Nella Larsen 's The Harlem Renaissance

Passing is delivered mainly from the perspective of an african american woman named Irene Redfield. Although Irene is the main protagonist of the novel, her narration of the story gives a subjective point of view, thus, making her an unreliable narrator. Irene has manifested to intensify her jealousy and anger with Claire over time as Clare has been caught up with a rumor of an affair between Irene’s husband, Brian, hence giving a one point perspective of the story.

The main plot of “Passing” focuses on two light-skinned black women, Irene Redfield and her old time friend Clare Kendry. Both women can “pass” as white women. Irene who is married to a successful African-American doctor, passes only when it is

Passing tells a story about Clare Kendry, a light skinned mulato woman who lived with her white aunts and passed as white. Clare then married a to a rich white man named Jack Bellew and never told him about her African ancestry. This story is told from Irene Redfield’s first point of view. Irene Redfield was a long friend of Clare who also was a light skinned mulatto. In contrast of Clare, Irene lived as a proud African American woman who married to a successful black man named Brian and lived on Harlem.

Imagine some “Big Time” singer asking you if you wanted some cold hard quick cash. What would you say? Mark Purvis said yes to some quick cash. This book, Harlem Summer, is written by Walter Dean Myers. This book is about Mark Purvis’ journey of trying to pay back Dutch Schultz, who is a big time gangster who likes to kill people when he has a chance. . Mark goes from a little sax player to being caught up in illegally selling alcohol, to almost being shot! Mark Purvis is living in the time period of the Harlem Renaissance where the New Negro is a new concept; throughout the book Mark says he wants to be a New Negro, but the changes his mind often.

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

Zora Neale Hurston, who wrote Their eyes were watching god, was an American famous folklorist, anthropologist and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a social, cultural and artistic explosion and movement that kindled a new black cultural identity in Harlem, New York, during the 1920s. In 1926, Alain Locke declared that “Negro life is seizing its first chances for group expression and self-determination.” Harlem became the midpoint of a “spiritual coming of age” in which Lock’s “New Negro” altered social disillusionment to racial pride. According to the Project Muse (2015), The Harlem Renaissance also included the visual arts and cultural expressions across the urban areas in the Midwest and Northeast sides of the United States, and it was considered to be a reborn of African-American arts.

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement in the 1920s that led to the evolution of African-American culture, expression through art, music, and literary works, and the establishment of African roots in America. Zora Neale Hurston contributed to the Harlem Renaissance with her original and enticing stories. However, Hurston’s works are notorious (specifically How it Feels to Be Colored Me and Their Eyes Were Watching God) because they illustrate the author’s view of black women and demonstrate the differences between their views and from earlier literary works.

During the 1920s and early 1930s nearly half a million African Americans migrated to the northern cities, in a movement called the Great Migration. Many of the southern African Americans migrated to a city called Harlem in New York. They relocated due to dogmatism and intolerance of melanin diverging out the of pores of many white southerners. The African Americans who migrated found new opportunities both economic and artistic that resulted to the creation of a stable middle class Black –Americans (Dover, 2006). This was the Harlem Renaissance a cultural, social, and artistic explosion. The core of Harlem expressed by Alain Locke is that through art, “negro life is seizing its first chances for group expression and self-determination.” (The New Negro 1925) Harlem became the center of a literary movement and a “spiritual coming of age” in which Locke’s “New Negro” transformed “social disillusionment to race pride.” The Harlem Renaissance facilitated the rebirth of African American literature, identity, and the birth of black pride. The great works “Passing”, “Miss Cynthie”, and “The City of Refuge” depict this new Negro movement in different classes of Harlem that took place during this great cultural and artistic awakening.

These great numbers of blacks along with economic aggressive black businessmen is how Harlem's newly developed real estate was seized from the white middle-class and was converted into the biggest and most elegant black community in the Western world (Huggins p.14). With this acquisition, Harlem had become a great concentration of blacks from all over the country within the most urbane of American cities (New York) just feeling its youthful strength and posturing in self-conscious sophistication. The growth and flourishing of Harlem came at just the right time for black Americans to rekindle dreams of innocence and a new start in America . An essay written by one of Harlem's most prominent leaders Alaine Locke stated that "without pretense to their political significance, Harlem had the same role to play for the New Negro as Dublin has had for the New Ireland or Prague for the New Czechoslovakia."(Knopf p.115). This idea spread like wildfire causing Harlem to be viewed by many as the "black metropolis or mecca".

McBride's mother, Ruth McBride Jordan, was born in Poland to a white Polish Orthodox Jewish family. The family immigrates to the United States when Ruth is very young. Ruth's father was a rabbi, who was very abusive to his family and forced the family to move to the south, where he opens a grocery store in an area that was predominantly racially black. Ruth was a child when schools implemented racial segregation and there was pervasive discrimination against blacks and Jews. When McBride’s mother Ruth is narrating, she describes her difficult life with her birth family and how everyone left her. Ruth describes how her older brother, Sam, left her family and went north because of their father’s abuse. Ruth’s brother eventually joins the military,

The Harlem Renaissance represents the rebirth and flowering of African-American culture. Although the Harlem Renaissance was concentrated in the Harlem district of New York City, its legacy reverberated throughout the United States and even abroad, to regions with large numbers of former slaves or blacks needing to construct ethnic identities amid a dominant white culture. The primary means of cultural expression during the Harlem Renaissance were literature and poetry, although visual art, drama, and music also played a role in the development of the new, urban African-American identity. Urbanization and population migration prompted large numbers of blacks to move away from the Jim Crow south, where slavery had only transformed into institutionalized racism and political disenfranchisement. The urban enclave of Harlem enabled blacks from different parts of the south to coalescence, share experiences, and most importantly, share ideas, visions, and dreams. Therefore, the Harlem Renaissance had a huge impact in framing African-American politics, social life, and public institutions.

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

Scholars have theorised that Passing as a novel is not majorly about race and race is just used as a literary device to move the plot along. They have identified a homoerotic subtext between Irene and Clare, centred on the erotic undertones in Irene's descriptions of Clare and appreciation of her beauty. The language that Larsen uses to describe Clare when Irene comes downstairs to find her waiting suggests a suppressed attraction especially noted when Irene acknowledges a shared appreciation with her husband. The concept of ‘passing’ under another identity takes place on numerous levels within the novel and not just in the aspect of race. Irene and Brian’s marriage is one of convenience as they sleep in separate bedrooms and just co-parent.

Passing is a transcendental novel that its focus is not encompassed only in a unique group of people, but embraces and approaches a cross section of diverse categories involving sexuality, gender, “race,” and class distinction. All the non-accepted characteristics by society converge in Irene and Clare Kendry who are the main characters in Passing. Irene and Clare are Black light-skinned women who show an implicit sexual tension in their comments to each other. Furthermore, they address their lives in different directions. Clare decides to pass as a White woman and marry a White wealthy racist man who provides her a class and social stability, while Irene marries a Black doctor, and live a façade of a happy marriage; although Clare

In Nella Larsen’s Passing, both of the primary main characters are upper middle class women, who can pass as white. However, when it comes to embracing racial identity, the protagonist Irene Redfield chooses not to pass as white, unlike her acquaintance Clare Kendry. Kendry decides to pass as white in order to mix in with white society. As a result, Clare has more privilege than Irene due to her successful attempt at passing, but dismisses her heritage as a result. Her attempt to distance herself from her African-American heritage causes one of the main conflicts between Irene and Clare.