Passing

Larsen, Nella. "Passing." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 460-85. Print.

After reading this piece of Passing and having read most of Quicksand, I gather that Nella Larsen is a very unhappy and angst-filled person. Not to mention she hates pretty much everything and everyone. The two books are so similar I’m not sure I understand the point of her writing both of them, rather than just writing one but switching viewpoints. Passing tells the story from the point of view of a black woman who hates her half-black friend that poses (passes) as white. Quicksand tells the story from the half-black woman’s point of view and how everything and everyone is unfair (although most of her troubles are due to her own selfishness and stupidity). From this section of Passing, I think I enjoyed it slightly more than Quicksand. Although the perspective is from Irene, and Irene is annoying and cares way too much about everyone else’s business, there is still more of a racial point being made than in Quicksand, where Helga screws up her life because she’s bored and then blames it on being half black.

Irene is so incredibly unlikeable because she is determined to thwart her friend’s double life by exposing her as half-black to her white racist husband. Her reasoning at first is something that Larsen can’t articulate very well (but spends quite a few boring, repetitive pages stumbling around trying). The reason she can’t articulate her reasoning behind her hatred of Clare is because she doesn’t want to admit that she can’t just mind her own business. It upsets her that Clare lives a double life – white with her husband but black when her husband is away. Although it in no way affects Irene’s life, she decides that she hates Clare. About halfway through the section, she comes up with this theory that Clare is having an affair with her (Irene’s) husband Brian. As far as I can tell, though, she has no reason for thinking so other than it is a convenient reason to hate the other woman.

The racial point I was speaking of is that Irene wouldn’t have been alone in Harlem as a black person despising other black people or half-black people that want to live “white” lives. Because they’re too proud to live and let live (or they’re bored and want something to hate and complain about), they find it necessary to rally around each other and make life for those trying to live differently Hell. It’s such a ridiculous hypocrisy, which is why I’m being so sarcastic and am so irritated with this reading. The black people of Harlem want to live in their own black society without interference from white culture, and that is fine. They can do what they want. The hypocrisy is that they can’t just shut up and let other blacks live “white” lives when they want to. It’s the same with most Republicans of today: they find it to be their responsibility to stick their nose up other peoples’ business. My guess is it’s because their own lives are pathetic and unfulfilling, and instead of making it better for themselves they have to make it miserable for others similar to them. It’s childish, and certainly doesn’t do anything in the way of racial or social equality.