Nella Larsen Passing Analysis

Clare Kendry in Larsen’s Passing, is a very complex character. She is an African American woman, who is “passing” as a white Caucasian. It all started when her Dad died when she was little, and was taken to her white aunts. Her aunts treated her like she was the help, so this made her want to be wealthy when she is older. Irene is her childhood friend, who saw Clare go through her tough times. They grew apart for a while, but met up in Chicago a couple of years ago. Clare has made herself an outsider through her actions. She is an outsider because she tries to pass as a Caucasian, uses her friends for her own benefit, and secretly wants to get back to her cultural roots.

     In Nella Larsen’s Passing, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry show us a great deal about race and sexuality in the 1920s. Both are extremely light-skinned women of African-American descent. However similar they appear to be, their views on race, a very controversial issue at the time, differ significantly. Clare chooses to use her physical appearance as an advantage in America’s racist and sexist society, leaving behind everything that connects her to her African-American identity. She presents herself as an object of sexual desire, flaunting herself to gain attention. Irene is practically the opposite, deciding that she wants to remain with the label of being black. She is subtle with her

These derogatory terms were used against Tayo and Night Swan as they differed from the Laguna people. Tayo and Night Swan are rejected by the white and Native populations, and it is determined they are tainted or dirty compared to those ridiculing others. Night Swan says, “they think that if their children have the same color of skin, the same color of eyes, that nothing is changing,” which is why Auntie excludes Tayo from the family because of Tayo’s mother’s mistake to interact with white men (Silko 92). We see a change in this perspective in today’s society as we have interracial families, where race plays little to no part in determining a couple’s love for one another. However, we do still have families which believe their children should marry within the same race due to the fear of change within their own family.

Throughout the second part of Passing by Nella Larsen, the reasons for each of the women passing seem to be revealed. Also, these chapters awaken many questions like “Why didn’t Clare stand up for herself?”, “Why didn’t Clare come clean?”, and “If Clare wants to rejoin the community, would she leave John?”. These questions start to arise in the beginning of part two, when John mentions that “They always come back. I’ve seen it happen time and time again.” (pg. 55). This contributes to the idea that Clare might feel regret for passing permanently for so long, and leaves the reader wondering why she didn’t come clean if she wants to rejoin the black community.

Irene, from Nella Larsen’s Passing, displays a vengeful characteristic through her growing relationship with Clare. Irene is vengeful, but continues to be very loyal. Irene threw Clare out of a window, and exposed her secret to her husband out of revenge. Clare kept a secret of being African American from her husband who was a white man in the Harlem Renaissance era. Irene knew if Clare’s husband knew she was black he would leave her and Clare’s life would fall apart, so that is what she did. Irene shows jealousy when she believes that Clare and her husband are having an affair and throws her out of a window. Irene shows her jealousy soon after her husband and Clare begin to form a relationship. This relationship drives Irene to extreme vengeance by

Throughout the book Passing by Nella Larsen, we see an unusual relationship developing between Clare and Irene, which differs from relationships between men and men, and men and women. The two are evidently envious and catty towards each other, but what is not plainly visible about this jealous, malicious relationship, is that it generates an erotic attraction between the women. These two women are attracted to each other not by love, but by hatred, a type of relationship that completely deviates from the standard. When Brian, Irene’s husband, grows aware of this attraction and its origins, it draws him away from Irene, right into Clare’s hands, not because of Irene’s reason that he wants to learn of “the other” perspective, but because he’s

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.

Race and sexual ideology are interconnecting all throughout both of these novels. Being a black woman meant that you had obligations. For example, Nella Larsen, in her novel ripped off the bandage of what it was like to be a black woman who could pass as a white woman. She took pride in being who she was even if it hurt to know that she couldn't express her true feelings. Who could really understand what she was going through because her husband was set in his own ways being a successful black man, but it was her friend Claire that made her realize that it is more to live for than being in hiding with her true feelings trapped inside. Clare passed just as much as Irene did, but was living a lie that eventually got her killed. Irene stood by her notion that, “Everything can't be explained by some general biological phrase” (Larsen, 30). Meaning that the color of skin was only one part of herself that defined her but there was more to her it seems that no one exactly wanted to seek to find out. Clare’s husband claims that he doesn't know that his wife is actually black and this traps Clare in a life of uncertainty. She adores the world of privilege that she gets to partake in instead of being treated unfairly as the other black women are being treated during this era. This is the true examination of how black women were described as

In the novel Quicksand by Nella Larsen the main character Helga struggles to find her racial identity. She is unhappy with who she is no matter where she goes and the story shows the different treatment and conflict that she experiences in daily life. It follows this women as she tries to find herself in life moving from place to place. Helga questions her value in everything she does, work, relationships with men and those in her family. As a bi-racial women one struggles to find happiness and a sense of belonging regardless of where they live.

Strangers in their desire and ambitions. Strangers even in their racial consciousness. Between them, the barrier was just high, just as broad, and just as firm as if Clare did not run that strain of black blood” (62-63). Clare has been alienated from her past and her true

Woolf mentions Carmichael work saying "she has every right to attempt new forms and styles, as long as she is creating something new rather than merely destroying what has gone before.” Larsen displays new styles and created ideas that were brought to light. For example, the relationship between Clare and Irene was more so a psychological struggle between females. These women both were in this psycho dual process in which there are two processing systems operating by different rules. There is one view universally known (stereotypes) then the view that isn’t shared by others.

Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford is a book and a village populated with women. There are women of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds. What there is not, in Cranford, is men. As Gaskell puts it, “If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears” (Gaskell, 5). Even though this is a female-dominated society however, one man plays a prominent role introducing us to this world. Captain Brown is introduced in chapter one and dies in chapter two. In this short period of time, Gaskell uses Captain Brown as a magnifying glass to the women of Cranford to shine a light on how they deal with gender roles, class differences, nostalgia and hard financial circumstances. This essay will focus on how it is necessary for

As Rebecca reflects on a camping trip her family took as a child, she comments on the gender roles her family executes: “It might have been a holiday, but the strict gender zoning laws of life still applied. My father naturally, was in charge of the technical side… while my mother’s area of operational command was, or course, the kitchen.” The lack of range within her parent’s matrimonial

The question of identity might seem blurry since Clare and Irene are defined by non-traditional standards. Nonetheless, the key point is uniqueness, these characters cannot be oversimplified or stereotyped according to their complexion or sexuality since they have a duality in “race,” for they can pass as white women. The author … mentions, “Through the character of Clare, her body, and her actions, Passing deals with the binaries of race (black/white), gender (woman/man), sexuality (heterosexual/ homosexual), (13) and class (working-class/middle-class)” (Larsen 35). In the case of Clare, the reader can observe how Clare can camouflage in different scenarios whether with her sexuality, with her “race,” or maintaining a conversation with lower class individuals. Irene’s duality is subtle, she passes as a white woman, so she can enter to places like the Drayton without being perturbed, and her sexuality is a mystery.

This novel was composed amid a period of incredible change in ladies' rights in Great Britain. Ladies were starting to increase a portion of an indistinguishable rights from men, yet from various perspectives were still peons. The female characters, from both the East and the West, are ceaselessly underestimated by their male partners. In spite of this sexual orientation based underestimation, they discover approaches to apply their energy through the control of their parts as spouses, fiancees, moms, and special ladies, highlighting yet another case of how Forster presents customary parallel connections and after that upsets the desires of his perusers by bewildering these