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What Is The Theme Of Passing By Nella Larsen

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Passing, by Nella Larsen, explores the complexities of race and how it influences relationships between people. The novel illustrates how race is not a fixed and immutable characteristic, but rather a fluid and ever-evolving construct shaped by one's experiences and surroundings. Larsen’s deft analysis is exemplified by the discussion of Claude Jones. While Jones is not a central character seen in the plot, the small embedded narrative around his life is used to provide the reader with a template showing that race is not static but rather something one assimilates into over the course of a person’s life. This is the lens through which the reader can better understand Claire and her attempts at residing in two cultures passing from black to …show more content…

Before Claude became a Jew, he had a mustache. It never looked quite right and “the girls used to laugh at [it] so” (41). Clare says that it “looked like a thin streak of soot” but in such a way that implies Claude himself was the soot. In fact, Clare had to clarify that she was talking about the mustache after saying that. Claude attempted to fit into the black race, but it was surface level and everyone could tell. Just as the mustache seemed odd, Claude also had an odd fit in the African American community. The “thin streak” of a mustache is a metaphor of Claude's barely noticeable standing in the black community (41). Claude eventually found the people that he connected with when he became a Jew. He grew a full face of hair which fits in with Jewish culture and shows that he connects with them. Notably, Claude grew a beard “as well as a mustache” (41). In explicitly mentioning that Claude maintained his mustache, it suggests that he wants to hold on to a part of his past identity and gives reasoning to his self title of “black Jew” (41). However, African American people saw through his self proclaimed image and refused to accept him as black. While race is fluid, the choices we make have consequences. These choices can be liberating, as it was for Claude. But it can also be isolating, a lesson that would define the tension between Clare and the black community she attempted to reconnect

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Confession Of a Nice Negro, or Why I Shaved My Head In Robin Kelly’s article titled confession Of a Nice Negro or why l shaved my head is about a black man whose family had gone ahead to a movie theater and was trying to catch up with them. This man in a rush to the movie theater was mistaken by the cashier for a robber, because of the way he looked. He had a Yankee baseball cup and a scarf over his nose and mouth, which he might have forgotten that a black man’s appearance is essential in public because of the way they are perceived mostly criminals, therefore when they step out in public they should behave or look appropriate. In Kelly’s article he referred to himself as a nice Negro meaning funny and black with a lighter skin complexion.

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Throughout the novel, “With a Sword in my Hand” (WASIMH), there was an ongoing theme of Marguerite struggling to fulfil the roles expected of her as the future Countess of Flanders. The author, Jean-Claude van Rijckegham highlights the struggle of how Marguerite acts, looks and the ever-continuing conflict between her and her father. In the Medieval Flemish era, it was critical for women higher in the hierarchy to look beautiful and elegant. For Marguerite to develop as a woman, she had to pluck her hairline and her eyebrows because that was considered as real beauty.

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In Passing by Nella Larson, two biracial women pass as white while one embraces her black identity the other denies her black identity. Race, identity, and belonging is determined by the culture the family choses to identity with. Clare has no other choice but to accept her white culture on the surface but she desires to be reconnected back to her black culture. Clare decision to accept her white culture was for the privileges that came from passing. Biracial children have a difficult time finding a sense of self and where they belong.

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The caricatures in the painting, in the eyes of the audience, are amusing. The actions, exaggerated features, and clothing choices of the Black subjects makes them caricatures. These caricatures are strategically curated by Colescott to entertain the audience but also to advance his hidden agenda. While it may appear that the audience is laughing at the Black subjects themselves, Colescott fools the audience by actually making fun of those who created and supported negative stereotypes and tropes about Black people. Through this technique, Colescott tricks and pushes the audience into a state of awareness.

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“Colonialism” connects to his racial and ethnic history. And how his freckles take over his face, the first thing that people see when they see him, it affects him emotionally. It could express the social way he interacts with people, the way he is seen by others, and his identity. This is also expressed in “double-helix” and how his freckles are part of his genetics therefore rooted in his past. And because he looks in the mirror every day he has to be reminded of all of the things that have been resentful in his life, from his violent history to biased passersby.

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In James Weldon Johnson’s novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, it is told from the first person point of view of the anonymous narrator. The narrator with an African American mother and a white American father, has to overcome many racial obstacles because he does not know which race side he wants to choose. He goes back and forth between the races all while going from the South and moving North, and witnessing events that persuade him in his choice. Johnson’s dialect throughout the novel establishes the main theme and the central conflict of racial identity, as well as art and culture, racism, and coming of age.

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In The Book of Negroes the author Lawrence Hill gave the reader some hope of the survival and freedom of the main character by giving her many natural skills such as knowing many languages and being a fast learner. Meanwhile Jerzy, the author of The Painted Bird tried to show the horrible truth and reality of being a Jew in the 1930s as seen by the quote “Wouldn't it be easier to change people's eyes and hair than to build big furnaces and then catch Jews and Gypsies to burn them?” (Jerzy, 105). He showed how tragic it is and how most people in that time believed Jews were evil and had to be killed. The young boy in The Painted Bird was also always lonely and had no friends because he couldn’t trust anybody, unlike Aminata from The Book of Negroes who had made many contacts.

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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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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

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“A small boy clutching a Negro woman’s hand walked toward us. He looked all Negro to me: he was rich chocolate with flaring nostrils and beautiful teeth. Sometimes he would skip happily, and the Negro woman tugged his hand to make him stop” (163). This emphasizes the boy's innocence and humanity, being naive. It highlights the existing racial differences and prejudices.

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Look at my hair, it is brown; and my eyes are gray, Armand, you know they are gray. And my skin is fair,”seizing his wrist. “Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand,” she laughed hysterically.” When Desiree proves to Armand that she is white, it is easily recognized that he can not stand being defeated. When Armand reacted saying, “As white as La Blanche’s,” he returned cruelly; and went away leaving her alone with their child.”

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The society’s standard of race and skin color impacted the two men’s lives. Brent Staples the author of “Just Walk On By”, narrated about his endurance of society’s unfairness. Richard Rodriguez unfolds his experienced in his article “Complexion” a lengthy battle of self-value. The resemblance of racial struggle that both men strive hard to be accepted in each of their environment. As a result, these intolerable racial profiling and skin color degradation, is emotionally and mentally damaging to any individual’s especially to the men of color.

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Armand was supposedly having an affair with La Blanche, one of the family’s slaves. This is form of racism because having an affair is unacceptable in the first place, but if anyone knew that Armand was having an affair with a black woman, it would have been the end. Armand wanted to keep everything under wrap and under his complete control. Whether this is a form of misleading the reader to think this or not, Chopin hinted that there was some cracks in the marriage of Armand and Desiree. Irony and foreshadowing and maybe even examples of misleading the reader are used to show how racist Armand can be and the way this racism causes him to act in general and towards

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Morrison presents African Americans as conforming to the principles of society and utilizes Helene’s behavior towards Nel to exemplify it. Helene constantly reminds Nel to “pull her nose” so she could “grow up” with a “[nicer] nose” (55) and uses a “hot comb” (55) each week to have “smooth hair” (55). The act of altering Nel’s appearance displays Helene’s belief of Nel’s physicality to not be up to par with society’s standards, therefore discriminating against her African American heritage. The characteristics that Helene chooses to change make Nel unique to her African American heritage; therefore, by altering Nel’s image to that more of the white race, Morrison exemplifies the way discrimination influences African Americans to assimilate into the racist American society. Illustrated by the self-degradation of African Americans, Morrison displays the submissiveness and stupidity of racism.

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The story represents the culmination of Wright’s passionate desire to observe and reflect upon the racist world around him. Racism is so insidious that it prevents Richard from interacting normally, even with the whites who do treat him with a semblance of respect or with fellow blacks. For Richard, the true problem of racism is not simply that it exists, but that its roots in American culture are so deep it is doubtful whether these roots can be destroyed without destroying the culture itself. “It might have been that my tardiness in learning to sense white people as "white" people came from the fact that many of my relatives were "white"-looking people. My grandmother, who was white as any "white" person, had never looked "white" to me” (Wright 23).

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