`` Imitation Of Life `` By Nella Larsen 's, Quicksand And Passing, The Issue Of Passing

As John F. Kennedy once said, “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth”. The novel Quicksand by Nella Larsen chronicles the plight of a young, racially mixed woman struggling with alienation during the Harlem Renaissance. The female protagonist, Helga Crane, born to a Danish mother and West Indian father, was abandoned and disowned by both her mother and father. Larsen wrote the novel in a time during which racial uplift was promoted and it was expected of women to comply with society’s ideologies regarding marriage and female sexuality. Readers are exposed to the indecisiveness and insecurity of Helga Crane, which further discourages her desire to become one with herself. As a result of the stereotypes present in

The memoir “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston, was first published in 1928, and recounts the situation of racial discrimination and prejudice at the time in the United States. The author was born into an all-black community, but was later sent to a boarding school in Jacksonville, where she experienced “race” for the first time. Hurston not only informs the reader how she managed to stay true to herself and her race, but also inspires the reader to abandon any form of racism in their life. Especially by including Humor, Imagery, and Metaphors, the author makes her message very clear: Everyone is equal.

Leaving the Southern United States, for Harlem, and then for Denmark-- where she is seemly welcomed by her white relatives live, Crane never finds the feeling of being at home. She is still isolated, as an outsider who is tagged with “the black woman” label. First in Naxos, a rich Southern school, Helga works as a teacher. She recognizes that Naxo is the epitome of an African American community trying to assimilate to white culture in

The Harlem Renaissance was a turning point for many African Americans. A vast amount of literature was created specifically for this group during this era. It was a period when the African American "was in vogue" and "white thinkers and writers were devoting a considerable amount of attention" to them (Taylor 91, 90). For the first time, African Americans were being told that it was okay to be proud of who they were. This new consciousness and self-awareness was prominent in many works of literate, but several writers began exploring the darker side of this movement with literature that concentrated on the negative aspects of race relations in America. Nella Larsen's novel Passing concentrates on this

The early 1900s was a very challenging time for Negroes especially young women who developed issues in regards to their identities. Their concerns stemmed from their skin colors. Either they were fair skinned due mixed heritage or just dark skinned. Young African American women experienced issues with racial identity which caused them to be in a constant struggle that prohibits them from loving themselves and the skin they are in. The purpose of this paper is to examine those issues in the context of selected creative literature. I will be discussing the various aspects of them and to aid in my analysis, I will be utilizing the works of Nella Larsen from The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Jessie Bennett Redmond Fauset,

Helga, being half-white and half-black, has an added struggle as a mixed-race woman in the Harlem Renaissance. At a time when the black community is being uplifted, Helga experiences the opposite. Helga is objectified as a female and as a mixed-race woman. The objectification of females treats them as rewards or objects to be obtained and in many cases acquiring this "object' further enhances their positions in society by creating an image of the cultured man. Her uncommon racial background is seen as an ‘exotic’ trait by many males, and even some females. This unfortunately furthers her objectification by others; for example, when Axel Olsen, a famous painter, proposes to Helga in Denmark. He says that with Helga as his wife, he may become “great” or “immortal.” He also adds: “I didn’t want to love you, but I had to,” (Larsen 88) when persuading Helga to accept his offer. By saying that he only wants to marry Helga because he “had to” in order to improve his

“Racitatif” by Toni Morrison and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, both tackle the subject of race on a microscopic level in the hopes of magnifying the social injustices that tore the united states apart. “Everyday use,” Tackles the subject of race, from the vantage point of a single family and the generations that lay between the mother and daughter. Morrison, in a unique manner, tells the story of two girls, Twyla and Roberta, and their ability to communicate with each other during such racially motivated times; all the while, leaving the reader in the dark about the race of the two girls.

By doing so, she feels a sense of betraying her white heritage and her mother. Physically, she succeeds in passing as black, but she realizes that “it wasn’t merely a matter of color. It was something broader, deeper, that made folk kin” ( Larsen, P.55). Her mental inability to get connected with her people drives her to a place where there are no “Negroes, no problems, no prejudice” ( Larsen, P.55). The recognition with the self offers the first step to one’s subjectivity.

Racial identity is an important concept that everyone must deal with in their life. It is an individual’s sense of having their identity be defined by belonging to a race and or ethnic group. How strong the identity is depending on how much the individual has processed and internalized the sociological, political, and other factors within the group. In some instances, people do not identify with their race and they will “pass” as another. Nella Larsen, an African American writer and prominent member of the Harlem Renaissance movement, she explores the consequences of “passing”. Larsen’s Passing is a novel that challenges the concept of ethnicity, race and gender while revolutionizing the idea of what we describe as identity. The novel explores the issue of race through vivid plotting that depicts a mentally touching story of affecting boundaries in the early American society. The novel also explores the effects of racial construction on a person through multiple levels. Through Larsen’s characterization and setting she is able to bring out the social construction of race in an enjoyable and educated format in which race, class distinction and identity themes are intertwined. Larsen herself often struggles with identity, as she grew up being raised by an all-white household after her father, a black West Indian, disappeared from her life. Larsen depicts the theme of racial identity by using two women characters, both of which are attractive, and are “light” enough to be able

In Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, a biracial woman by the name of Helga Crane faces a number of trials and tribulations that challenge her social and cultural identity. Throughout the novel, Helga is challenged with socially, culturally, and sexually misplaced while living among social elites and the bourgeois, which ironically leads her to a place of isolation. Her dissatisfaction with her life, onset by her sense of displacement, causes her to take flight in many situations she faces. Despite the fact that all three challenges prove to be a combined force in Helga’s downfall, it is reasonable to conclude that her social displacement provides the most detrimental impact to the success of her character in the novel.

Nella Larsen’s Passing explores the dynamics of privilege within a purely African American context. Instead of focusing on the privilege of White Americans, which is obvious and self-evident, Nella Larsen focuses on the privilege of a certain social class of African Americans: the upper class Harlem socialites. This is done through Irene, who embodies this form of privilege. In fact, Irene’s obsession with security is only possible through her privilege. She also rejects passing in superficial terms without considering why anyone in a less privileged position then her would utilize this strategy in a racist America. Her disapproval of Clare is rooted in Irene’s fear of Clare disrupting the status quo. Passing is able to form a complicated

Discussions of loving blackness in hooks’ class stems from her reading of Nelia Larson’s novel Passing. hooks wants to discuss Clare’s love of blackness and the consequence of her love for her race. She writes, “I asked the class to consider the possibility that to love blackness is dangerous in a white supremacist culture-so threatening, so serious a breach in the fabric of the social order, that death is the punishment” (9). Death in society can be literal, but it can also take other forms, such as isolation and self-segregation. hooks’ students’ stark refusal to discuss loving blackness is a testament to these impediments and how they have been fixed in the minds of citizens white and black.

In Passing, Clare Kendry ‘passes’ for a white woman to marry a white man and, in masking her identity, loses touch with her African-American roots. Irene describes Clare as “selfish, and cold, and hard. And yet she had, too, a strange capacity of transforming warmth and passion, verging sometimes almost on theatrical heroics” (Larsen 10). Clare is charming, attractive and there’s something uncanny about her stare. She is no angel, but she does carry herself differently than the other women of her race. She has a mask of confidence and security in being married to a white man, but she is less secure than anyone else because she must keep her identity a secret. She is an African-American woman whose life began with her being controlled by a domineering alcoholic father, like Sara’s conservative father. He loomed over her like Woolf’s “Beadle”, and now she is stuck in a marriage with a racist man who believes her to be white.

Racism, prejudice and stereotyping, as the main themes of the movie, control all the sub-stories that are somehow linked to each other. Moreover, as the stories go on and events develop, it becomes possible to see how characters start to have changes in their perspective and attitude towards each other, either in a good or a bad way. An incident which can demonstrate our thesis on racism and stereotyping and how it might change in just one moment which brings people closer could be shown as the conflict between the racist police officer and the African American woman who gets harassed by him, and whose life is saved by him on the next day. The first encounter of the woman and the officer resulted with the woman

In Charles Chesnutt’s novel, The House Behind the Cedars, there are divides between individuals in the black community based off of skin tone. It reflects on the experience of John Warwick and his sister Rena Walden as they attempt to pass as white. Rena leaves home to come with John Warwick back to his home in South Carolina where he works as a white lawyer and Rena takes on the role of a white woman. But they face the reality that their attempt at passing comes with limited success.