Nella Larsen's "Passing"

Nella Larsen's Passing is a complex response to and critique of the patterns of racial and class segregation that characterized the US in the 1920s. However, the critique has resonance for the modern period because, despite the demise of legalized segregation (sanctioned by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896) with the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, racial and gender roles for men and women can still be said to be socially constructed and enforced at many levels. Feminist critiques of unequal power relations can be seen as a protest against socially constructed injustice that is the very content of social experience of marginalized groups, chiefly though not exclusively women.

Black feminist criticism adds the element of race to the discourse of social marginalization, in the process adding a layer of complexity to the analysis of social structures and power relationships in society, especially as they affect the experience of black women. As one black feminist critic puts it: "sex, race, and class interact to oppress Black women" (Smith 1413). More than this, they interact in subtle ways, perhaps too subtle for some critics to recognize, particularly when the text under scrutiny is written by a black woman and takes as its subject the experiences of black women. Smith continues:

There is not a developed body of Black feminist political theory whose assumptions could be used in the study of Black women's art. When Black women's books are dealt with at al

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with Irene sparks the merest suspicion about his wife shows how socially frail Clare's personal power is. But her total immersion in her social role and the personal benefits that she incurs from it demonstrate appreciation of the social costs associated with the role of black person. Clare absorbed the lessons of her father and the dreaded white Christian aunts in a way that enabled her to suppress her black identity and embark on a strategy, not just to survive but to thrive as well: "So on the day that I was eighteen, we went off and were married. So that's that. Nothing could have been easier" (Larsen 27). But it is misleading to suggest that Clare's decision did not cost her. She is clear-headed about the fact that the white aunts probably assumed she ran away to be a prostitute. On the other hand, Irene notices Clare's eyes, "bright with tears that didn't fall" (27), indicative of Clare's deliberate suppression of her deepest emotions. That does not mean Clare is incapable of emotional expression. But the habit of concealment defines her daily experience. More generally, Clare makes a project of reaffiliating with Irene because of her longing to be among people who are like her, or perhaps because the accretion of racist e

Category: Literature - N