...experiences, everyone is not the same shade. Many people of color were affected by this both dark- and light-skinned especially during Nella Larsen's era. While the light-skinned black people were dominating the black establishments, the dark-skinned black people were feeling rejection from their own kind. Passing addresses this issue through the character of Clare Kendry who was also an atrractive light skin fine haired women who manages to escape poverty by passing for being a white women. She marries a wealthy white man who also believes that she is white as well. Her journey across the color line is completely sucessful until she reunites with her old friend Irene. Irene Redfield is married to an attractive and sucessful black physician who Clare finds herself attracted to and he to her, so Clare decides to pursue him. Irene was aware of Clare's threat to her marriage and arranges for Clare's disappearence. Clare falls to her death from an open window just before her husband is about to confront her with his discovery of her black roots. Passing can be related more to Nella Larsen's actual life; she was also a light-skinned women who dominated the black intellectual etablishments and because of her color could have and may have at some points in her life passed for a white woman. I don't think Nella Larsen wanted to cease being black and become white, but she wanted to have equality in part because she was partially white, and in part because she wanted blacks and whites to have equal...
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...However in these times, there were a great deal of African-Americans who desired to “pass” as white to gain the privileges they could not access. In the novel Passing by Nella Larsen, its main protagonist, Irene Redfield, demonstrated a clear disapproval of “passing” in the beginning of the book. As she learns about her friend’s life while passing, her negative opinions on the subject are only affirmed, as her friend and rival’s husband is an extremely racist man that is oblivious to the fact that his wife is a passing woman....
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...You Ken Tan Christopher Hennessy LI 208 U.S. Multicultural Literature 26 Feb 2013 Passing: An Analysis and Close reading Nella Larsen’s Passing is a story about the tragedy of an African American woman, Clare Kendry, who tried to “pass” in the white American community. However, while she passes as white, she constantly seeks comfort from her friend Irene Redfield who is a representation of the African American community. Gradually, Clare has become the double image of Irene, due to the similarities of their ethnicity and the contrasting lives they lead. At the end of the story, Clare’s death is a result of the extreme burden on Irene’s shoulder due to the presence of Clare in her life. The death of Clare is very much Irene’s responsibility based upon her suspicious acts at the end of the story. The ending of Passing, and of the life of Clare Kendry, begins on the sixth floor of an apartment complex at a party in the home of Felise and Dave Freeland. During the party, Irene says that, “It seems dreadfully warm in here. Mind if I open this window?” (Larsen 110) However, when Irene opens the window, “It had stopped snowing some two or three hours back” (Larsen 110). This means that the weather is still rather cold and despite the freezing temperature, Irene still sits beside the window. Another reason why Irene would want to open the window is because she wants to smoke her cigar. She politely uses the warm temperature in the room as her excuse to open the window. Although...
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...There is a sense of identity when people know their roots. The desire and personal inclination gained by knowing the history from which one comes can provide a sense of being grounded and proud, and most importantly it assists them in knowing who they truly are. It is not a surprise when we read novels with exciting and exhilarating characters that their complex situations lead to confused and unstable lifestyles. Exploring the life of Helga Crane in Nella Larson’s Quicksand and Clare Kendry in Larson’s Passing illustrates the issues the two protagonists face when the tone of their skin became a matter of focus and the results their decisions create. Both novels most likely are Nella Larson’s personal quest in a life of searching for acceptance. As an African American novelist during the Harlem Renaissance, Nella Larsen completed these two novels along with a few short stories. It is apparent that her stories dramatize situations Larsen faced during her actual lifetime. Her father, Peter Walker, was a West Indian man who died when Larsen was a young girl. Her mother, Marie Hanson Walker went on to marry a white man, Peter Larsen, which eventually began some internal racial issues for Nella. Nella struggled finding that sense of comfort and acceptance from her family and peers. Being raised in a lower- middle class white household, she felt like a black child that did not belong. Her newfound white family did not accept her and her black relatives also failed to accept her as...
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...behavior, one must often look to the past to explain the present. The role given to someone in their family complex as a child can make or break them, and this is visible in the case of Clare Kendry of “Passing, as her past experiences greatly influenced her future. Her double in the novel, Irene Redfield, has multiple qualities that lead her to make the decisions she chooses. In Nella Larsen’s novel, the audience...
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...It is evident today that the black man and woman alike have achieved what seemed an impossible feat; a pipe dream just about one hundred and fifty years ago during the Reconstruction Period. Today for example, the black man can speak on the national television, own his own business, attend a predominantly white school and even publicly voice his displeasure without getting persecuted. To sum it up, the kind of beastly racism that involved lynching, public vitriol, and aggression against blacks has drastically changed into a more covert one. The opening remarks in Brent Campney’s article in the magazine, Western Historical Quarterly, hint at the task that the black community still had in their quest for dignity even after the civil war. In the introductory remarks of the article, the author laments, “In the aftermath of the war, however, white Kansas made a mockery of the Union’s optimism. Unleashing a campaign of violence aimed at enforcing their supremacy over blacks in the young state’’ (Campney 172). We find that the black community was faced with an uphill task in their quest for equality to their white counterparts even after the civil war. Kansas making a mockery of thee Union means that as per the wish of the Union that blacks would be free and appreciated after they helped the Union crush the Confederacy, the white community in Kansas turned against them with racially instigated violence aimed at them. The Union had thus made an assumption when they...
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