Nella Larsen began writing during a time when women, especially black women, did not have a place in society. Her novels consisted of stories re-iterating the lives of the oppressed during the Harlem Renaissance. In her story Passing, Larsen...

Though written almost fifty years apart, and by two authors from completely different backgrounds, Nella Larsen's novel Quicksand and Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House (also known by the title A Doll House) address similar issues concerning the...

The entertainment of a Harlem cabaret hypnotizes Helga Crane, the protagonist of Nella Larsen's Quicksand. She loses herself in the "sudden streaming rhythm" and delights in the sexually suggestive moves of the dancers. Helga is "blown out, ripped...

Throughout much of Nella Larsen’s Passing, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry are portrayed as polar opposites. Though they both occupy the role of a young African-American mother living during the prosperous 1920s, they define that role in intensely...

Problematizing the comfortably depicted notions of race is essential in the struggle for, not only racial equality but rather, the complete erasure of the racial binary. This entails an adoption of strategies stereotypically adhered to by a...

Both Clare, from Passing, by Nella Larson, and Esperanza, the protagonist of The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, seek to find a figurative ‘home’ in society, a place where they are accepted by those around them and free to express...

In her novel Passing, published in 1929, Nella Larsen delves into the identity struggle experienced by some African Americans who possess the same outward appearance as Whites. Clare Kendry, a protagonist in the novel, permanently crosses the...

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and Passing by Nella Larsen both feature black females as their main characters. Hurston’s novel follows a woman named Janie through her life, while Larsen’s follows Clare, a black woman who...

Desmond Tutu once said, “A person is a person through other persons…. I am because other people are.” In essence, what Tutu is saying is that without other people to influence and affect an individual, a person is not really anyone. It is the...

Works of the Harlem Renaissance frequently explored themes relating to identity, culture, and heritage. Artists attempted to reconcile their identities with the limited amount of knowledge they had about their cultural identities as Africana...

During the 18th and 19th century, Nella Larsen, Edith Wharton, and Truman Capote published renowned literary works that gained vast praise and recognition for them all. Each work explored unique themes such as isolation, racism, love, and the...

Nella Larsen’s renowned novel Passing was written shortly after a period of significant breakthroughs in psychological research and in how we view human behavior. Sigmund Freud was the man who introduced these novel and revolutionary ideas,...

Passing by Nella Larsen tells the story of Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, two light-skinned women with contrasting lives during the Harlem Renaissance. As a Harlem resident, Irene Redfield prides herself on her dedication to African American...

Nella Larsen’s novella Passing tells a compelling story about two mixed-race women, Irene and Clare, from drastically different outcomes who shape contrasting perspectives on the notion of “passing” as one race over another, as Irene is content...

Widely celebrated as a cornerstone text of the Harlem Renaissance, Nella Larsen’s 1929 novella Passing is concerned with its titular subject in more ways than one. While racial passing undoubtedly constitutes the text’s thematic center, Larsen’s...

In W.E.B. Du Bois’ manuscript The Souls of Black Folk, he explores the social construction of race and the view of racial identity among black folks by presenting the philosophy of double consciousness. The concept which refers to the sense of...