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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

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