sanders. A lot of memories are being remember back and fourth. Stella's daughter Kennedy has always questioned her mother about where she was born and her life before she became married. Stella has always been so quiet about her life before being who she was. After Kennedy was told by Jude her cousin but also Desire's daughter who her mother really was and their connection as family Kennedy starts to remembering memories from the past when she asked about her family.

When Kennedy was young she was always trying to get the attention of her mother. Once when she was in the kitchen Stella was frosting a cake that Kennedy asked her where she learned how to do that and Stella responded saying "Picked it up over time" and when Kennedy asks if her mother showed her Stella told her they were poor to afford cake. Kennedy realized how her mother was always so calm and never reacted much even when it was questions of the past. When we know Stella is in fact the opposite of how Kennedy sees her. Stella has always said how she feels multiple people especially with the two different lives she has the one being her old one and new one. Stella often contradicts her feelings with her actions.

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In the novel, "The Vanishing Half", the story continues from Stella's point of view. She makes friends with the Walker family, specifically Loretta because her daughter likes to play with Kennedy, Stella's daughter. Stella becomes closer than ever with her new neighbor and Loretta reminds her of Desiree. However after Christmas Day, their relationship soured when Kennedy called Loretta's daughter a racial slur. Loretta, horrified, separates their daughters and breaks any contact between her and Stella. After this interaction, the neighborhood, rooted in deep prejudice, harasses Loretta and uses bricks to destroy some of her home, at one point injuring her daughter. So the Walkers decide to move out and Stella, feeling as though she lost her only friend, reveals her background to Loretta.

Throughout this part of the book, Stella contradicts herself in her relationship to Loretta. They both grew to be great friends and frequently visited each other to vent and smoke. Stella even claimed herself that Loretta resembled Desiree and felt as though Loretta is as close as a sister. However she contradicts herself during a large Christmas gathering with the neighborhood when Stella chooses not to invite Loretta because of her race. When confronted by one of her white neighbors, Cathy, about not inviting her 'best friend', Stella aggressively denies that they were ever friends. Even though the readers of "The Vanishing Half" are fully aware that Stella regards Loretta highly and was even worried that if she attended the Christmas party, she would be isolated and ridiculed by the attendees. As Stella hardly interacts with any neighbors, she went through the trouble of secretly meeting Loretta just to hang out and have fun, displaying how her actions and real feelings for Loretta contradict the appearance that Stella tries to keep up in front of her co-workers/neighbors.

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In Brit Bennett's "The Vanishing Half," we continue off from learning about Stella's life as a 'white person' inside the neighborhood she lives in. We watch as she describes her life after leaving Mallard, leaving Desiree, and then becoming a wife to Blake Saunders. The time periods alternate from before he was with Blake and after when she is now living in the new neighborhood until we are introduced to the woman she befriends: Loretta. Over the course of a few pages, we see how close they become as Stella begins coming home late, using the excuse that it was because of the children. Her good times with Loretta are soon stripped away from her when Loretta is brought up at her Christmas party. A racial slur and a separation of her daughter with Loretta's later, Loretta is forced to move out. Despite it all, Stella still sees Loretta as a safe space and confides in her about her background before she departs.

There are many points in the book where Stella contradicts herself, both internally and externally. One of the first examples of this is when Loretta is brought up during another gathering between the neighbors. Taking place during an event Loretta wasn't invited to, people like Cathy spoke openly of her views on her. She asks Stella why she hadn't invited her best friend and against all odds, Stella denies any relation with Loretta at that moment. It's strange to see with Stella as time and time again she'd shown that Loretta was her friend, the only one by her side. But in that moment, she contradicts herself to protect her own image, keeping up the façade that it was only because of their children that they were always in proximity of one another and not because she was there on her own accord.

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In the novel “The Vanishing Half”, we begin to see more of Stella’s life and how she’s changed since leaving Mallard all those years ago. She lives in a high class white suburban neighborhood in California and holds a deep prejudice for black people. Ever since she ran away Stella has been living as a white woman and is terrified of the idea of anyone finding out- namely people of her own race. Despite this, she develops a (somewhat rocky) relationship with the black woman who moved across the street, Loretta. Stella begins to see Desiree in Loretta and seeks her company out behind her husbands back. This all comes to an end unfortunately, as Loretta catches Stella’s daughter calling Loretta’s daughter the N-word. Shortly after, Loretta’s house is maliciously attacked by people from their neighborhood and they soon move away.

Throughout the chapters that Stella’s life is show through, Stella contradicts herself many times. These contradictions are most apparent when Stella is talking about Loretta.When Stella catches her daughter Kennedy playing with Loretta’s child, she immediately snatches Kennedy away and tells her that "we don’t play with (N-word)." Though she and Loretta are not friends by this point, this is a contradiction because Stella and ,subsequently her daughter, are also black. Saying they don’t associate with black people when they are black is a statement in conflict with itself. During a Christmas party held at her house, Stella is confronted about her relationship with Loretta and immediately denies the accusations saying that they are not friends, hence Loretta not being invited. They frequently spend time together by this point, so that is also a contradiction. These contradictions show how warped Stella’s mind has become after living as a white woman for so long. She tries to push Loretta away despite longing for her company as the only other black person she has contact with. At the same time, she rejects their companionship out of fear of anyone finding out her true identity. Stella has been thrown in her own cycle of loneliness that she can no longer afford to break out of.

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In the novel, "The Vanishing Half", the story progresses by making connections between Jude, Stella and her daughter Kennedy. The perspective is switched from Stella's to Jude's when the readers catch a glimpse of how Jude lost her job waitressing for the catering company. Coincidentally, Jude is catering to a party in Beverly Hills, in the estate of the Sander's family. This is where Jude makes contact with Stella and her daughter Kennedy, who grew into a wild child, dropping out of college to pursue an acting career. When Jude accidently spills wine on an expensive carpet after getting startled from Stella's sudden appearance, she loses her job and starts working at a Korean restaurant. Later on when Barry invites Jude to a musical, she meets with Kennedy once again and starts a new part-time job in the theatre, in hopes of uncovering the truth about Stella and how they're related. There is a constant transition between the point of views of Stella and Jude in which they are both trying to discover the mysteries surrounding their identity. Stella finally starts attending Santa Monica college and becomes an instructor in introductions to statistics. She meets Peggy, a feminist advocate, and Stella begins to question her role in her relationship with Blake, influenced by her 2nd identity as a white woman. On the other side of the story, Jude gets close to Kennedy upon the reveal that Kennedy's mother is the missing Vignes twin. After Kennedy's last theatrical performance, Jude reveals everything, emphasizing that they're cousins. Kennedy retaliates in disbelief, attacking the relationship between Jude and Reese. Three years later, Kennedy becomes a successful actress, and upon further questioning Stella about her past, nothing is revealed. Until, Kennedy runs into Jude once again in New York, where Jude plans to show something to Kennedy, solidifying that they're in fact related.

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so far in the book "The Vanishing Half" the two cousins Kennedy and Jude are now aware of each other and Jude has told Kennedy about how their mothers are twins. After that they go separate ways in bad terms but years later Kennedy now lives in New York with her boyfriend and Jude reappears with her boyfriend Reese. after that encounter they talk and Kennedy once again is all confused and blamed Jude for "ruining" her life. Kennedy has also been going through a lot at this time with her career and has been struggling and with Jude who appeared and left she got tired of everything. She decides to leave everything and go somewhere to where no one would know. Stella, her mother, found out and went searching of her knowing Jude had everything to do wit this because of her appearance again in her daughters life. Stella does what she thought she'd never do and was go back to Mallard in search to do something about Jude once and for all. Coming back to the place she'd turn her back too she found herself with her mom Adele and Early. Then she'd encounter herself with her own reflection at Lou's dinner. The encounter with themselves was well spent talking about things and among those everything has has happened with Jude which was the reason that brought Stella back to Mallard in the first place. Desiree was baffled at what came out of Stella's mouth but she knew after everything she would have to return home. After leaving months later Stella's daughter Kennedy resurface back to California and once again reunited with her mother.

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On pages 244 to 247 of "The Vanishing Half", Stella is speaking to Peg about pressuring Kennedy to go to college. Peg states that Kennedy isn't Stella and that it's unfair to expect Kennedy to be her. Stella starts an inner-monologue, contrasting what Peg said by expressing that it wasn't that, it's the fact that Kennedy felt like a stranger to her. Stella imagines that if she were in Mallard, she would talk to Desiree about how amusing it is that they're different, jokingly asking if Kennedy is Desiree's daughter instead of hers. But in this world, it terrified Stella that her daughter felt like a stranger, and if that's how she felt, then nothing about her life would be real. The topic changes to how Peg thinks that Blake doesn't want Stella to be intellectual for fear of a power imbalance, referring to how Blake and Stella met as boss and secretary. Peg worryingly states that she hates seeing Stella purposely makes herself small for him, that the way she sees herself won't be the same as how Blake views her. Stella responds by saying that when she thinks about her past, it's like being another person, to which Stella struggles with her real identity, used to hiding in Desiree's shadow. She concludes the conversation with how she doesn't remember what she was like in the past.
The song "Reflection", sung by Lea Salonga from the Disney Movie Mulan, connects to this scene from "The Vanishing Half" in which Stella doesn't recognize her true identity. In the lyrics, it states, "Now I see, that if I were truly to be myself, I would break my family's heart..." When Stella decides to be 'smaller' in front of Blake she chooses to hide her true self, and living as a white woman, if she were to tell her family about her past as a person of color, she feels she would disappoint them. Furthermore, the lyrics state, "Who is that girl I see, staring straight back at me. Why is my reflection someone I don't know?" This shows additional connection as to how Stella felt being separated from Desiree, in the scene where she explains having someone talk for her, she no longer felt the need to show herself. It was like Desiree was her and she didn't have to be anyone. But now that she is living the life she chose, she fears that if she breaks out of the appearance of being 'nothing', she would face backlash from her husband and her daughter for being 'something'.

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Reflection (From "Mulan" / Soundtrack Version)

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In Chapter 5 when Jude is recalling her memories back in Mallard. More specifically her memories when she went to school there and was treated different and badly because of her skin color. One of the bullies name was Lonnie Goudeau. One time Lonnie was slightly tipsy and he had found himself with Jude alone in the dark. He invited her to a barn to see horses that he had access too. Jude was never spoken to like a decent human directly especially from Lonnie so she followed him. They went to the barn to see the horses admiring them and when one of the horses was startled a bit the owners were coming out so then Lonnie and Jude ran to hide. They were in a stable very close to each other when Lonnie then kissed Jude. Ever since they were sneaking around kissing and he would touch Jude as he pleased and Jude never hesitated because she'd never gotten this type of attention before. At school Lonnie would ignore her and continue to treat her badly as if nothing ever happens between them in that barn they go to. The song relates very well to this scene because some of the lyrics say "i'm not a piece of cake you can just discard" It really feels like it is in Jude's perspective of how she felt ignored by Lonnie since they weren't dating or anything he was using her for his pleasure. The song itself also has to do with is like a toxic sexual relationship and although the two characters are dating Jude and Luna the relationship between these characters themselves is very toxic and sexual. The song expresses how the female feels and at the same time Jude's feelings she kept deep inside that she couldn't understand until she was older.

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In "The Vanishing Half," we find ourselves switching from Stella to Jude's perspective. At this point, we see how Jude's unemployment is treating her as well as her growing (light) obsession with Kennedy, and by proxy, Stella. This is following the events of the catering party where Jude first makes contact with Stella before being promptly kicked out for ruining their rug with wine. Finding work at a Korean restaurant, Barry invites Jude to a musical where we are introduced to a grown Kennedy. With limited ability to converse, Jude begins working a second job at the theater in an attempt at getting closer to Kennedy and finding out more about Stella. The perspectives constantly change, depicting Jude's infatuation with Stella as well as Stella's imposter syndrome in regards to the life she had made for herself. Kennedy is what connects the two characters together, being the wild child she is growing up and a reflection of Deriree's old rowdiness. At the end of it, we find out that Stella finally begins her work as an instructor in an introduction to statistics.

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“The Vanishing Half” continues as the narrative jumps back to the present with Stella becoming a statistics instructor and the story shifts from Stella’s point of view back to Jude’s. Jude meets Stella’s daughter, Kennedy, for the second time at one of her friends theatre gigs and begins to make the connection between her and Stella. Upon finding out that they are cousin, Jude does everything she can to get to know more about Kennedy and the life she’s been living. In spite of concealing their blood relationship, Kennedy and Jude develop a close relationship over the course of the theatre production though many are opposed to this occurrence. The cousins companionship quickly takes a disastrous turn as Jude finally comes clean about their familial connection and Kennedy lashes out, unable to handle this newfound information. This marks the end of their encounters for the next three years.

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In the first chapter introducing the world and characters of "The Vanishing Half," the readers are shown the surface of Mallard as well as the twin sisters that ran away from it. The first chapter of the book goes to give us the origins of Mallard as a town that strives to become whiter. The readers are shown the constricting life within Mallard that Stella and Desiree faced. With Desiree feeling no connection to the founding great-great-great grand father of hers and Stella's education being ripped away from her, their motivation for leaving is made clear. Later, the readers are told that Desiree, though rebelling the hardest against the town's ingrained colorism by having a black daughter, returns to the town she'd felt no connection to. All the while, Stella had become white. From that point forward, we watch what had become of them after they'd left and how it had gone to effect their daughters. The song I chose connects as "The Village" the crisis of identity, the same way it's expressed in "The Vanishing Half." The song goes on about an unexpressed issue of acceptance in the town and that though there is nothing wrong with 'you,' there are still rumors in the town. It tells the story of restriction of expression that is rooted in the town or the village. "The Village," like Mallard, expresses that the town has something wrong with it. The two connect here with the criticism of the village. Despite being unspoken, the racism is apparent as the story depicts how blackness is something to be washed out while the girl's whiteness is something to be appraised.

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During the very first chapter of “The Vanishing Half”, Desiree recalls her relationship with her ex-husband, Sam, as she brings her daughter into Mallard. She remembers how good her relationship was in the beginning and how that slowly began to change with him becoming more and more possessive and violent as the years went on. How she finally built up the courage to leave him behind and take her child with her. This song, Exeunt, is about someone leaving their lover behind as they realize that the relationship they’ve built is toxic and manipulative. Fittingly enough, Exeunt, the word– is a direction used in a play script to indicate when a character has left the stage which is exactly what both the narrator in the song and Desiree are doing with the “stage” being their former lovers.