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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Yellowface, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Critique of the Publishing Industry
Identity, Power, and Privilege
Social Media and Cancel Culture
Ambition, Success, and Notoriety
Loss, Grief, and Guilt
Revenge and Retribution
Summary
Analysis
Narrator Juniper Hayward and Athena Liu have been friends since college, where they met in an Introduction to Short Fiction class. Now in their late 20s, they’re both writers, but their lives have diverged widely in the intervening years. Athena has published three smash hit, award-winning novels. June managed to get her single novel, a coming-of-age story about sisterhood, published, but it has remained obscure and unread. In contrast, Athena just signed a deal with Netflix.
Athena and June have a long history together, the kind that might under other circumstances suggest closeness and intimacy. The fact that the book’s narrator, June, foregrounds Athena’s success and her own (relative) failure from the start, however, suggests that jealousy is the biggest driver in this relationship.
Themes
Although people tell June that her experience is par for the course when trying to break into the competitive literary industry, she can’t help but be jealous of Athena, who is a darling of the literary world. Although she concedes that Athena is a genuinely talented writer, June attributes most of Athena’s success down to who she is rather than what she does. Athena is beautiful, sophisticated, exotic, and—crucially—“diverse” (she’s both queer and Asian American) enough to garner the fawning attention of the publishing industry.
June is, by many measures, a success simply because she managed to get her first book published despite the odds. But she’s clearly bitter that she wasn’t a runaway success like Athena. This suggests from the very beginning of the book then that she cares more about success and fame than she does about the quality of the work she produces. Her snarky comments attributing Athena’s success not to her skill as an artist but to her AAPI identity further support this characterization.
Themes
In truth, June is surprised that Athena still wants to spend time with her at all. Maybe, she thinks, it’s just proximity—after all, both of them landed in Washington, D.C. shortly after college (Athena was offered a teaching job at Georgetown; June’s distant cousin had a condo where June could live cheaply). In her less charitable moments, June suspects she’s Athena’s only friend in part because no one else can stand Athena, in part because Athena needs an inferior friend to worship her.
Because Athena doesn’t get to speak for herself in this book, readers should maintain a high level of suspicion about June’s comments. June is so emotionally invested in her rivalry with Athena that she’s an unreliable narrator. This doesn’t mean that June is necessarily wrong about Athena, but it’s important to remember how her feelings cloud her own objectivity (and that first-person narration is inherently subjective to begin with). The comment about Athena wanting a worshipper probably says more about what June would want if the tables were turned than about what’s actually happening here.
Themes
Regardless, Athena keeps inviting June to hang out and June keeps agreeing. So now they’re imbibing overpriced drinks on a rooftop bar in celebration of Athena’s Netflix deal. During their conversation, Athena vacillates between triumph and vulnerability. June suspects that the vulnerability may be a manipulative ploy for further attention, but Athena seems genuinely worried that at some point, her luck will turn or she’ll learn that people actually hate her.
Again, when June accuses Athena of manipulation and lying, readers should be cautious about taking her claims at face value. There may be a kernel of truth to them, but they’re filtered through June’s assumptions about the charmed life she believes Athena lives. And in any case, June is engaged in manipulations of her own in maintaining a relationship with a person she clearly despises for reasons that are far from altruistic (for instance, it connects her to the life and fame she craves).
Themes
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Eventually, Athena invites June to her apartment to drink from Athena’s stash of expensive whiskey. June agrees not because she’s having fun, but because she wants to see what Athena’s luxury apartment looks like. It certainly is nice. While Athena fixes drinks, June wanders into Athena’s writing room (she was, she says, looking for the bathroom). An old-school vintage typewriter sits atop Athena’s large desk, because Athena quirkily refuses to use a computer. Next to the typewriter sits the just-completed draft of Athena’s most recent novel. It’s nearly a foot tall.
June thinks the typewriter, like most of the rest of Athena’s identity as a writer, is an affectation. Her jealousy is so intense she can’t consider Athena as a genuine human being. In reality, the typewriter is probably a little bit genuine, a little bit affected—it’s hard, the book says, to find an edge in the hypercompetitive world of publishing.
Themes
Athena has been working on this book for two years, and no one knows anything about it because she is very cagey when writing. She refuses to let anyone, even her agents and editors, see anything until she’s finished a full draft. But now, she wanders into the room and invites June to take a look. June does, quickly skimming through a handful of pages. They are “dazzling,” and she knows the book will be a masterpiece.
Given the fact of Athena’s private writing habits, readers can draw several conclusions. It may be another affectation meant to add to Athena’s mystique. Or it may be a sign of her devotion to her craft that she wants to total control over her ideas at the beginning, protecting them from other actors (editors, agents) who might focus more on marketability and profitability than anything else. And even the jealous June can admit that Athena is a masterful writer.
Themes
Athena wants to know what June thinks of it. June maliciously denies Athena the validation she’s clearly hoping for, but she protects her feelings a little by saying she’s too drunk to offer a real opinion. The two women return to the living room where they settle on the couch and fall into a meandering conversation. In private, June realizes, Athena is far less pretentious than she is in public. June stops feeling like she needs to impress Athena and even starts to think that she might genuinely like Athena after all. Or maybe the alcohol is clouding her judgement.
Having accused Athena of all sorts of antisocial behavior (wanting worshippers, manipulating others), June pointlessly hurts Athena’s feelings just because she can and as petty revenge to assuage her jealousy. But she can’t bring herself to be too vicious. This in turn hints that the relationship between the two women might be stronger in some ways than June has given it credit for being.
Themes
Then, Athena and June make pancakes because they’re hungry. Athena flavors the pancakes with pandan extract, which June admits is delicious even as she considers it pretentious. Then, they have a pancake-eating contest—and Athena chokes. June tries the Heimlich to no avail. June calls 911 and struggles through giving the dispatcher directions to the apartment—it is, after all, the first time she’s been and she’s still drunk. By the time she hangs up the phone, Athena is dead.
Athena uses pandan extract to flavor her pancakes. It’s clear that, to some degree, June considers the use of pandan an affectation like the typewriter. Yet, Athena is a genuinely worldly person, having grown up in Hong Kong and Australia as well as the United States. Again, June’s jealousy makes it impossible to separate truth from fiction. And Athena’s sudden and shocking death insists that, contrary to the ways June sees her as a superhuman character, she is as vulnerable as anyone else in the end.
Themes
Ten minutes later, the EMTs arrive. They examine Athena and take June’s statement. She’s irrationally worried that they will suspect her of murder, but they treat the death matter-of-factly as an accident. At four in the morning, a police officer drives June home, where she weeps uncontrollably and then falls into a dazed sleep. Athena’s manuscript is lying in June’s bag.
By focusing the narration on the horrific final moments of Athena’s life and the uncanny experience of its aftermath, June initially gives readers the impression that she was quiet traumatized by what happened. However, she wasn’t so traumatized that she didn’t have the presence of mind to steal Athena’s latest masterpiece in the making.
Themes
