{"id":15296,"date":"2011-08-02T00:03:30","date_gmt":"2011-08-02T00:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=15296"},"modified":"2011-08-02T00:03:30","modified_gmt":"2011-08-02T00:03:30","slug":"life-on-the-boundary-passing-and-the-limits-of-self-definition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=15296","title":{"rendered":"Life on the boundary: “Passing” and the limits of self-definition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Life on the boundary: “Passing” and the limits of self-definition<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rutgers University, Camden
\nMay 2011
\n46 pages<\/p>\n

Raven Marlenia Moses<\/strong><\/p>\n

A thesis submitted to the Graduate School-Camden Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Graduate Program in English<\/em><\/p>\n

With the advent of various state laws that classified as black any individual with at least \u201cone-drop<\/a>\u201d of African blood and the legalization of racial segregation enacted by the Plessy vs. Ferguson<\/a><\/em> Supreme Court decision, the American post-Reconstruction era<\/a> was a period in which the line separating races became more and more distinct. However, as the legal definitions and hierarchical categorizations of racial difference became more discrete, the physical basis of racial distinction became increasingly destabilized.<\/strong> Nella Larsen\u2019s<\/a> Passing<\/a><\/em> and James Weldon Johnson\u2019s<\/a> The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man<\/a><\/em> are novels from this period that depict the struggles of characters who suffer because of the social and legal distinction between \u201cblack\u201d and \u201cwhite.\u201d Because of the social imperative that these characters be black even though they have visibly white skin, the distinction between \u201cblack\u201d and \u201cwhite\u201d actually becomes an arbitrary distinction between \u201cwhite\u201d and \u201cnot-white.\u201d The protagonists of both novels\u2014Clare Kendry, Irene Redfield, and the unnamed Ex-Colored Man\u2014all seek stable self-definitions that successfully integrate both their personal and social identities. However, because of their inability to resolve the paradox created by their visible \u201cwhiteness\u201d and legal classification as \u201cblack,\u201d none of the protagonists are able to successfully negotiate the threats posed by their racially and socioeconomically oppressive environment while keeping their personal identities continuously intact. Unable to form stable, coherent identities through the blending of mutually agreeable public and private \u201cselves,\u201d Clare, Irene, and the Ex-Colored Man remain in irresolvable positions with identities that are permanently indeterminate.<\/p>\n

Read the entire dissertation here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Life on the boundary: “Passing” and the limits of self-definition Rutgers University, Camden May 2011 46 pages Raven Marlenia Moses A thesis submitted to the Graduate School-Camden Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Graduate Program in English With the advent of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[838,1196,8,6462,20],"tags":[1307,87,7079,7077,7078,2536],"class_list":["post-15296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dissertations","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-james-weldon-johnson","tag-nella-larsen","tag-raven-m-moses","tag-raven-marlenia-moses","tag-raven-moses","tag-rutgers-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}