Passing; Larger Themes and Concepts
For my second paper I chose to create an annotated web version of Nella Larsen’s novella, Passing, with inserted links to my interpretations of the text on a larger and more in depth scale than discussed in class, supported by essays from Passing and the Fictions of Identity by Elaine K. Ginsberg.
I mainly chose this form for my paper due to my experiences in a previous English 302 class where we, as a class, compiled informative notes on Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s court and created a Wiki. I found this method of interpretation to be not only practical and easily accessible, but also a creative outlet for the creator(s) and more technologically relevant to today’s students.
I chose the novella Passing, out of the other works we discussed in class, because of its seemingly time-specific nature to the 1920s. The concept intrigued me: as a middle class, Caucasian woman the thought of passing, in my, or anyone else’s, life, had never crossed my mind.
However, as I prepared for the assignment through re-reading the novella, I noted that it was implicit that “passing” was manifested on more plains than that of race. This theory was expanded for me in reading through multiple essays collected and edited by Ginsberg in Passing and the Fictions of Identity.
It then became clear to me that a wiki informative merely in the aspect of cultural slang and definitions of specific 1920s caricatures or ideas would not do Larsen’s novella justice, so I left those easily googled definitions to my classmates and focused instead on a more literary analysis of the text; going deeper into the concepts presented than our time allowed for in class this semester.
I instead focused my attention on expanding on the instances of passing presented by Larsen in the lives of Irene and Brian Redfield, and Clare Kendry.
It appears on first reading of the novella that Clare is the only subject for whom “passing” is reality, but on a second glance and deeper interpretation it is seen that Irene is also guilty of passing herself off to be something she is not, usually emotionally. This is the primary concern of my notes surrounding Irene.
Another theme I focused on concerning Irene is her naivety and ignorance towards her relationships with both Brian and Clare, and what constitutes race. She is quick to draw the line of race along color, and the only time we see her break from this is in her conversation with Mr. Wentworth at the first party she attends with Clare. I focused on the other points where she does reduce race to simply skin color in order to bring a heavier contrast to this conversation with Wentworth.
With Brian, the idea that he is passing is seen in the context of how he functions in his life, his marriage, his profession. He appears to be contented and happy until we see flashes of his anger and disillusionment in his arguments with Irene. Also, he passes in the sense that he confesses to possess absolutely no fascination with Clare, whereas his actions definitely contradict this.
Concerning Clare, she is the most obvious in the sense of passing, as she passes racially as a white woman. Clare also passes as a superficial character, mysterious and one-dimensional, when actually she contributes much more to the novel, as she is who challenges Irene’s, as well as all she encounters through Irene, view of exactly what race constitutes. She is the catapult launching the major questions the novel poses: what is race? What does it mean to pass? Are we, as a people, identified and confined by our skin color, our heritage, our social status, or something else?
I also included several explanations to the 1920s specific cultural references made by the characters in the novel, using the notes found in the back of the book. I realize that a reader can look these up on their own, but that requires possession of the novella, and I wanted to give those reading the text online the same information they would find in the hard copy.
My goal with this wiki was to present what I thought to be the most thematically crucial excerpt of text from the novel and then to investigate those themes; seeking them out and highlighting them with relevant information from my own analysis and that of others, allowing the text to take on a greater meaning to the reader. The concept of passing in American culture, while very important, is often an undercurrent. Larsen’s novella brought the impact of this trend to my attention, and with my wiki I attempted to bring the concept of passing and Larsen’s novella of the same name to the attention of others.
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