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The Mulatto Figure In Passing Analysis

880 Words4 Pages

From Tragic to Heroic – The Mulatto Figure in Passing Narrative The trope of having a mulatto figure whom audiences love to hate prevails in passing narratives. The figure is often destined to have a tragic ending; the fate suggests that transgressing the racial boundary entails risks and dire consequences. The existence of a fixed racial boundary calls to mind the essentialist definition of race; anyone who fails to conform to the racial system is bound to be punished. Sarah Jane in Douglas Sirk's The Imitation of Life (1959) and Clare in Nella Larsen's novel Passing (1929) adhere to the generic features of the mulatto figure of the genre while leaving the debate open-ended. Is passing ethical? Are the two mulatto protagonists – Clare and Sarah Jane – villains or victims? The two texts leave judgments to the audience and readers. The ambiguity of the issue is achieved through narration and the …show more content…

And Sarah Jane defends herself against her mother's terrorism, against the terrorism of the world' (245). The two girls fight an uphill battle as their opponent happens to be 'the terrorism of the world'. Fassbinder’s statement alludes to the structures of dominance. His interpretation of the mother-daughter relationship aligns with the concept of 'Ideological State Apparatuses' put forward by Louis Althusser. These apparatuses, which comprise institutions like church, family, school, media, and religion, serve to perpetuate and uphold values propagated by the State. This reminds one of what bell hooks reiterates in her book Black Looks: Race and Representation (1992) that 'white supremacist capitalist patriachy', which uphold essentialist ideas concerning race like 'cultural insiderism' which stresses 'an absolute sense of ethnic difference' (Hall 2558), creates representations of the black body to preserve their

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