“Passing” by Nella Larsen: An Analysis by Willow V. Hello! This is an assignment that I did for my Harlem Renaissance American Literature class. This essay is my own original work. In Nella Larsen’s “Passing” a Black woman named Irene Redfield, who is usually seen as “an Italian, a Spaniard, a Mexican, or a gipsy. Never, when she was alone, had they even remotely seemed to suspect that she was a Negro” (Larsen), finds out that her childhood friend, Clare Kendry, has been passing as White after seeing her in Chicago for the first time in 12 years. There are 3 sections of the novella; Encounter, Re-Encounter, and Finale. The first section, Encounter, includes the event in Chicago mentioned above, along with Irene being invited to visit Clare at her hotel in Chicago where Clare Kendry and her extremely racist husband, John Bellew. Mr. Bellew has absolutely no idea that Clare isn’t actually White, and calls her “Nig” because “When we wer...
This post is an essay that I wrote for my junior year of high school/freshman year of college English class. It’s a personal literacy essay where I discuss my experience with books. I hope you like it. Throughout my entire life, including now, people always recognize me by my hair. Curly, brown, and perpetually frizzy hair. My trademark. Although hair is important to who I am, I think books will forever be the biggest part of me. According to my mother, I started reading when I was 3, I can’t corroborate that since I don’t remember being 3. In fact, I don’t remember much of my childhood. But I remember the books I read. There were 3 extremely important books that have shaped my entire life, or at least my life until now, but I can almost guarantee that they will always be important to me. These books represent different types of reading, or different reasons you might read. The first type is ...