Nella Larsen's Passing Essay

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.

It is strange that two of the most prominent artists of the Harlem Renaissance could ever disagree as much as or be as different as Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright. Despite the fact that they are the same color and lived during the same time period, they do not have much else in common. On the one hand is Hurston, a female writer who indulges in black art and culture and creates subtle messages throughout her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. On the other hand is Wright, who is a male writer who demonstrates that whites do not like black people, nor will they ever except for when they are in the condition “…America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears.” Hurston was also a less political writer than

Zora Neale Hurston, known as one of the most symbolic African American women during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930’s. Hurston was known as a non fiction writer, anthropologist and folklorist. Hurston’s literature has served as a big eye opener during the Harlem Renaissance, celebrating black dialect and their traditions. Most of her published stories “depict relationships among black residents in her native southern Florida, was largely unconcerned with racial injustices” (Bomarito 89). Hurston was unique when it came to her racial point of views, promoting white racism instead of black racism. Even though her works had been forgotten by the time of her death, now her literature has left a bigger impact to future literature

In Nella Larsen’s Passing: A Problem of Interpretation, Claudia Tate argues that race “is not the novels foremost concern, but is merely a mechanism for setting the story in motion” (344). Tate’s decision to focus on the “psychological ambiguity” (343) of the novel forbids her to elaborate on the relation between race and social class. As a result, I disagree with certain statements from Tate’s argument due to the lack of acknowledging the issue regarding race and social class. Tate initially claims that Irene’s understanding of race becomes a concern “when the impending exposure of Clare’s racial identity threatens to hasten the disruption of Irene’s domestic security” (Tate 344). However, Irene’s fear of being spotted as a

When Irene finally realizes that this woman is Clare, someone who chooses to “pass” and hide all traces of her black heritage, Irene’s opinion of her changes. She no longer wants to be involved with Clare in any way, and “had no desire or intention of making the slightest effort about Tuesday. Nor any other day for that matter. She was through with Clare Kendry.” (p. 31) Irene is appalled that someone can so easily throw away her background just for the sake of gaining privilege over another race. When Clare asks her if she had ever thought of passing, Irene replies, “No. Why should I? You see, Clare, I’ve everything I want.” (p. 28) She is happy with what she has, not even having to give up anything to get there. Or at least that’s what she convinces herself to believe. Irene is again hypocritical in her beliefs. Even when she opposes Clare’s view of passing, she is still very interested in the idea. “The truth was, she was curious. There were things she wanted to ask Clare Kendry. She wished to find out about this hazardous business of ‘passing’…” (p. 24) She even admitted that she held for her “a fascination, strange and compelling.” (p. 28) Irene doesn’t seem to be able to decide if she accepts passing as reasonable. She forces herself to disagree with passing, allowing her to hate Clare for doing it. This shows us that sexuality and race are two matters that conflict with each other, at least in Irene’s opinion. She uses race to

The the Novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, by Zora Neale Hurston, departure and reflection the idea of the harlem Renaissance using black community uniting, new beginnings- the great migration from south to north, embracing black/african culture and heritage, and lastly she uses self expression through art to bring forth the more important ideas.

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.

By developing unsteady characters, Larsen communicates how simple it is to escape one’s appreciation of themself. Clare breaks the tragic mulatto stereotype, but never has the chance to identify to a particular race. While she passes as white, Clare still seeks comfort from her friend Irene who is from the African American community. In Irene’s mind, Clare has become a mysterious double of herself due to their contrasting lives they lead. Irene is obsessive and envious of Clare. She destroys her own self by psychologically ruining herself, thinking that Clare is having an affair with her husband, Brian. While openly discussing racial passing, the book also secretly analyzes gender passing. Irene’s connection with Clare is based on desire, jealousy, and obsession. Both Clare and Irene fail to try to

While reading literature, we manage to forget that they have true roots to what is being written and what they actually represent. When looking at the similarities of how literature is represented it obvious to see that there are certain socially constructed groups presented. Although these socially constructed groups do vary throughout literature, they still tend to be very similar. In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” Lorraine Hansberry play “A Raisin in the Sun,” and Langston Hughes’s poems “Harlem” and “Theme for English B” they evaluate the social construction of African Americans. What makes these authors so alike is the similarities that they share; being that they were all born in the early 1900’s, are all of African American ethnicity, and acknowledge the social construct of African Americans in these works. Looking at each of these works of literature they represent the struggles that African Americans faced when trying to be seen as equal, by allowing these works to be shown in different insights towards the battles faced in their movement towards being seen as equal.

Both Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes were great writers but their attitudes towards their personal experience as an African American differed in many ways. These differences can be attributed to various reasons that range from gender to life experience but even though they had different perceptions regarding the African American experience, they both shared one common goal, racial equality through art. To accurately delve into the minds of the writers’ one must first consider authors background such as their childhood experience, education, as well their early adulthood to truly understand how it affected their writing in terms the similarities and

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.

The narrative of Irene’s thoughts at this time about this stranger stress the anxiety she has about being discovered as a black woman and builds the tension leading to the uncanny moment. The uncanny moment occurs when “Suddenly her small fright increased. Her neighbor had risen and was coming towards her. What was going to happen now? Looking up at her, Irene’s suspicions and fears vanished”(Larsen 8). This moment follows Freud’s definition of uncanny because of it being a moment when Clare appears to be both familiar and unfamiliar to Irene. Clare is familiar in the sense that they were childhood friends, though also unfamiliar because Irene does not know who she is as an adult or her current lifestyle. This moment can also be defined as “the uncanny is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar”(Freud 1). In this case from a psychoanalytical perspective it suggests that Irene and Clare have a complicated history in which Larsen leaves it open for interpretation. Irene describes Clare in the first couple pages as “catlike” and reminisces about the day when Clare’s father passed away, then suddenly she cuts off her train of thought with “And how deliberately she had-”(Larsen 3). Perhaps Clare had done something to Irene in the past, which

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

Irene wants to control her relationship with Clare and seems frustrated as she loses control when Clare is around. One occasion, Irene tries hard not to accept Clare’s invitation to meet her but ends up going. Later, Irene’s anger goes away just by the power of Clare’s smile, "And under her potent smile a part of Irene's annoyance with herself fled”. This constant loose of power makes Irene vulnerable and the possible affair between Clare and Brian gives Irene a motive for hating her instead of admitting her lesbianism and losing the life she has worked so hard to build.

Analyzing works from two different historical eras will allow the reader analyze the lack of self identity and other social issues from two different points in history. The Reconstruction era, a period following the Civil War, was a time where Abraham Lincoln began to reconstruct the South in hopes to bring the Nation together. Lincoln’s plan of Reconstruction demanded that the states constitution prohibit slavery. During the 1930’s thousands of African-Americans moved from the South to New York, in hopes of becoming a part of the American race. The Harlem Renaissance is described as an era of explosion of African American culture that brought over thousands of black musicians, artists and writers. Originally, the area of Harlem was constructed for white workers to commute to the