{"id":23062,"date":"2012-05-13T02:02:26","date_gmt":"2012-05-13T02:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=23062"},"modified":"2012-05-13T02:02:26","modified_gmt":"2012-05-13T02:02:26","slug":"the-beginning-and-end-of-nella-larsens-passing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=23062","title":{"rendered":"The Beginning and End of Nella Larsen&#8217;s Passing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/departments.knox.edu\/engdept\/commonroom\/Volume_Eight\/number_one\/Magin\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\">The Beginning and End of Nella Larsen&#8217;s Passing<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Common Room: The Knox College Online Journal of Literary Criticism<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/departments.knox.edu\/engdept\/commonroom\/Volume_Eight\/number_one\/\" target=\"_blank\">Volume 8, Number 1<\/a> (Spring 2005)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sarah Magin<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nella_Larsen\" target=\"_blank\">Nella Larsen\u2019s<\/a> novel <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=2508\" target=\"_blank\">Passing<\/a><\/em> is centered on the character Clare Kendry, a light-skinned, biracial woman living as a white woman.\u00a0 She has married a white man who knows nothing of her race and enjoys all the social comforts of being white.\u00a0 In this way, this novel breaks down the thematic binary of black and white with its depiction of racial passing.\u00a0 In addition to the reconstructed as fluid binary of black and white, Larsen\u2019s novel simultaneously explores the thematic binary of homosexuality and heterosexuality.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/uvaclubs.virginia.edu\/site\/c.liKTL5PMLtF\/b.6181175\/k.6B40\/Deborah_McDowell_Biography.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Deborah McDowell<\/a> observes of the racial issues of <em>Passing<\/em> that\u00a0 \u201cunderneath the safety of that surface is the more dangerous story\u2013though not named explicitly\u2013of Irene\u2019s awakening sexual desire for Clare\u201d (xxvi). <a href=\"http:\/\/www.corinneblackmer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Corinne Blackmer<\/a> notes that the encounter between Irene and Clare \u201cinstigates a potent desire in her, described in an effusive letter intertwining romantic and racial longings for Irene\u201d (52).\u00a0 Thus, not only does <em>Passing<\/em> make fluid the binary of black and white, but also that of heterosexual and homosexual.\u00a0 Further, the novel also renders fluid the apparently solid barrier of class.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/campus.hws.edu\/academic\/popup.asp?id=57\" target=\"_blank\">Biman Basu<\/a> observes that \u201cClare Kendry\u2019s passing. . . is predicated on a crossing over into otherwise barricaded economic zones\u201d (384).\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=23060\" target=\"_blank\">Neil Sullivan summarizes<\/a>, usefully, that \u201cFor Larsen\u201d\u00a0 \u201c\u2018race\u2019 is inextricable from the collateral issues including class, gender and sexuality, and rivalry-that bear upon the formation of identity\u201d (373).\u00a0 This introduces the concept that these fluid binary oppositions of race, sexuality and class are themselves interlinked under the larger rubric of identity formation&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/departments.knox.edu\/engdept\/commonroom\/Volume_Eight\/number_one\/Magin\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Beginning and End of Nella Larsen&#8217;s Passing The Common Room: The Knox College Online Journal of Literary Criticism Volume 8, Number 1 (Spring 2005) Sarah Magin Nella Larsen\u2019s novel Passing is centered on the character Clare Kendry, a light-skinned, biracial woman living as a white woman.\u00a0 She has married a white man who knows [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,6462],"tags":[87,10719,10718],"class_list":["post-23062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","tag-nella-larsen","tag-sarah-magin","tag-the-common-room-the-knox-college-online-journal-of-literary-criticism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23062","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=23062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}