Passing Nella Larsen

“And that little straightening motion of the shoulders. … Clare Kendry! So that was it! Impossible. It couldn’t be” (Larsen 91). The first mention of Clare and Brian’s affair is brought up during a dinner at Irene’s house, where Brian invites...

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...