Summary Of Nella Larsen's Passing

Nella Larsen was born in 1891 in Chicago, the daughter of a white woman from Denmark and a black man from West India (Britannica.com). After her father’s death when she was

In the “Imitation of Life” and in Nella Larsen’s novellas, Quicksand and Passing, the issue of passing is presented and developed. In Passing, regarding Irene, “She wished to find out about this hazardous business of ‘passing,’ this breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one’s chances in another environment, not entirely strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely friendly” (Larsen 157). Both versions of the film and both novellas portray black women who come face to face with the act of passing. In the 1934 version of the “Imitation of Life,” the film deals with passing in terms of a lighter skinned girl named Peola while in the 1959 version, the lighter skinned girl’s name is Sarah Jane. The issue of passing in the film and literature remains relevant in the parallels and experiences found amongst Helga Crane in Quicksand, Irene and Clare in Passing, and Peola and Sarah Jane in the film adaptations. The black female characters struggle with the perks and acceptance allotted through passing in white society and the appreciation and understanding of their racial backgrounds.

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

Throughout the history of the United States, race relations have proven to be a major issue. From slavery in the early years of the nation to Jim Crow laws, African Americans have been continually oppressed in US history. The Harlem Renaissance, provoked by national prosperity in the Roaring 20s, propelled the progress of creative writing within the black community, helping form a new black national identity. This movement gave birth to many ardent civil rights activists, such as Richard Wright, who strongly believed that novels should address the issue of racism in America. Wright’s assertion that Hurston’s novel Their

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,

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

Zora Neale Hurston never experienced the life of slavery but, she struggle with being defined by race. Almost a century after the life of Sojourner Truth, Hurston lived during the era of reconstruction, and the high times of the roaring twenties. Post slavery meant, “How does it feel to live in the land where your grandparents where slaves.” Hurston demonstrates her frustrations in, “How it feels to be colored me.” Like most innocent children, Hurston never experienced prejudice or categorized people based on color until, she moved to the city for school. She just saw herself as Zora. The frustration of moving to the city only

In Passing, Nella Larsen deconstructs the idea of race related to skin color and challenges the dangers of “passing” into the white world as a black person. She tells the story of Irene Redfield, a reserved and methodical woman who coincidentally encounters her childhood friend, the fierce and seductive Clare Bellew. They both pass as white, but while Clare controls the situation to her own advantage, Irene unconsciously uses it to build and guarantee her security. In the essay “Passing: Race, Identification, and Desire,” Catherine Rottenberg explains how the “compelling race identification” creates a desire to assimilate whiteness, – while trying to remain true to blackness - which most likely is the origin of Irene’s fears. Meanwhile, in

On the more realistic side of things we have the author of Passing, Nella Larsen. She desired to write a novel that would teach whites about the society created on the grounds of racism and its

In the book Passing, by Nella Larsen, the main characters, Irene and Clare, are light-skinned African Americans living in 1920s Harlem. Because of their light-skin privilege, they can “pass” for white in certain social situations or permanently. The book points out how flawed American society is because race is just used to degrade people so they feel the need to reject their heritage so they can receive more opportunities. Nella Larsen uses vague narration and ambiguous plot lines in her book, Passing, to reflect the misconceptions of race by American society and destroy all the ideas about categorization.

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

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

The novel, Passing by Nella Larsen, was written and based on Nella Larsen’s own family life where she was treated terribly by her mother, who was white. Shown by Thadious Davis Nella Larsen, the novel Passing by Nella Larsen may be built on the suffering and events that Nella Larsen faced as a child of mixed ancestry in a time when it was not accepted like it is in the present. As Davis stated, Nella Larsen wrote many of her novels with reversed names and “paternal/maternal roles” making Clare supposed to represent Nella Larsen’s father and John Bellew representing Nella Larsen’s mother. This would explain many things about Nella Larsen’s difficult childhood and the roles her parents participated in shaping her childhood years. Such as John, Clare’s wife, representing Nella Larsen’s white mother who was not a caring mother towards Nella Larsen because of her mixed ancestry. Like John, Nella Larsen’s mother was a racist who was in a relationship with a person of non-white ancestry that was passing as white because of their lighter skin and to gain more equality than they had before.

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

People's identity is shaped by their family, culture, and surrounding environment; each aspect of one’s identity has a varying degree of influence and can place a burden on each person. African-American writer Nella Larsen’s autobiographical novel, Quicksand, explores the contemporary construction of African American female identity by examining the intricate relationship between race, class, gender and sexuality and how these representations are stereotyped in Harlem Renaissance literature. She indisputably engages with the overarching themes of the Harlem Renaissance and touches on an even larger issue, the problematic tension between black and white culture. Larsen deconstructs preconceived notions of race and looks deeper into how such