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An Analysis Of Nella Larsen's Passing

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A wise poet once said “If you never leave the nest you will never find your wings”. If you're able to pass and you never leave home you won't be able to reach your full potential. Through the actions and beliefs of characters like Gertrude and Clare from Nella Larsen's Passing and Jack from Langston Hughes short story Passing, the advantages and disadvantages of racial passing within the 1920’s and 1930’s are explored. Passing was very popular during slavery times. Jackin the story “Passing” by Langston Hughes reason for passing was “ Make use of my light skin and good hair. It got me this job. Ma, where I still get $65 a week in spite of depression”( pg 1 Passing, Langston Hughes). Jack passed to get money because he had the features …show more content…

Characters clear and Gertrude in the Larsen's passing pass for many reasons. Clare thought passing was good because “you’d be surprised Rene how much easier that is with white people than with us “ (Passing Nella Larsen). Clare likes passing because she feels that whites accept thing easier than black do. But, would they accept her if they knew she was black? However, Clare dislikes passing because “ I want to see Negroes, to be with them again, to talk with them, to hear them laugh.” ( pg 25 Passing Nella Larsen).Clare still wants to be with blacks however, she did not say she wanted to be black. Clare still talks to blacks like Irene and Gertrude and their still Negroes even though their black. Irene's reasons for passing is “went in through the Draytons doors..”( pg 2 Nella Larsen). The Drayton was a restaurant for whites her being passing she went in and took the advantages of being able to be in the Drayton. Irene however, thought passing was disadvantage “security was the most important and desired thing in life”(pg 37 Passing Nella Larsen). Irene could never have security with being black or white. However, she has more security than being black. During this time the Jim Crow Laws were established. The Jim Crow Laws connect to Passing because the prohibited black and whites form using the same Facilities. For example in Passing by Nella Larsen blacks were not allowed to go into places

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Both Clare and Irene are black: Clare looks the part while Irene looks like she’s a mix of white ethnicities rather than black. Irene’s ability to pass is the way she looks like other races and uses this to allow her to get to the top

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I will be taking a postmodern approach to the text and supplementing it with modernism and psychoanalytic theories before stating my final stance that postmodernism may be the most appropriate approach. This approach ensures that different perspectives are present in my analysis and ensures that it is not one-sided. The question that I hope to focus my argument on is “Does the postmodernist approach better emerge the idea of self from racism?” Rottenberg, Catherine. " Passing : Race, Identification, and Desire. " Criticism, vol. 45, no. 4, 2004, pp. 435-452.

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It didn’t matter what the whites did to them to try to keep them down, they would still work just as hard as the white man to be socially equal. In this journal entry, I’ve talked about Ralph Ellison, A novelist and scholar, I also wrote about one of the main building blocks of fiction, which is symbol, in the short story “Battle Royal”. This important building block of fiction is what makes this short story so empowering and moving. This story gives us an insight on how hard it was being an African American male in the 1900s.

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Nella Larson’s novel Passing, tells the story of two African American women Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry who embark on a journey to “reconnect” with one another. Although, similar in appearance, these two women were very different in the way they determined race. For women like Irene and Clare who were physically able to “pass” as white women, despite having African American heritage the typical connotation that race was distinguished by the color of one’s skin did not apply to them. As a result, many women like Irene and Clare would cross the racial lines. The character Clare Kendry was the perfect example of “passing.”

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Irene and Clare are both light enough to “pass”, but only Clare chooses to pass everyday. Irene passes in trivial situations like getting a cab, buying movie tickets, or getting a table at a restaurant, but

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Understanding one another through good, and bad, but allowing the other to get hurt causes greater problems. This quotation relates to the novel Passing because it shows the friendship between two childhood friends who rekindle their friendship as grown adults. The novel Passing, written by Nella Larsen talks about two African American woman with different experiences. The relationship between the two African American woman who share two different lifestyles, but similar in different ways. Both characters have many similarities and differences.

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In the beginning, Irene criticizes Clare’s lack of loyalty to her race thus claiming: “No, Clare Kendry cared nothing for the race. She only belonged to it” (Larsen, 52). Irene struggles to comprehend the lack of allegiance Clare has to her race. When John makes a joke about her race, “It was hard to believe that even Clare Kendry would permit this ridiculing of her race by an outsider, though he chanced to be her husband” (Larsen, 39). It is intriguing that Clare does not use her white privilege to defend her race and challenge her husband’s hatred of the race.

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She grew up with her head down and an instilled wariness of white Americans and the power they unjustly held over her. The effects of her upbringing are evident in the things she says (“Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head turned in whichever way is farthest from them.” p.6), as well as in her demeanor: she is meek, submissive to the demands of those with more dominant personalities (take Dee, for example), and tends to draw the attention away from herself. Due to this, she has resigned to what she has come to believe: that she is somehow less than a

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