Passing Nella Larsen Summary

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.

“Passing,” by Nella Larsen is a novel all about pretending to be something that you are not. It is about giving everyone the impression that everything is in order when in reality everything is falling apart. Passing in this novel refers to the ability of a person to be classified as one thing, normally a social group, while belonging to a different group. Passing is usually done to gain class or acceptance by groups other than one’s own. The primary focus of the novel is on racial passing which is the ability to look white and belong to a white group when in reality the person is an African-American in order to gain privileges that were unavailable to them. Although racial passing is the main focus, another major theme in this novel is sexual passing and identity.

According to the Nella Larsen’s novel, Passing is the ability of an African American women who are born with ivory skin to pass or act as white for various reasons such as; security, privileges, impartiality, and so on.

A second instance of a historical institution which demonstrates the harsh treatment of African Americans and with that the cultural reality of segregation and oppression of African Americans in the Jim Crow South was the institution of passing. “Passing”, as it is known is the historical practice of light skinned African Americans, pretending to be white in order to better assimilate into the White American dominated culture of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Incognegro’s main character Zane, personifies this practice of passing as he is employed as an African American Journalist who passes as a White Journalist in order to unearth true and unbiased accounts of the brutal mistreatment of African Americans in the Jim Crow South. According to Zane, “I am Incognegro/I don’t wear a mask like Zorro or a cape like the shadow, but I don a disguise nonetheless/My camouflage is provided by my

Nella Larsen’s Passing challenges the traditional ideology of ethnic, racial, and gender integrity, transforming the concept of an “acceptable”- definition of identity, which both individuals and society can appreciate. By developing exceptionally round characters whom are unstable and volatile, Larsen builds monologues to display how easy it is to lose one’s identity. Clare Kendry, challenges the stereotypes, society has ascribed to her. Leaving her in a limbo for identity white-or-black, however, she never has the chance to align to a particular identity because of her mysterious death, while Irene Redfield, becomes obsessed and envious of Clare, destroying her own sense of self by committing psychological suicide, in terms of assimilation

the novel Passing, Nella Larsen explores the consequences and disadvantages of two African Americans living in a segregated society. The reconnection between Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry illustrates two different paths in regards to how they portray themselves in their own community. Larsen displays Clare Kendry as a light – skinned women who tolerates her husband’s racial comments in order to live in a higher society. Clare’s decision to secretly hide her racial background because of the desire of wanting to be accepted by individuals of an upper social class greatly affects Irene. Clare’s determination of overcoming racial barriers by passing as a white individual is similar to the Rhinelander/Jones case. In 1924 the son of the wealthiest families in New York married the daughter of a taxicab driver. However, Leonard Rhinelander appealed to have is marriage annulled due to “believing his wife to be white when he married her” (135). Rhinelander suspected Alice Jones was hiding her racial background by passing as a white individual. As the trial progressed it was concluded that that Rhinelander had an understanding of her racial background before marriage was an option between the two. The Rhinelander/Jones case demonstrates how Clare Kendry decided to pass as a white individual in order to obtain wealth and social status by marrying a white male. The three criticism texts chosen demonstrates how racial passing between Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry contributes to social status.

Passing by Nella Larson is restricted to defining race, we are limited to one perspective and how her black and white perception of the world as it effected her. This is presented by our main character, Irene Redfield, who is controlling and therefore dissatisfied by most other ideas other than her own. Due to her nature we get an implicit classification of race through her opinions and internal monologue; they supply us with a firm moral standpoint on passing as well as what race means (to Irene). Two scenes from Passing highlight Irenes understanding of race and what it demands of herself and others. The first scene is from Re-Encounter, where we get Irenes take on Clares relationship with race.

Passing is a deception that enables a person to adopt certain roles or identities from which he would be barred by prevailing social standards in the absence of his misleading conduct. It is also the ability to appear to belong to another group. The ability to pass is itself a privilege because it allows an individual to claim the advantages of a more privileged group. In the media, passing becomes easier for certain groups than for others and certain types of passing are particularly celebrated: Privilege is when one group has something that others are denied due to the group they belong to. Some examples of privilege are male privilege, white privilege, and disability status (Adams et al., 2013).

In Passing, Clare and Irene two light-skinned African American woman, try to pass for white in a segregated society. Irene infrequently passes while Clare who is biracial, lives a boastful life by identifying herself as a white woman (so it seems). Irene on the other hand strives to

For centuries many have practiced a deception of identity called 'passing ' not only in America but other nations as well. Passing is a term that many Black/African-Americans have heard at one time or another from an acquaintance or possibly from someone in their own family speaking of a relative that 'passed ' as another race during a time period in America pre-civil rights era, for personal gain, whether it was for acceptance in their communities, ease of living or financial equality.

Characters, in Heidi Durrow’s The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, force the protagonist, Rachel, to choose between her white and black side. They only acknowledge her black side while only celebrating her white qualities. Consequently, Rachel feels the obligation to accept the roles that have been thrust upon her and ignores part of her race because of the commentary from her family and peers. Rachel adapting to the portrayal of her racial identity to appeal to the normalized opinions of her appearance, demonstrates her tendency to comply with the categorization people of color face throughout society. Ultimately, leading Rachel to pick and choose the parts of her racial identity that most please the people she is with.

According to the Introduction of Passing Penguin Edition the term passing can be defined as “the movement of a person who is legally or socially designated black into a white racial category or white social identity” (viii). In the novel Passing by Nella Larsen, readers can see passing not only as a racial activity but also as one related to sexuality. The main character Irene Redfield is passing as straight woman that ends up killing Clare Kendry, the woman she seems to be in love with. On the surface, Irene’s motivation to kill Clare is the possible affair between Clare and Bryan but in fact it is more than that. Irene’s unconscious knows that the only way to keep her lesbianism repressed is by maintaining a

Many are unaware of the effects that race has played in their lives over the years. Some may not understand its implications, but are very oblivious to it. Race can influence such things like attitude and behavior. Nowadays being white or black means something more than just a Crayola color. No longer are they just colors, they are races with their own rules and regulations. People of color have been inferior to the white race for centuries. In their own way Zora Neale Hurston shows this concept in her story “How it feels to be Colored Me” as does Richard Wright in his autobiographical sketch “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”.

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.

Dahl expresses in the first part of the story that there is tranquility while Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come home from work. Mary tries to converse and is encountered with short ,blunt answers that comes off as tension, we can suspect this when her husband is drinking his whiskey and there's dead silence in the room. Ice cubes are clanking against the glass which symbolizes coldness and isolation. “She wasn’t really watching him, but she knew what he had done because she heard the ice cubes falling back against the bottom of the empty glass when he lowered his arm.” “ He paused a moment, leaning forward in the chair, then he got up and went slowly over to fetch himself another.”