“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...
“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...