Nella Larsen And Passing Sparknotes

McKenzie Banks Rebecca Yacker English 2 Honors March 1st 2024 Passing and Quicksand: Nella Larsen and the Biracial Identity Race Is a difficult yet easy thing. Someone is born with a label placed onto them based on the background of their parents, however, what if a person is born without a label, without an identity that can properly be expressed, Nella Larsen's novels Quicksand and Passing demonstrate that experience. Larsen was a biracial writer whose stories have left readers conversing on the themes of race and selfhood, leading academic conversations to this day. Larsen used motifs of the mixed race identity within the novels Passing and Quicksand using the characters Clare, Irene, and Helga to make a statement on Colorism, Antiblackness,

In America, many mixed people experience an identity crisis as well as self-hatred due to a lack of exposure to the ethnic backgrounds they’re mixed with. The character of Helga Crane from Quicksand is a conflicting one, she’s a mixed-race woman who holds a grudge against most black people yet puts white people on a pedestal due to events in her childhood. Helga exudes that hatred, not only to herself but to others who have nothing to do with her, Larsen says “Helga Crane was not amused. Instead, she was filled with a fierce hatred for the cavorting Negroes on the stage. She felt shamed, betrayed, as if these pale pink and white people among whom she lived had suddenly been invited to look upon something in her which she had hidden away” (Larsen 112). In other words, Larsen is saying that Helga’s desperate hatred of blackness is all a flimsy attempt to assimilate into white society and seeing the

Another key point is that half of America’s mixed population doesn’t associate with the white side of their identity at all, accepting all of the ethnic parts of their other parent. Larsen wrote Irene to not only be a foil to the idea of a white-passing mixed person, but to show a perspective of a mixed person who’s affirmed in their blackness. Irene Redfield is a mixed woman who could easily pass for white but chooses not to, living in a black neighborhood, marrying a dark-skinned man, and not having an instinct to protect her children from the horrors of race. Irene has no interest in becoming a bridge to black culture for her former childhood friend, Clare Kendry. A mixed woman who’s been passing for a long time, Larsen explicitly states “Well, Clare can just count me out. I’ve no intention of being the link between her and her poorer, darker brethren” (Larsen 216). In making this comment, Larsen urges us to reflect on how mixed individuals with self-degrading ideals could be using people who are affirmed in their ethnic identity and one who rejects their nonwhite culture, who should have no right to run