ipl-logo

Summary Of Passing By Nella Larsen

924 Words4 Pages

Nella Larsen impacted the writing world with her fresh and unique approach on themes

such as gender and sexuality. Having written Quicksand and Passing Larsen was awarded the

Charmon Foundation Bronze Medal for literature as well as being named the first African‐

American women to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship Award, Larsen was celebrated as one of

the bright intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. At a very young age Larson’s West Indie

father Peter Walker walked out of her life and soon after her mother remarried a white man

named Peter Larsen that was thought to be the same person possibly trying to “pass” as white

like her characters. Larsen’s novel Passing is about two light skinned African‐American women

that are trying …show more content…

Being light skinned and mixed blood her aunts always managed a

way to make her know she was a Negro. Her aunts forbade her to talk about her colored

skinned friends forcing her to suppress her feelings and desires to be with her own kind. At a

very young age Clare started to figure out that she wasn’t bad looking and she could possibly

pass. When Clare finally passes and marries John Bellew the father of her child a wealthy racist

white man she easily gains all her wealth and material needs from him, so she wonders why

Leon 2

other women like her don’t try and pass like her in order to get all their material needs and

riches. Irene Redfield on the other hand married a respectable middle‐class African‐American

physician named Brian and has two kids. Irene has already achieved her social status in the

African‐American society and she wants to be respected and never be talked about, unlike Clare

who is the topic of negative gossip in the Negro social groups because she has been seen …show more content…

But what no one knows is that Irene does occasionally pass.

Throughout the novel we compare and contrast the two women and how they change

in their black and white societies. Irene being the women that she is really doesn’t do well with

change and from the beginning of the story we know that Irene is very judgemental. Being

allowed to the top of the Drayton she laughs at the world as she “passes” through it and looks

down at the people below, “thinking how silly they looked” (9). Irene envied Clare’s mysterious

upper class life that secured happiness, while Clare envied Irenes black life because when she

was in harlem her life felt complete. She was close to having the life that Irene has. Irene isn’t

happy with her marriage her husband wants to leave “this damned country” (35) and go to

multiracial Brazil where he can settle, but to Irene Brazil is wild and she wouldn’t be able to

control Brian. Irene and Brian slept in different bedrooms practically saying that their marriage

had to be sexless , despite Irene thinking that Clare and Brian were sleeping together she still

held him to his role of husband just to keep that appearance of a solid relationship. So

Show More
Related
347 Words | 2 Pages

The novel Passing of Nella Larsen held the historical and legal implications which can be seen through the judicial case of Homer Plessy who had one-eighth black and seven- eighths white. Plessy was forcibly jailed for sitting in the whites- only section on the railroad car in Louisiana. In 1896, at the Supreme Court, he argued that his black ancestry was insignificant and he was a white person by all definitions. The Supreme Court said that forcing Plessy to exclude from the whites section was against the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments about equal protection. However, Judge John Howard Ferguson affirmed that treating all people equally did not paralleled with eliminating social distinction based on colors.

Read More
137 Words | 1 Pages

During the story Warriors don't cry, Melba's life is inverted. Throughout the story , her tone changes as she goes through the ups and downs of Central High ; she uses imagery to show the cruelty the school and the challenges which was thrown upon her. By using certain words she brings her experience to life so the reader can understand what happened there, while she faces segregationists and their cruelty her voice changes in the story showing what this journey is doing to her. Before Central she felt less than she was less than a white person even though the only difference was their skin color, she believes this is true that white people are better then people of color until she visited family out of the south finding that it wasn't

Read More
353 Words | 2 Pages

The story of Passing by Nella Larsen greatly conveys the essence of the meaning of passing while giving us an stomach twisting exciting mystery at the conclusion of the novel. Larsen extends her understanding of passing to more than its apparent racial considerations. In her extended coverage of the phenomenon of passing, her focus stays on those who do not live authentically. On those who are so frantic to change their lives that they end up risking it. The story that was recently discussed in the earlier paragraph is parallel to the situation that Nella Larson described in her book.

Read More
314 Words | 2 Pages

This passage from DuBois is relevant to Nella Larsen’s Passing in many ways. Irene experienced the same double consciousness as DuBois describes, yet she experienced it differently for she could “pass” as a different race. As a women of color “passing” she was well aware of what white people looked for to define a person’s race, “White people were so stupid about such things….. finger-nails, palms of hands, shapes of ears, teeth…” (16) She talked about being mistaken for other races such as Italian or Mexican, I wonder what kind of treatment people of those races got from white, 1920’s

Read More
1102 Words | 5 Pages

In McBride’s The Color of Water, James McBride the narrator tells a story of his own past and his mother, Ruth McBride’s past. Throughout the book James was conflicted with his racial identity due to being half African-American and half Jewish and the environment and society in the 1960s. On the other hand, James’s mother Ruth was also conflicted in finding her own racial identity, family and religion.

Read More
575 Words | 3 Pages

1920’s society offered a prominent way for blacks that look white to exploit its barrier and pass in society. Visible within Nella Larsen’s Passing, access to the regular world exists only for those who fit the criteria of white skin and white husband. Through internal conflict and characterization, the novella reveals deception slowly devours the deceitful. In Passing, Clare and Irene both deceive people. They both engage in deceit by having the ability to pass when they are not of the proper race to do so.

Read More
1095 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
410 Words | 2 Pages

In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, home to Janie is a place that has both positive and negative associations- the pear tree. Janie constantly goes to the pear tree for comfort; it is her place of happiness, peace and her love life. At the same time, Janie has the pear tree embedded in her mind. She constantly compares her partners to the pear tree and what their love should be like; so when the thought of an unwelcoming incident pops up in her head, he is tarnishing her pear tree. At sixteen, Janie’s grandmother caught her kissing Johnny Taylor; Janie spends most of her day under the pear tree in her backyard with her mind-boggling questions on virginity, love and marriage.

Read More
1282 Words | 6 Pages

Irene's marriage with Brian Redfield is empty and unfulfilling. Brian resents Irene because she was the reason why he could not be where he wanted to be, which has led to discomfort and arguments throughout their marriage. Brian very much wanted to be in Brazil, but Irene insisted upon him

Read More
409 Words | 2 Pages

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.”

Read More
1551 Words | 7 Pages

Passing, a novel by Nella Larsen, addresses the issue of race by telling the story of two African American women - Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield - who represent different aspects of passing1. In the novel, passing refers to the process of crossing the color line, where a light skinned person who belongs to the black racial community enjoys white privilege2. However, people who pass struggle with double consciousness as they long to honor their race without necessarily being associated with it3. The novel is highly invested in ambiguity to show the fluidity and complexity of race, and how it paves the way for passing4. Passing illustrates the struggle African Americans face with their unchosen race and their attempt to control their identity

Read More
1465 Words | 6 Pages

Her image of a prim and proper Southern gentlewoman clashes with the down-to-earth, easy-going lifestyle of the lower middle class. Her incongruity as a refined Southern gentlewoman in an industrial, lower-middle class New Orleans neighbourhood marks her status as an outsider and contributes to her final

Read More
644 Words | 3 Pages

Compare and contrast essay Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity! In this world racism is rising rapidly. In the “FOBs vs Twinkies” they make fun of the Asian culture by not calling them “Chinks”or “Japs” like we thought they would but rather calling them FOBs (fresh off the boat). They get made fun of if they wear Abercrombie and fitch clothing because it is branded as white, this is where they get called Twinkies yellow on the outside, white on the inside.

Read More
1919 Words | 8 Pages

Nella Larsen’s Passing is a novella about the past experiences of African American women ‘passing’ as whites for equal opportunities. Larsen presents the day to day issues African American women face during their ‘passing’ journey through her characters of Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry. During the reading process, we progressively realize ‘passing’ in Harlem, New York during the 1920’s becomes difficult for both of these women physically and mentally as different kinds of challenges approach ahead. Although Larsen decides the novella to be told in a third person narrative, different thoughts and messages of Irene and Clare communicate broken ideas for the reader, causing the interpretation of the novella to vary from different perspectives.

Read More
1194 Words | 5 Pages

The discrimination against the white race begins with a gradual distinct treatment of the African Americans who appear to have a trace of the white race. Helene proves to have a more formal dialect as she asks for “the bathroom” (23) and the black woman cannot understand until Helene finally refers to it as “the toilet” (23). The difference in word choice distinct Helene from the African Americans in the Bottom. The fact that Helene also has fairer skin than the African Americans gives the black woman a reason to believe Helene has a trace of white. Therefore, when Helene approaches the black woman on the train, “[the woman fastens her eyes]…on the thick velvet, the fair skin, [and] the high tone voice” (23), as if surprised and shocked to see an African American women appear in such a manner.

Read More

More about Summary Of Passing By Nella Larsen

Related Topics

Open Document