Previous
Chapter 5
Themes
and Colors
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
Finally, it’s launch day for The Last Front. June knows that the day won’t necessarily signal the book’s fate—a lot of sales are preorders, so it’ll take a few days for sales figures to come in, and even longer for people to read the book and start posting their reactions online. Still, this time feels so different from the last. Daniella sends a handwritten note and a bottle of champagne. June feels like she’s made it.
June feels like she’s worked hard to get where she is. But where she’s gone awry, according to the book, is in expecting that success is a given for those who put in the work. That’s part of what led her to steal The Last Front from Athena. Because she feels like she was denied what she earned the first time around, she’s determined to get it now by any means necessary.
Active
Themes
That night, June gives her first reading of her publicity tour, at a splashy D.C. bookshop. The tour for Over the Sycamore was humiliating, but when she shows up for this one, the shop is packed. June reads a passage from the middle of the book—one which, she points out, was largely her creation, not Athena’s. Again, she feels the sweet warmth of success. She has finally become “a Serious Young Author” and “a Literary Star.” And she’s dressed for the role, too.
Again, June’s ongoing comparison of her first and second book launches keeps readers focused on the fact that she cares more about external measures of success than about the quality of the work she did. It doesn’t count, in her mind, if Over the Sycamore or The Last Front is a good book, unless she receives massive amounts of external validation.
Active
Themes
June is halfway through a flattering Q & A session, when much to her horror, she sees Athena in the front row, wearing her signature emerald-green shawl and red lipstick. No, it can’t be, she tells herself, but she’s very shaken. She struggles through the rest of the questions and the book signing line. The staff notice the change in her affect, gently hurrying the line along, then call her an Uber ride.
Active
Themes
Once home, the panic attack that June has been suffering for an hour threatens to overwhelm her. She runs through the mental checklist Dr. Gaily taught her, trying to calm herself down. Then she reaches for her phone to Google her name, and Athena’s. All she comes up with is a Twitter post that commented on her closeness with Athena, noting that it seemed like Athena’s ghost was at the reading.
Active
Themes
Get the entire Yellowface LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
