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GENDERED EXPRESSIONS OF THE “PASSING” NARRATIVE: AN

INTERSECTIONAL AFRICAN-AMERICAN AND POST-COLONIAL STUDY

A Thesis Presented to

The Graduate Faculty of The University of Akron

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English Literature

Kayla Hardy-Butler May, 2017

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GENDERED EXPRESSIONS OF THE “PASSING” NARRATIVE: AN

INTERSECTIONAL AFRICAN-AMERICAN AND POST-COLONIAL STUDY

Kayla Hardy-Butler

Thesis

Approved: Accepted: ___________________________ ____________________________ Advisor Interim Department Chair Dr. Philathia Bolton Dr. Sheldon Wrice ___________________________ ___________________________ Faculty Reader Interim Dean of College Dr. Patrick Chura Dr. John Green ___________________________ ___________________________ Faculty Reader Dean of the Graduate School Dr. Joseph Ceccio Dr. Chand Midha

 

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis director, Dr. Philathia Bolton.

She agreed to help me on this long journey upon first meeting me and has stuck with me

ever since on many, many drafts. I am forever grateful for her guidance, suggestions, and

kind words. I would also like to thank my readers, Dr. Patrick Chura and Dr. Joseph

Ceccio who both agreed to help me immediately. Thank you, Dr. Chura, for putting

Larsen’s Passing back on your syllabus in your American Modernism course. Your

guidance and reading of the text helped me form such a strong essay for that course that a

much more narrowed incarnation of that very same essay has become the first chapter of

this thesis. I must also thank everyone for reading this work in such a short amount of

time as well. Finally, I would like to thank the department of English as a whole, with

special consideration to the Administrative Assistant Bonnie Bromley for allowing me to

use so many resources and to the department’s Interim Chair, Dr. Sheldon Wrice, for

being such a great mentor since my time in high school all those years ago.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. INTRODUCTION: ……………………………………………….…….…….….….1

The Colonized-Colonizer Relationship………………………………………2-3

Theoretical Overview and Outline of Chapters…………………………….… 8

II. CHAPTER ONE: FEMALE PASSING NARRATIVES AS EXAMINED WITHIN

NELLA LARSEN’S PASSING………………………………………………………..16

Intersecting Identities: The Unfixed Identity ………………………………….18

The Presence of Feminine “Anxieties”: The Stratification of

Privilege………………………………………………………………………..23

III. CHAPTER TWO: MALE-CENTERED PASSING NARRATIVES AS EXAMINED

WITHIN FAULKNER’S LIGHT IN AUGUST AND HUGHES’

“PASSING”…………………………………………………………………………..32

Hughes’ “Passing”: Crossing the Colorline…………………………………..33

Faulkner’s Light in August: Rewriting the Identity Politics of

Passing………………………………………………………………………..39

IV. CHAPTER THREE CHOPIN’S “DÉSIRÉE’S BABY” AND THE

INTERSECTIONAL NARRATIVE: WHEN FEMALE-CENTERED AND MALE-

CENTERED PASSING NARRATIVES MEET……………………………………..48

Désirée: The Unfixed Feminine Identity……………………………………...50

Armand: Masculinity and the Assumption of Whiteness……………………..54

V. CONCLUSION A PARADIGM OF POWER MADE VISIBLE…………………59

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Introduction

I. Entering the Passing Narrative through Intersectionality and Post-Colonial

Theory

At their core, passing narratives manipulate racial constraints and boundaries.1 In

fact, the very definition of race as part of the passing phenomenon is troubled; it is

largely imposed by dominant systems of power, as is seen most prevalently in the “one

drop rule” imposed during the U.S. slavery and upheld during the Jim Crow era.2 Passing

narratives investigate the complexities and paradoxes of colorism or hierarchies of color

reified within the United States due to this rule.3 Written predominantly within the

Harlem Renaissance, these narratives most often relay the experiences of black or

“Negro” characters who would, in certain contexts, pass themselves off as white if their

skin or other phenotypic features were white enough. Central within these narratives is

often the tragic mulatto character.

                                                                                                               1 Passing can be described as “ [the] phenomenon of African Americans, who approach the ‘white’ racial type in physical appearance, choosing to live and identify themselves, whether temporarily or permanently, as white” (Passing). See: "Passing in the United States." Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition. Ed. Kwame Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates Jr. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Oxford African American Studies Center. 2 The “one drop” rule determined an individual was black based on any possible amount of black ancestry (Rodabaugh). See: Rodabaugh, Karl. "Passing." Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century. Ed. Paul Finkelman New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Oxford African American Studies Center. 3 Colorism is defined as “hierarchies within African American communities based on skin color” (Dale Edwyna Smith). Alice Walker is attributed with first using the term in print in her essay, “If the Present looks like the Past, What Does the Future Look Like?” from her book In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (1983).  

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Angela M. Nelson provides a description of the tragic mulatto. Although this

description is associated with women, the tragic mulatto is not gender-specific. Nelson

states: “The female Tragic Mulatto was usually a beautiful young woman who had been

raised and educated as ‘white.’ She lost her privileged position when spiteful enemies

discovered that she was marked with “black blood” (1). As her definition suggests, the

“tragedy” of the tragic mulatto stems from the idea that the mulatto cannot fully or

comfortably integrate into the white world (or the black world, for that matter), as

opposed to tragedy being about genetic insecurities.

Given the presence of the tragic mulatto within passing narratives, it has become

commonplace to see such representation of characters as negative reinforcements of

racialized archetypes. For example, in his essay “Negro Character as Seen by White

Authors” critic Sterling Brown describes that while the tragic mulatto reveals “just how

flimsy the whole structure is” (196) it is ultimately a trope rooted in “nonsense” (196).

I would like to add, however, that the tragic mulatto paradigm can also be

representative of the rigid nature of racially charged environments that manifest along the

black-white binary. If we are to view these environments through colonized and colonizer

relations, then it becomes apparent that those who “pass”—the colonized—are simply

attempting to adopt ideology enforced by that of whites—the colonizer. What I mean by

this is that by applying a colonial framework to the U.S black experience, we can begin to

see the seemingly invisible ties that exist between the dominant and oppressed cultures.

By understanding this, we can see the desire to pass as not merely being a desire for

whiteness, but as an attempt to gain access to the privileged afforded to whites. Moreso, I

am aware that many African Americans are descendants of slaves and, as such, defy the

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postcolonial model that is generally reserved for those who were native to a country that

was colonized. Despite this variance, I appropriate the colonized-colonizer relationship

to demonstrate the socio-political dynamic that informs the impulse to pass. In sum, my

thesis seeks to use Kimberle Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality to illuminate the

ways in which gender and race informs the racial passing experience. To best understand

this argument, a consideration of race as a social construction, and certain dynamics

associated with racial boundary crossing, proves necessary.

If race is to be considered a social construction and fixed in nature, then racial

ambiguity becomes the root of much racial anxiety within passing narratives. And if

passing is to be examined more thoroughly, the literature in which it is depicted would

most certainly argue race as a state of being that is permeable and that can be “passed”

into and out of. Much of the scholarship on passing narratives has focused on the

subversive nature of passing narratives and the class benefits that can be attained from

passing. Critics such as Gayle Wald suggest that passing is inherently subversive while

others, like Judith Butler, recognize notions of class and seduction as part of the racial

passing phenomenon. Butler states that it is “the changeability itself, the dream of

metamorphosis, where the changeableness signifies a certain freedom, a class mobility

afforded by whiteness that constitutes the power of that seduction” (170).4 For Butler, the

“seduction” of passing narratives, or where Nella Larsen’s Passing is concerned at least,

is derived from the crossing of the color line, the wonder of fully entrenching oneself in

something that is new and foreign.

                                                                                                               4 It should be noted that Butler applied this observation to Larsen’s Passing and that because of this, the notion of seduction can also be read in a sexual context, as Butler argues that there is a specific homosexual overtone within the text as seen in Irene and Clare’s relationship.

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II. Literature Review

While relevant scholarship has certainly interrogated the various complexities of

the way racial boundaries are treated within passing narratives, the scholarship focuses

primarily on passing narratives’ ability to show the tenuous racial definitions commonly

held to be fixed, which differs from an examination of how boundaries are crossed. In her

book Crossing the Line (2000) Gayle Wald defines passing as a conscious method of

subversion: “The interest of narratives of racial passing lies precisely in their ability to

demonstrate the failure of race to impose stable definitions of identity, or to manifest

itself in a reliable, permanent, and/or visible manner” (ix). The “failure” of race, as Wald

would suggest, is its inability to be rigid, a weakness often exposed by individuals who

practice racial passing. More so, as Wald’s aptly chosen title would suggest, black

individuals who pass for white are “crossing the line,” the “color line” to be exact. The

subversion that Wald believes to be essential to passing lies in the act of social climbing.

By enacting “white” identity, black individuals progress upwardly and attain certain

privileges that once eluded them due to “blackness.”

In her book Passing and the Fictions of Identity (1996) Elaine Ginsberg explains

passing as moving “…from a category of subordination and oppression to one of freedom

and privilege, a movement that interrogates and thus threatens the system of racial

categories and hierarchies established by social custom and legitimized by the law” (1-2).

While Ginsberg does not specifically state the function of passing narratives, her

statement does speak to what passing narratives can do; they expose the failures of race,

by exposing the permeable layers that exist between racial classifications. Ginsberg

continues, “Passing is...about the boundaries established between identity categories and

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about the individual and cultural anxieties induced by boundary crossing” (2). The

experience of crossing these boundaries undoubtedly contributes to a sense of “cultural

anxiety” for tragic mulatto figures in passing narratives. This sense of cultural anxiety is

derived from the question: If the individual who passes cannot be fully black nor white,

where then does the individual place themselves within the binary? Thus, the tragic

mulatto is both representative of the problematics of a racially-charged environment and

condemnatory.

While critic Catherine Rottenberg does not disagree that passing narratives, more

specifically Larsen’s use of passing, provide a racially subversive narrative, she contends

that critics have moved away from this reading to a more general view, in which passing

narratives primarily interrogate identity politics, rather than strategies of subversion.

These identity politics involve gender. In her essay, “Passing: Race, Identification, and

Desire” Rottenberg builds upon arguments about passing narratives’ ability to map

identity politics; her reading provides a more nuanced view, one that introduces racial

performativity as an aspect of passing. Rottenberg states, “…the novella can help us

begin mapping out the differences between gender and race norms since it uncovers the

way in which regulatory ideals of race produce a specific modality of performativity”

(435-436). Rottenberg’s analysis provides a way of thinking about passing narratives

with attention to the way gender impacts experiences of passing. What Rottenberg

suggests is that there are certain behaviors and attributes associated with race. In the case

of passing narratives, characters will often behave in ways in which they believe will

either reify or reject their race; these behaviors are nuanced by gender roles, especially

when considering the greater sense of privilege afforded to men over women. And while

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Rottenberg’s approach is a “historically specific examination of performativity” (450), it

does endorse the thought that subjects can “perform differently” (449).

Like Rottenberg, Valerie Smith examines the significance of passing narratives

with attention to both race and gender. Her reading of racial passing, however, diverges

from Rottenberg’s because it uses the concept of intersectionality. Smith locates passing

within “[T]he discourse of intersectionality because although it is generally motivated by

class considerations and constructed in racial terms…its consequences are distributed

differentially on the basis of gender (women in narrative are more likely to be punished

for passing than men)” (43). What Smith, in essence, argues is that this way of viewing

racial passing heightens attention to nuances experienced by people who pass due to

gender, and it also broaches the topic of any privileges afforded to certain people who

pass due to their gender.

While most readings focus on the privilege that characters attain when they pass

for white, this study will attempt to better understand the degree to which that privilege is

awarded based on gender. Is there any real concrete difference? Traditional passing

narratives by black writers of the Harlem Renaissance period provide insight, but so do

certain narratives by white, American authors outside of that timeframe. What is absent,

or at least less prominent within prior studies of passing narratives, is what putting

narratives that deal with racial passing by black and white writers in conversation with

each other might contribute to understanding the genre. I have consciously chosen to

examine works, then, by both black and white authors. Perhaps certain works by white

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authors have been “less visible” in their use of passing.5 Perhaps this is because they

functioned at best as stereotypical representations of passing blacks, or at worst,

cautionary tales for those that dare attempt to cross the color line. Nonetheless, what they

offer is of paramount interest to a study that concerns itself with race, gender, and

performativity as it concerns passing.

Given that the act of passing is largely dependent on race performativity, and that

this performativity has the power to subvert and expose societal power structures built on

colorism, my foremost research question is: In what ways do passing narratives reveal the

way race is viewed within racialized dichotomies set in place by colonial or imperialist

rule? What follows will be a study whose eclectic use of literary thought is just as much a

composite as is the body of work that it seeks to explore. It is my intention that this

intermixing of theory might also be suggestive of ways in which to view characters

whose racial makeup can be understood as resistant to binary classifications.

In considering the problematic nature of race as treated in passing narratives, it is

my intention to explore identity politics prevalent within this genre. I seek to do so

through integrating postcolonial theory and African American literary thought. This

mingling of literary theory is not meant to conflate but to inform. This mix of theory is

applied to the following texts: Kate Chopin’s “Désirée’s Baby” (1893); Nella Larsen’s

Passing (1929); William Faulkner’s Light in August (1932); Langston Hughes’ “Passing”

(1934).6

                                                                                                               5 Passing narratives by white authors include Sinclair Lewis’ novel Kingsblood Royal (1947), Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894), and Edna Ferber’s Show Boat (1926). 6 My decision to include both black and white authors is intentional. For further clarification of this point, refer to page ten of this essay.

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This study examines passing narratives through Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of

intersectionality. Within this use of theory, I examine the different ways in which gender

and race inform the racial passing experience. This study necessitates a discussion of

what motivates the passing experience, so the socio-political context of the environments

in which the characters pass is necessary. To more thoroughly illuminate consciousness

associated with passing, I use the colonized-colonizer relationship described by both

Fanon and Allen along with W.E.B Du Bois’ concept of double consciousness.

Ultimately, this use of theory explains the way in which privilege is stratified by gender

and race and how this stratification provokes racial passing.

III. Theoretical Overview and Outline of Chapters

Although they are not often placed in conversation with each other, post-

colonialism and African American literary theory speak to each other in that they both

seek to expose the instability of racial hierarchies and to deconstruct power structures that

inform the relationship between the colonized and the colonizer. I use the juxtaposition of

African American and post-colonial theories as a sort of theoretical touchstone in which

the disparate natures of both schools of thought are used to expose and decenter racial

power structures embedded within societal systems of colorism. This leads me to call

upon the theory of intersectionality as proposed by Kimberlé Crenshaw within “Mapping

the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.”

While Crenshaw’s discourse is most specifically centered on the black woman’s

experience, it can be extended to interpret the experiences of black men. I will employ

intersectionality, in particular, to examine the effects of emasculation as compounded by

racial discrimination for black men in works chosen for this study. The core of

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Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality is helpful in constructing these gender-based

readings.

In her words, she argues that intersectionality seeks to:

illustrate that many of the experiences Black women face are subsumed

within the traditional boundaries of race or gender discrimination as these

boundaries are currently understood, and that the intersection of racism

and sexism factors into Black women's lives in ways that can captured

wholly by looking at the race or gender dimensions of those experiences

separately. (1244)

It should then be noted that this concept of intersectionality is most effective in

interpreting the process of passing as it pertains to African American female characters;

as passing white women, they do not take on the privilege that belongs to white maleness,

as their performativity cannot enter that particular sphere of identity.

Moreover, as a staple of postcolonial theory, I turn to Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin,

White Masks (1952), a work that studies the dehumanization and declassification of

blacks under colonial rule.7 Fanon’s discourse on colonialism is helpful for theorizing the

environment that makes Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality so relevant considering

this in the context of passing narratives: blacks who pass for white do not erase their prior

racial identity—it becomes another facet of their identity, an intersectional identity. In

this work, Fanon states that “[t]he colonized is elevated above his jungle status in

                                                                                                               7 The title of the work itself is suggestive of the colonizer versus colonized relations at work within black America; because of a lack of self definition lost to colonialization, Fanon suggests that blacks adopt the ways of whites. Perhaps what is key here is the concept of “self definition.” If one considers this in the context of passing narratives, perhaps those who pass are seeking a mode of self definition rather than conformity.

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proportion to his adoption of the mother country's cultural standards” (18). If those who

pass desire to adopt the “mother country’s cultural standards,” and this action provides an

elevation above “jungle status,” then Fanon’s theory seems to suggest that the maximum

possibility of class elevation is directly proportional with how “much,” or how

effectively, one crosses over the color line. Upon doing this, the proposed individual

enters into an unspoken trading of disenfranchisement for privilege, an act contingent

upon performativity and perception of all those who see, especially whites, which would

be read as akin to what Fanon describes as “adoption of the mother country’s cultural

standards.”

Appropriating postcolonial thought to examine the black experience in America

has been attended to before by scholars such as Robert Allen. In his work, Black

Awakening in Capitalist America, Allen terms “domestic colonialism,” which he

describes as being: “…colonialism [that] consists of a particular kind of institutional or

social system, and this system does not necessarily have to be tied to a specific

disposition of territory. It can take a variety of forms, of which domestic colonialism in

this country is one” (8). What Allen suggests is that the black experience, especially

when read in context with passing narratives born of the Harlem Renaissance, is

continually dictated by unequal hierarchies, specifically those that are informed by

systematic oppression in favor of Eurocentric norms. Allen contends that because blacks

have never escaped the pervasive hand of the colonizer, what exists then is a state of

being—domestic colonialism—in which the colonized and the colonizer are forced into

unequal balances of racial power. Allen’s theory of domestic colonialism is especially

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helpful in expanding upon Fanon’s colonial discourse because Allen’s theory applies

colonial discourse directly to the condition of blacks within the U.S.

But because of the black and white binary that exists within America, blacks

develop a unique sense of racial consciousness, one that W.E.B Du Bois describes in his

theory of double consciousness. Du Bois proposes that double consciousness is “a ‘two-

ness’ of being “an American, a Negro; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose

dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder (7).” 8 I believe that Du Bois’s

theory of double consciousness, Fanon’s theoretical breakdown of colonized versus

colonizer relations, and Allen’s concept of domestic colonialism will not only inform the

racial complexities of passing narratives present within my set of U.S specific literature

but also be in conversation with Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality; Du Bois’ theory

of double consciousness is integral to understanding the intersectional aspects of identity

politics present within passing narratives; because Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality

establishes that a black who passes for white still retains aspects of their identity—the

identity becomes layered. Du Bois’ double consciousness builds upon this, introducing

the possibility that while the identity is layered, the consciousness struggles against the

racial binary enforced by colonial doctrine, as both Fanon and Allen would suggest.

Perhaps what is most significant about this specific application of theory is that it

has, in the most general of terms, already been in conversation with one another. In his

book, Confluences, John Cullen Gruesser attempts to renegotiate the boundaries between

                                                                                                               8  Du Bois’ theory of “double consciousness” first appeared in his article, “Strivings of the Negro People” in the 1897 issue of The Monthly Atlantic, vol 80. It was later republished and slightly edited under the title “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” in his book, The Souls of Black Folk.  

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both postcolonialism and African American studies by emphasizing the theoretical

threads that have long since run concurrently between both schools of thought, regardless

if these threads have been apparent or not.

Gruesser asserts, “African studies has not been significantly influenced by post

colonialism, displacement, and syncretism, and only occasionally have they chosen black

American literature and culture as subjects for contemplation and analysis” (3). Gruesser

continues his examination of the similarities between both theories: “However, even if

African American studies encompasses histories and issues not directly connected to

postcolonial studies, it does not follow that the fields should be seen as totally isolated

from each other, especially given the many areas where they do intersect” (10). What

Gruesser calls for is a reexamination of the intersections between postcolonialism and

black thought. These intersections are the movements in which Gruesser perceives both

theories to cross in ways that further expand each field, an expansion that, without both

readings, would not be otherwise possible.

Gruesser describes the movement as being uniquely water-like in that with the

passing of each current, both theories form a bridge that deconstructs the barriers that lay

between:

[T]he main title of this book is intended to highlight the movement of

ideas and influences through space and over time, a process comparable to

the joining of two or more streams to form a powerful current. Embracing

the flow of people and patterns of thought, confluences aims to make a

modest contribution to the globalization of literary study…through its

consideration of migration, circulation, transit, and related concepts. (5)

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While not only providing a basis in which to legitimize the intersection of post

colonialism and African American literary studies, Gruesser’s Confluences provides an

important theoretical model in which to best interpret my list of theories: Crenshaw’s

term of intersectionality, Fanon’s model of colonizer/colonized relations, and Allen’s

concept of domestic colonization are meant to be read as layered interpretations, each

theory providing a more complete lens in which to finally view Du Bois’s theory of

double consciousness, an integration of theory that is a confluence within itself as

Gruesser would suggest. For the purposes of my thesis, I contend that not only does Du

Bois’ assertion of double consciousness relate specifically to the concept of “two-ness,”

but it should be read also with the understanding of intersectionality, colonized and

colonizer relations, and with domestic colonization specifically in mind. Such a

multifaceted approach is most certainly required to decenter and expose the color-centric

ideology that drives identity politics of passing narratives.

The chapters that follow, will highlight the various theoretical confluences, as

Gruesser would suggest, present within this study’s selected texts. Chapter one will

examine Larsen’s Passing by using Fanon’s “The Woman of Color and the White Man”

from his text Black Skin, White Masks and Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of

intersectionality. A point that arises is what I term the “emancipatory option.” Both of the

novel’s protagonists, Irene and Clare, have the option of choosing their own race. This

choice is, however, nuanced by gender, an intersection that sees their privilege

proportional to matters of female agency and sexuality.

Chapter two, examine male-centered passing narratives as given by Faulkner’s

Light in August and Hughes’ “Passing.” While similar in focus, they diverge from one

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another because, unlike Faulkner’s treatment of racial passing, Hughes’ “Passing”

provides insight on the way a male experience of passing, due to the intersections of

gender and race, contribute to the dissolution of the family unit and ultimately, to the

dissolution of the self.9 I will assess both texts by calling upon Du Bois’ theory of double

consciousness and Fanon’s chapter “The Man of Color and the White Woman” from his

text Black Skin, White Masks. Faulkner’s Light in August focuses on the psychological

effects of a male character’s passing experience, one in which the individual’s race is

determined by those around him and not as a matter of choice. In this respect, Faulkner’s

Light in August provides a thematic foil to the emancipatory elements present within

Larsen’s Passing and Hughes’ “Passing,” while simultaneously sharing themes of

insufficient agency with Chopin’s “Désirée’s Baby,” which will be discussed in chapter

three.10

If the previous two chapters are a look at the female-centered and male-centered

passing narratives separately, then chapter three will examine the convergence of these

narratives through the lens of Robert Allen’s theory of domestic colonialism, as applied

to the colonial power structure of the text’s depiction of slavery and gender dynamics.

Chopin adds to the conversation because not only is the matter of female passing and

agency examined, but also, the matter of male-centered passing narratives is examined

when one focuses on Armand’s own racial identity. Ultimately, the ambiguous nature of

                                                                                                               9 While it is not explicitly stated, Hughes’ “Passing” carries the threat of lynching, if the passing male in a relationship with a white woman were to be discovered. Historian Jacquelyn Dowd Hall asserts “lynching was intimately linked to white men's fears about black men's sexuality.” See: Tuttle, Kate 10 Christmas provides a foil to the emancipatory options of Larsen’s Passing because he does not choose to pass. Others “pass” him off as either black or white depending upon the way in which they read his race. This lack of choice and agency parallels Chopin’s Désirée, despite gender difference.

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Désirée’s race functions as a blank slate onto which Armand projects fears of his own

blackness and that, in doing so, exposes the irrationality of colorism and racial

essentialism.

The thesis concludes by revisiting the implications of the intersectional nature of

this study and its relation to the mix of both theory and the racial identities of the primary

text’s authors. In short, it is my intention that the selected passing narratives will work

cohesively to reveal how intersections of race, class, and gender illuminate experiences of

passing in ways that destabilize race or color-centric hierarchies. My examination will

reveal that race-based hierarchies are not only influenced by gender, but that any

privilege derived from racial passing is in direct proportion to gender norms. In order to

better illuminate the concepts of power at work within this intersection of race, gender,

and class, it is essential that my argument includes both African American and

postcolonial theories to contextualize these hierarchies of power.

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Chapter One: Female Passing Narratives as Examined Within Nella Larsen’s

Passing

I. Introduction

Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel Passing explores concepts of racial boundaries and the

various effects that arise from interrogating such boundaries. By focusing on the

relationship of two light-skinned black women—Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield—who

choose to “pass” to varying degrees, the text exposes the arbitrary, if not inconsequential,

notion of racialized hierarchies and the complexities of colorism, symptoms of a country

steeped in divisive Jim Crow politics. Defined as a “passing narrative,” Passing plainly

offers caustic social criticism, a criticism largely defined by pessimistic portrayal of

events and scathing societal depiction. Larsen’s criticism is caustic in the sense that her

portrayals of dire situations caused by racial confusion are ironic; while many passing

narratives often conclude with what can only, arguably, be described as “neat” or

romantic conclusions—the tragic mulatto trope often results in character death—Larsen

troubles this. The final scene within Passing is purposefully laden with ambiguity. More

so, while literary representation of the tragic mulatto has often presented such characters

as being “confused” or “depressed” by their inability to fit into what is thought of as the

“white world” and “black world,” Passing portrays Clare Kendry as being directly

conscious of this and in fact, proud of her ability to switch between two drastically

different racialized settings. Passing portrays the fractured social norms of a race-

obsessed society, one that divides its citizens into color castes. But such a binary—that of

black and white—is nearly impossible in the face of historical miscegenation; those of

various shades of brown emerge, becoming the area of gray in such a black and white

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minded society. The problem, then, lies in the efforts to define such individuals, those

that are clearly black and white, those that in short, can “pass.” But, as the text portrays,

the act of passing is psychologically damaging, as the self’s definition lives in opposition

to societal definition. This fracturing of identity, and the tragic effort to maintain both

halves, evidences the ills of societal racisms and the impossibilities that they require.

Larsen’s Passing provides caustic social criticisms because not only does it evoke

sardonic realism within its prose, but also it features the destabilizing of identity, a

quality that only further critiques societal conceptions of race as being “fixed.”

When read parallel to Passing, Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality better

illuminates both Irene and Clare’s shifting identities from black women to white women

depending on social context, physical surroundings, and varying degrees of exposure.

Their choice in deciding to pass and any privileges afforded can be seen as proportional

to their claims to female agency and their relationship with sexuality. What surfaces as

most compelling evidence in support of this argument is the way in which the

presentation and performance of whiteness through the characters impact their experience

of race and decisions to pass. While Irene would most likely be defined by her peers as a

“mulatto,” the text, and Irene herself, makes the distinction that Clare is more befitting of

this term due to her lighter features. It is in this way that the relationship between Irene

and Clare can better be understood, as well as the differences between their passing

motives. In the chapter “The Woman of Color and the White Man” of Black Skin, White

Masks, Fanon attempts to define the nature of black women in relation to white culture.

Fanon explains that there are “two such women: the Negress and the mulatto” (38) a

distinction that separates black women into a binary when considering skin color. From

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the larger category of race he separates out the “negress” and “mulatto” as having

opposing motives within white society. Fanon goes on to say, “The first has only one

possibility and one concern: to turn white. The second wants not only to turn white but

also to avoid slipping back. What indeed could be more illogical than a mulatto woman’s

acceptance of a Negro husband?” (38). For Fanon, the “negress” is indoctrinated by the

colonizer’s ideal of whiteness and desires to achieve this ideal. If the “negress” were to

“slip back,” it would be a regression into blackness. And if the “mulatto” desires to be

white, then to accept a “negro” or black husband would be counter to this goal. One can

read this into Clare’s motivations for marrying her white husband, Bellew. If we are to

believe that Irene is the “negress” and Clare the “mulatto,” then the motivations behind

each of their desires to pass becomes clearer. If we are to read Irene in terms of Fanon’s

binary, then as the “negress” her motivation to “turn white” is met. Irene does use her

passing to gain access to goods, services, and places reserved for whites, but little more

than that. And Clare, “the mulatto” does want to “avoid slipping back” into her

blackness, that is. She goes on to marry a white man and publicly declares herself to be

white. Fanon’s classification of the “colored woman” makes it clear that Clare’s passing

affords her a greater sense of privilege than Irene, but also, a greater sense of risk.

Despite these classifications both Irene and Clare have the option of choosing their own

race. This choice is, however, nuanced by gender, an intersection that sees their privilege

proportional to matters of female agency and sexuality..

II. Intersecting Identities: The Unfixed Identity

Both Clare and Irene wrestle with identity in separate ways. While Clare passes

overtly as white, Irene passes covertly and maintains a sense of racial pride. But as

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the events of the text unfolds, their passing motives begin to muddle and cross,

mirroring the ambiguous nature of their identities. Crenshaw asserts that identity

politics often neglect otherwise obvious features of the identity:

The problem with identity politics is not that it fails to transcend

difference…but rather the opposite—that it frequently conflates or ignores

intragroup differences…this elision of difference in identity politics is

problematic, fundamentally because the violence that many women

experience is often shaped by other dimensions of their identities… (1242)

Crenshaw’s rhetoric proposes that the concept of intersectionality provides a closer, far

more concise view of the notion of identity in that we are invited to “trouble” it; we are

invited to better see that issues of race and gender are not best understood as mutually

exclusive, but rather when considered together, provide a more accurate view of the

individual in question. If we turn to Passing once more with this concept in mind, Irene

and Clare’s experience of identity can be better traced as they move about—or over—the

“color line” with attention to their intersectional identities.

Though critics have often been preoccupied with the homoerotic overtones of

Larsen’s Passing, this is, arguably, simply another facet of the novel used to convey the

way in which Clare Kendry—the mulatto who “passes” for a white woman—subverts the

notion of a fixed identity. Her sexuality, it would seem, does not subscribe to

heteronormative ideals.11 Arguably, Clare has carved a space for herself in which she can

                                                                                                               11 Irene seems to perceive Clare as being hypersexual. While Irene herself calls sex a “grand joke” (Larsen 45) to her husband, her attitude towards Clare’s flirtatious nature suggests an irritation at Clare’s performativity. Because Clare is perceived to be whiter than Irene, she can express her sexuality more openly without fear of social repercussions.

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“be” many things without ever having to profess a definite allegiance to just one. Her

mode of being then, is largely determined by the space in which she occupies; she is free

to be “white” and to be “black” when it suits her. Irene’s agency stands in opposition to

Irene who still embodies her “blackness” while “performing” another race. In her study

of Passing’s race performativity, Catherine Rottenberg asserts, “In her first identification

crisis, Clare ‘decides’ to perform race norms differently. Rather than remain a black-

identified woman who strives to approximate norms of whiteness, Clare begins not only

to approximate white norms but also to identify as a white woman” (447). What

Rottenberg highlights is the weight of Clare’s decision to pass as being far more

significant than Irene’s. That is to say, while Irene passes for pleasure, her passing does

not seek to upset racial norms. In fact, she aspires to do just the opposite by having,

“everything go on as before” (Larsen 76). Clare’s decision to pass serves to upset racial

boundaries because she successfully integrates into white society while still retaining a

desire for her own culture; her decision is more of a stance, and a largely subversive one

at that.

Rottenberg continues, “…Larsen's portrayal of Clare points to some of the

conditions of possibility of disidentification. Although constituted through and

circumscribed by norms, the fractured and competing nature of the ideals circulating in

society seems to open a space for subjects to perform differently” (448).

Disidentification, as Rottenberg terms it, is the act of breaking through one’s supposed

identity by embodying conflicting ideals. Clare’s existence within Passing is disruptive,

not because she is simply disrupting the everyday mundane customs of Irene’s life, but

because her racial fluidity forces those around her to address the “race problem” itself. In

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Clare, Irene sees a troubling, mirror image of one who can “have it all” while being it

“all.” And while Clare’s actions are indisputably self-serving and she seemingly has no

higher political motives, are her tactics of self-survival not politically revolutionary? She

fully embraces white rhetoric and tradition, using it in a way that those who identity as

white cannot perceive her blackness. Such a tactic defies the laws of Jim Crow, even in

the face of impending violence and social upheaval.

Rottenberg concludes:

Clare, who had initially attempted to "perform" race by identifying and

desiring to be white at the risk of "being found out," is suddenly

confronted by Irene, who has "chosen" not to "pass over." This encounter,

in turn, opens up a space of negotiation. It is not that Clare wishes to trade

places with Irene; rather, Clare recognizes that other configurations of

identification and "desire to-be" are possible. Thus, a nuanced conception

of agency emerges, one that, in large part, from the subject's ability to

recognize and negotiate between the different possible configurations of

identification and "desire-to-be" that help constitute the field of

intelligibility. (448-449)

Thus, Clare embodies a rhetoric of racial fluidity, one that further promotes the novel’s

embracing of the unfixed identity. Through Clare, the reader is made aware of not only

racial stratification, but that such constraints are continuously absurd in their definitions.

Clare’s passing raises the ultimate question: if one is expected to be either “black” or

“white” then what exactly defines “black” and “white,” and how does one perform such

classifications?

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In an effort to illustrate the fragile black and white binary, Larsen provides the

encounter between Irene, Clare, and Gertrude as a model. The text states, “… she

examined her feeling of annoyance, Irene admitted a shade reluctantly, that it arose from

a feeling of being outnumbered, a sense of aloneness, in her adherence to her own class

and kind; not merely in the great thing of marriage, but in the whole pattern of life”

(Larsen 24). While Clare passes for being white and has successfully integrated herself

within white society by forgoing all black ties, Irene is instead immersed in black society,

only dabbling in passing when it suits her needs. But, in Gertrude—who does not pass

but has married a white man knowledgeable and accepting of her blackness—Irene finds

annoyance; she is a reminder that “passing” is not always needed. Moreover, Larsen uses

Gertrude to trouble the black and white binary, further showing the absurdity and

superficiality of passing; Gertrude occupies the “gray” area that exists between Irene and

Clare’s modes of existence.12 The most important distinction of this scene is that Irene

admits to feeling alone in her marriage, the very thing she seeks to maintain in order to

preserve her class status. This admission suggests that passing is not just a way to attain

privilege afforded to whites, but is a means to escape the boundaries of her marriage, if

only for but a moment.

One has to look no further than to the final passage of the novel to grasp the scope

of Larsen’s critique: “…Death by misadventure, I’m inclined to believe. Let’s go up and

have another look at the window” (94). Clare’s foray into racial fluidity defies the

                                                                                                               12 As I have made a point to note in this thesis’ introduction, racism has often been portrayed as a binary, a form that, by the very “two-ness” of its nature, discounts the possibility of other facets or experiences. Gertrude is a disruption to this binary; unlike both Clare and Irene, Gertrude’s husband is both white and knowledgeable of her blackness.

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societal expectation of a “fixed” or culturally imposed identity. To this end, she embodies

a certainty which cannot exist in such a society—therein lies the true social criticism of

Passing. Larsen uses the tragic mulatto trope to illustrate the impossibilities of a racially

divided society—those that defy these expectations cannot exist because there is no safe

place for them to exercise their agency. If one endorses the reading that Irene pushes

Clare out of the window, then this act of violence becomes a means of preservation.

While Clare’s “having way” and hyper sexuality forces Irene to question her own nature

and agency, this questioning leads to an anxiety over her one stable marker of identity—

marriage. And if Clare’s agency is a reminder of what Irene lacks, then Irene’s push

becomes a final attempt to demonstrate her sense of agency.

III. The Presence of Feminine “Anxieties”: The Stratification of Privilege

As noted in this thesis’ introduction section “Literature Review” Ginsberg’s

notion of cultural anxiety is most readily seen within Passing’s presentation of the

relationship between Irene and Clare. Any prospect of kinship that Clare and Irene might

find in the shared knowledge of one another’s passing is disrupted by the anxiety that the

other has the power to upset the other’s carefully constructed identity.

Despite any similarities Irene might draw between herself and Clare, she

ultimately dismisses them. Irene finds that they are “Strangers in their ways and means of

living. Strangers in their desires and ambitions. Strangers even in their racial

consciousness. Between them the barrier was just high, just as broad, and just as firm as

if in Clare did not run that strain of black blood” (192). For Irene, her act of passing is not

a dismissal of her race. It is rather seen as an opportunity to achieve a certain level of

class privilege. Although much of the same can be said for Clare’s intentions for passing,

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there are clear distinctions between their different modes of passing. For one, Irene’s

passing, unlike Clare’s, is not as obvious as she does not explicitly nor vocally express

herself to be a white woman. Her passing does not intrude upon the family unit, that is to

say that her marriage does not rely on the subterfuge of passing for white, as Clare’s

marriage to Jack Bellew does. Therefore, any privilege that Irene might derive from her

passing is mostly passive; she does not seek to fully submerge or integrate herself into

white society. Instead, she merely seeks to visit or frequent upon occasion. Irene further

delineates herself from Clare by expressing that her desire to not be “outed” is not

derived from a matter of feelings of racial inadequacy, but rather stems from separation

from the perceived class benefits of being white: “It wasn’t that she was ashamed of

being a Negro, or even of having it declared. It was the idea of being ejected from any

place, even in the polite and tactful way in which the Drayton would probably do it, that

disturbed her” (150). The punishment for Irene, then, is the lack of access to goods and

services that are primarily afforded to whites. It is important to note here the

intersectionality dynamic that is present: In the racially divided Harlem of Passing, to be

white is a matter of class. And to enact whiteness—for those that were “passable”

enough—is a form of upward mobility. As noted in the previous chapter, critic Valerie

Smith notes that women are more likely to be punished for passing than men: “…its

consequences are distributed differentially basis of gender (women in narrative are more

likely to be punished for passing men)” (43). What then are the perceived punishments

for women in passing narratives? Passing alludes to marriage as being a form of

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punishment, or at the very least, a facet of life that complicates female narratives of

passing.13

When presented with the possibility to “out” Clare’s race to her husband, Irene

expresses her resistance: “She was caught between two allegiances, different, yet the

same. Herself. Her race. Race! The thing that bound and suffocated her” (78). Irene’s

allegiance to Clare is perhaps rooted within her commitment to the institution of

marriage. After all, if she were to out Clare, she, by her own admission, renders her own

marriage vulnerable to Clare’s perceived threats. Passing however, also inverts the notion

of marriage being a punishment as Irene detests the very idea of Clare divorcing her

husband: “What if Bellew should divorce Clare? Could he? There was the Rhinelander

case. But in France, in Paris, such things were very easy. If he divorced her—if Clare

were free—But of all things that could happen, that was the one she did not want” (81). It

is important to note here then that marriage is not a punishment for Clare—at least in this

very specific context—but a punishment for Irene. Marriage, it would seem, provides the

point of contention within female-centered passing narratives as the woman in question

                                                                                                               13 Marriage and issues domesticity remain at the heart of female passing narratives. If the act of passing is, at its core, about attaining privilege derived from perceived whiteness—thereby “attaining” class—so too does marriage relate to class. Crenshaw notes, “Moreover while understanding links between racism and domestic violence is an important component of any effective intervention strategy, it is also clear that women of color need not await the triumph over racism before they can expect to live violent-free lives” (1258). While Crenshaw’s rhetoric is not specifically associated with passing narratives, her words are affirmative of the link between racism and the domestic sphere. When considering this in the context of Passing’s presentation of marriage and domestic issues, Crenshaw’s words become particularly illuminating in that they clarify another facet of intersectionality at play within the text. If a black woman’s race and gender are inextricable from one another, so too does class align with marriage. And if one considers this in respect to Irene and Clare, one might also find that the presences of their respective marriages either hinder or enable any class-related benefits derived from the act of passing.

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must answer—to some degree—to the wills and ills of their husbands. Without the

presence of Jack, Clare realizes the full potential that her passing can grant her. That is to

say, she realizes the reward is not, perceivably, in being “fully” white nor in completely

“crossing over”; the reward, rather, is in the fluidity and subjectivity of passing as black

or white when the need arises. It can be implied that perhaps Clare does not see this

possibility in remarrying Irene’s husband, Brian, but rather in Harlem itself. There, she

can pass like Irene—which is to pass without commitment. For Clare, her sole reason for

revisiting Harlem, or for revisiting her “blackness” is derived from her marriage. She

laments that it is his nature that sparked her interest in adopting Irene’s mode of passing:

“It’s Jack…that has made me want to see other people. [His racism] just swooped down

and changed everything. If it hadn’t been for that, I’d have gone on to the end, never

seeing any of you. But that did something to me” (196). Perhaps in this instance the text

suggests that when passing, marriage is not sustainable or at the very least, an agreeable

experience.14

And if we consider Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality once more, it becomes

particularly illuminating when considering the passage in which Irene laments her

experience of being both a woman and black:

…Irene Redfield wished, for the first time in her life, that she had not been

born a Negro. For the first time she suffered and rebelled because she was

                                                                                                               14 Perhaps it is not marriage in the most generalist of senses that presents a form of punishment, but the type of marriage at hand. Considering that Jack believes his is married to a white woman, the discovery of a black or mixed raced wife has dire implications for his own issues of class; his anger is simply a reflection—perhaps an unconscious one at that—of this realization. Therefore, acts of passing complicate matters of marriage and class because the possibility of discovery of one’s “true” race has implications, at least in these instances, that move beyond the self.

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unable to disregard the burden of race. It was, she cried silently, enough to

suffer as a woman, an individual, on one’s own account, without having to

suffer for the race as well. It was brutality, and undeserved. Surely, no

other people so cursed as Ham’s dark children. (78)

Ironically enough, Irene only comes to wish she were not a black woman for the “first

time in her life” and begins to feel “the burdens of her race” because of the supposed risk

Clare presents to her marriage. In short, Irene only comes to regret her blackness because

of Clare’s presence; it is the only connection—and the most important one—that Irene

believes links herself to Clare. Without the “problem” of race, she would be free of the

“problem” of Clare. Clare becomes a reflection of Irene’s perceived inadequacies. Her

beauty, charm, and willingness to pass so openly and completely only serve to agitate

Irene’s sense of self image and agency. This sense of agitation becomes filtered through

Irene’s anxiety over her marriage. As she begins to lose her sense of self to Clare, so too

does she begin to “lose” her marriage to Clare. Perhaps Passing not only presents

marriage as being a complication to female-centered passing narratives, but also the

matter of female companionship. For as much comfort that Irene and Clare might have

first sought in one another, this is soon eclipsed by feelings of competition, paranoia, and

inadequacy that cause them to question their own sense of sexuality and agency. But if

marriage and female companionships provide points of contentions or punishment within

passing narratives, then Passing also notes that a certain degree of privilege is awarded

through the very act of passing. Brian specifically tells Irene that her passing in front of

Jack Bellew presents a certain advantage, “…you my dear had all the advantage. You

knew what his opinion of you was, while he—well, ‘twas ever thus. We know, always

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have. They don’t. Not quite. It has, you will admit, its humorous side, and sometimes, its

conveniences” (185). The advantage, it would seem, is born from a sense of ironic

knowledge—because Jim Crow and other racially separatist rhetoric relies on the

perceived separation and inherent value and disadvantages of certain features—that those

who pass are knowingly subverting the claim that race is fixed at the expense of their

unaware white counterparts. This advantage of knowing, however, does not seem to be

gender-specific. Rather, it is afforded to anyone who successfully passes and subverts

racial expectations.

IV. Concluding Analysis: The Emancipatory Option

While Larsen’s Passing provides a generous view of female-centered passing

narratives through the characters of Irene and Clare who profess to pass for different

reasons, it does so by challenging these perceived differences such as Irene’s reservation

and her perceived image of Clare’s hyper sexuality. After all, Irene feels compelled to

continually make distinctions between her reasons for passing and that of Clare’s, as

when she states: “I don’t believe I’ve ever gone native in my life except for the sake of

convenience, restaurants, theatre tickets, and things like that. Never socially I mean,

except once” (79). For Irene, her passing is not a matter of rejecting her blackness, but

rather provides her access to services that would not be otherwise accessible. Thus, her

relationship with passing is a way in which she can assert her sense of agency without

compromising her marriage. Even Clare notes that she prefers Irene’s method and

perhaps reasoning for passing, “It may be, ‘Rene dear, it may just be, that, after all, your

way may be wiser and infinitely happier one. I’m not sure just now. At least not so sure

as I have been” (36). By the conclusion of Passing, it is clear that the text critiques

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notions of racial affiliation, marriage, and the American ideal of upward and social

mobility. The “gendered centeredness” of this thesis has made the female expressions of

passing particularly illuminating in that, I find that female-centered narratives, at least

where Larsen’s Passing is concerned, to be rooted in a sense of “double oppression.” 15

Even more so, Fanon’s colonial model of the black woman—the negress and mulatto

archetypes—makes clear the different reasons for Irene and Clare’s passing motivation.

The mulatto archetype (embodied in Clare) strives to preserve whiteness while the

Negress archetype (embodied in Irene) strives to fulfill this ideal. Because the text and

Irene herself make clear that Clare is “closer” to being white based on her specific

phenotype, Clare’s alignment to the mulatto archetype makes sense. As she is more fully

entrenched within her whiteness—she publicly declares herself to be white unlike Irene’s

quiet method of passing—her motivation for passing, according to Fanon, is to maintain

privileges associated with whiteness. This is contrary to Irene whose own passing is far

more subdued. She repeatedly compares her mode of passing to Clare’s, often wondering

if she should adopt the more “complete” method of passing, thus exemplifying Fanon’s

assertion that the Negress archetype desires to achieve whiteness instead of striving to

maintain it.

As Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality has made apparent, the “blackness” and

femininity of Irene and Clare are compounded in certain contexts. As a white woman,

Clare is afforded privilege because of the wealth of her white husband, but the moment

that her blackness is revealed, she is subjected to his rage and violence. Alternatively,

                                                                                                               15 Black women are suppressed and oppressed by experiences of colonization and the patriarchal constraints of a white male dominated society. Less elegantly put, their race and gender combine to form an experience that is twice less desired by their white male counterparts.

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Irene’s “blackness” and femininity are conflated by the conclusion of the novel—she

herself admits that her role of being a wife and mother and need for security keep her in

her marriage. She dares not cross fully over the color line for fear of losing the security

that her marriage affords her as she states, “Security. Was it just a word? If not, then was

it only by the sacrifice of other things, happiness, love, or some wild ecstasy that she had

never known that it could be obtained?” (86). Even so, Passing presents Clare and Irene

as capable of autonomy; though they are subject to the boundaries of their marriages,

they are still capable of the “emancipatory option” which is the simple fact that they can

“choose” to pass where others—like Désirée within Chopin’s Désirée’s Baby—are not.

While this chapter explored the binary of punishment and privilege as it relates to female-

centered passing narratives, it would seem that marriage is capable of being both; it

provides both security and uncertainty to Irene and Clare. The apparent “two-ness” of

marriage within Passing makes clear that the act of passing is one of both risk and

reward, punishment and privilege, security and the unknown.16 After all, Irene notes that

“If Clare were freed, anything might happen” (87).

For women, marriage becomes the thing that both restricts and elevates their

social position. Unlike their male counterparts, the text suggests that women derive social

position and privilege through their husband’s privilege. Considering this, it is no wonder

that Irene’s anxiety over losing her marriage is filtered through her anxiety concerning

Clare. While Irene does not lose her marriage, it is the very thought of this possibility that

leads her to have anxiety at losing her sense of agency—an anxiety she attributes to

                                                                                                               16 That marriage provides the status granting benefit of the partner’s class also means that this class can be troubled or revoked for both individuals within the marriage if one does something—such as being “outed”—undesirable.

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Clare’s sexuality. Clare, for her part, seeks to end her marriage to Bellew; by rejoining

the black community, Clare finds that she can have a double sense of privilege: as a light

skinned black woman within the black community of Harlem and as a privileged white

woman, if needed. Thus, she seeks to construct a place for herself in both worlds and

ending her marriage to Bellew is the only way to go about attaining this kind of class

duality. Consequently, if she were to marry Irene’s husband Brian—as Irene very much

suspects—then Clare can have a dual identity and social class amplified by a sense of

male privilege that would be afforded to her by Brian. After all, the text suggests that this

is Irene’s very reason for marrying Brian. Irene states that Brian is “…the husband and

the father of her sons, but was he anything more?” (107). For Irene, Brian is a

placeholder within her neatly constructed life, a fixed point of class that brings her

comfort but little more. Her marriage to Brian is not out of love and Irene only comes to

realize as much once she is faced with Clare’s open sexuality. In short, it is the threat of

Irene’s privilege being taken away by Clare’s “having way” (Larsen 14) that stirs Irene’s

awareness of her own agency and privilege. She is forced to confront the fact that without

the ease of her marriage, her comfortable lifestyle would be that much more difficult to

maintain. That Irene is willing to undertake the task of “outing” Clare—perhaps right

through that fateful window—does suggest that she has developed an awareness of just

how fragile her sense of privilege and agency really is. The violent and abrupt conclusion

of Passing suggests that the women of female passing narratives are unable to

disentangle themselves from the various facets of their identities and that to do so would

surely result in “death by misadventure” (94).

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Chapter Two: Male-Centered Passing Narratives as Examined Within Faulkner’s Light in

August and Hughes’ “Passing”

I. Introduction

In Langston Hughes short story “Passing” a lightskinned black male who passes

for white, quite literally passes his black mother on the street. By choosing not to publicly

acknowledging his mother, the narrator, Jack, decides to write her a letter instead. Such a

dramatic depiction of family members positing as strangers suggests, on Hughes’ part,

the absurdity and tragedy of such an arrangement. In Faulkner’s Light in August, the

isolated figure of Joe Christmas wanders from one social mishap to the next, each

occurrence shaped by what others assume Christmas’ race to be. As a man of

unknowable racial origins, Christmas is “othered” right from the start, by both blacks and

whites. Light in August is much more subtle in its approach, if not much more revealing

about the psychological effects that the act of passing has on the self. By the time that

Hughes’ “Passing” occurs, Jack has already fought for his place within society and

successfully passes for a white male, albeit with lingering anxieties that only manifest

internally. But Light in August presents the maladjusted individual through the character

of Joe Christmas who cannot successfully pass because he lacks a clear definition of his

racial heritage. This confusion is only compounded with the racial confusion of the

novel’s setting within an American south that is polarized with issues of colorism. As a

man without a history and a family, Christmas is therefore unable to locate his own racial

heritage and, as a result, is subjected to the labels of others who attempt to locate his race

for him.

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Whatever their differences might be, both texts seek to reveal motifs integral to

male passing narratives. One can only surmise that by identifying as “males” that the

protagonists of each texts are afforded a certain agency within their respective

environments. However, with a greater sense of agency one can also infer that each male

is able to more thoroughly entrench himself within the upper hand of the patriarchal

power dynamics at play, a privilege that makes the risk of punishment—the possibility of

their passing being discovered—all the more greater. In both Hughes’ “Passing” and

Faulkner’s Light in August the family unit becomes the element in their lives that informs

their motives for passing. For Hughes’ Jack, family functions as an indicator of his

blackness. For Faulkner’s Christmas, it is the absence of family that causes those around

him to read blackness “into” him. In short, this chapter seeks to show that the dissolution

of the family unit mirrors the dissolution of the self.

II. Hughes’ “Passing”: Crossing the Colorline

Langston Hughes’ “Passing,” a short story taken from his collection The Ways of

White Folks, is an epistolary account of a black man named Jack who decides to pass for

white, a decision that thwarts any continued contact with his black family. The main

character describes his position of race as being one of obliviousness: “Since I’ve made

up my mind to live in the white world, and have found my place in it (a good place) why

think about race anymore? I’m glad I don’t have to, I know that much” (53). Such a

statement stands in direct contrast to his later assertion that “I’m going to marry white

and live white, and if any of my kids are born dark I’ll swear they aren’t mine! I won’t

get caught in the mire of color again”(54). Through juxtaposition, one can clearly gather

the tragic irony of Jack’s sentiments. Because he is passing, and is a male, the threat of

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violence, specifically lynching, is always high for him and, if his statements within the

text are any indication, he will always be consumed with thoughts of racial paranoia.

By passing he has effectively ensnared himself within the “color mire” even more

so than his previous existence as a black man. His race, like Larsen’s Clare, is largely

dependent upon performance. Because he has “white” features, he is simply mistaken for

being “white.” This very matter exposes that truth of race that both Larsen’s Passing and

Hughes’ “Passing” share: whiteness is taken to be the normative of the dominant

American culture and that this supposition is only disrupted by physical or social

indicators. Without visual proof—either that of melanin, hair, features, or chosen

companions—one is simply white. The story concludes with, “Anyhow, I’m glad there’s

nothing to stop letters from crossing the color line. Even if we can’t meet often, we can

write, can’t we ma?” (55). Like Clare who has fully passed over, Jack attempts to retain

contact with letters to his black family, a means of connection that is secretive and,

arguably, insulting. Both Clare and Jack attempt to reclaim (and retain) buried facets of

their racial identity without compromising their whiteness. Where Jack attempts to fill the

void for cultural contact with words, Clare uses real physical contact, an effort that is

done without fear of recourse. And for this fearless gesture, Clare passes one final time—

straight through a window. Her death, Larsen suggests, is only the result of a society that

cannot and will not accommodate such a subversive figure.

Although there is not much criticism that focuses on Langston Hughes’ use of

passing, Juda Bennett attempts to re-read or locate Langston’s Hughes’ own “sexual

passing” within his racial passing narratives. She “ examine[s] Hughes’ overt handling of

the theme of sexuality, and ask[s]how this work resembles the earlier passing literature”

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(672). For Bennett, passing narratives provide a model into which one cannot only

explore the fluidity of race but also of sexuality. And while this thesis does not take into

account Hughes’ sexuality, Bennett’s essay does suggest that its intent is to “destabilize

identity” (671) which is a goal of this study.

If one considers Du Bois’ theory of double consciousness, then it becomes clear

that a sense of “two-ness” pervades Hughes’ “Passing,” even if the narrator insists

otherwise. Although the narrator, Jack, states that he does not think about race anymore:

“…why think about race anymore?” (53), the very positing of such a question is an ironic

insistence that race has not yet been done away with, if it ever could. The result is that

while Jack has adopted the outer appearance of a white man, his sensibilities are that of a

black man concerned with race and colorism: he is plagued with questions of what his

prospective children will look like, how he is treated within the work place, and matters

of privilege. Du Bois’s theory of double consciousness suggests that blacks possess not

only one self-image, but also, one that is mediated by their conscious awareness of the

way other perceive them, namely whites. Du Bois states that blacks have “the sense of

looking at one’s self through the eyes of others” (351). One can only surmise that the act

of passing only increases this sense of two-ness, as the passing individual is able to

infiltrate or have access to social spheres and interactions thought to be only reserved for

whites. After all, Jack notes this very occurrence: “I never knew they made a practice of

saying such terrible things about us [blacks] until I started passing and heard their

conversations and lived their life” (46). Thus, Du Bois’ sense of two-ness directly

enhances my reading of Hughes’ Passing, if only because the binary nature of the theory

sheds light upon the inner workings of Jack’s sense of race. More so, while Jack suggests

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that he has somehow moved beyond matters of race, if only by insinuating race is

inconsequential in nature, the presence of double consciousness makes this very feat

impossible. In short, double consciousness reveals a variety of multivalent

possibilities: Jack’s passing is intentionally subversive, it is unknowingly subversive, or

that race itself is a fallible construct—it cannot be defined by a certain set of features.

While Jack’s intent is not to knowingly subvert prevalent racial tropes, he does note that

his passing produces a sense of secret satisfaction: “Where I work, the boss is a

Southerner and is always cussing out Negroes in my presence, not dreaming I'm one. It is

to laugh!” (46). He goes on to say, “That's why I sometimes get a kick out of putting

something over on the boss, who never dreams he's got a colored secretary” (46-47).

While he does not aim to “loudly” disrupt racial divides, the irony of Jack’s passing

among his white peers—who would believe themselves to be his societal superiors if they

knew his race—is not lost on him.

Jack is also keenly aware of the privilege his passing affords him. He notes that,

“When I look at the colored boy porter who sweeps out the office, I think that's what I

might be doing if I wasn't light-skinned enough to get by” (46). What is interesting to

note here is how Jack applies the term “colored” to another, darker skin black male. By

labeling a black male as colored, not only does this suggest that Jack is acutely aware of

colorism and any privilege this might afford him, this statement can also be read as Jack’s

insistence that he is not “colored” himself. Perhaps it is an unconscious attempt at racial

distancing. It is interesting to note that Jack’s passing for a white male does not only

affect him. By passing his mother on the street without an ounce of acknowledgement,

this scenario quite literally exemplifies the dissolution of the family unit. Perhaps Hughes

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suggests that passing is not a solitary act—it is dependent upon the interactions of others.

Just like Larsen’s Clare forces Irene to pass in a social setting so as to not disrupt her

public racial identity, so too does one get a sense that Hughes’ Jack requires his mother to

“pass” him by. Thus, the entire construction of the short story—a personal letter from son

to mother—points towards the failure of passing without fear of disruption through

others, namely that of the family unit. And while the family unit is fractured because of

Jack’s passing, he does not fail to criticize his sister’s, Gladys, choices for attending

South Side cabarets. He expresses nothing short of derision for Gladys’ choice of venue:

I don't blame you for being worried about her -- wanting to go in the

chorus of one of those South Side cabarets. Lord! But I know it's really

tough for girls to get any kind of a job during this depression, especially

for colored girls, even if Gladys is high yellow, and smart. But I hope you

can keep her home, and out of those South Side dumps. They're no place

for a good girl. (48)

This particular passage highlights several dynamics at work: despite literally “passing”

his mother on the street, thereby publicly denouncing their familial relations, Jack still

feels obligated to offer private criticisms towards his family, namely his sister. And, this

criticism is not without its own inherent sexism and class elitism. Curiously enough,

while Jack’s fair complexion and features allows him to pass as a white male, he

criticizes his sister for finding work where she can. To Jack, the south side cabaret is “no

place for a good girl.” His criticism is largely tone deaf, as it is without the

acknowledgement of his own privilege. Though Gladys might be “high yellow” one can

only infer that she cannot pass for white and therefore has less access to privilege than

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Jack whose criticism of his sister lacks the acknowledgement that if he were not of a

particular hue, he too might be working in less than desirable venues and positions, just

like the “colored boy porter” he notes earlier in the narrative. Here too, the male/female

dynamic of passing and colorism is not lost on Hughes who is, perhaps, suggesting that

there is a certain degree of agency—and by that logic, privilege—that males who pass for

white have, and that female passers do not. Female characters who pass experience a

sense of double expression that eludes Jack. His being male allows him to navigate the

world in a way that is not available to his sister because of her complexion and gender.

Even if she were “light” enough to pass and settle down with a white partner, one might

surmise that she could not so easily dismiss the possibility of a dark child as her gender

does not afford her this privilege. Essentially, Jack’s control over his sister is an attempt

to further promote his sense of self in the family unit despite the fact that he has left it

altogether.

By the narrative’s conclusion, Jack insists that he is free of the restrictions of race,

despite his letter being riddled with racial anxiety-laden passages: “I'm going to marry

white and live white, and if any of my kids are born dark I'll swear they aren't mine. I

won't get caught in the mire of color again. Not me. I'm free, Ma, free!” (47). Much like

Du Bois’ theory of double consciousness suggests the two-ness of blacks within America,

so too does the narrative’s conclusion suggests two possible readings. The first, and most

obvious, is that Jack is not free of race nor the inherent troubles and complications that

arise from its presence. If he were, then there would be little need to insist otherwise after

a letter that goes to painstaking lengths to discuss the complications of race and matters

of passing. The second reading, and perhaps the less obvious one, is that Jack is free of

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race. Perhaps because he has found sustainable methods of legitimizing his racial

identity—a white woman to marry and a desirable position in the workforce only

attainable to white males—Jack is free to live as a white man. If this is the case, then

Jack’s passing has afforded him a monumental amount of privilege. Unlike female

passing narratives whose protagonists must contend with matters of marriage, sexism,

and any possible violence that might result from these factors, Hughes’ “Passing” makes

clear that as a white male, Jack is able to be “free.” Thus the construction of his new

identity does not just benefit from race, but from gender. As a white male Jack has the

option to denounce any dark skin children: “if any of my kids are born dark I'll swear

they aren't mine” (47). Such a statement carries the implication that Jack will deny his

blackness, thus laying the “blame” for dark children onto his white wife, a not so subtle

enactment of patriarchal privilege and also a distinction that makes clear the ways in

which privileges associated with racial passing vary along gender lines. Moreover, Jack’s

insistence that he will dismiss his dark child to maintain his sense of whiteness and

privilege makes clear that he views his sense of self as being superior to the family unit.

III. Faulkner’s Light in August: Rewriting the Identity Politics of Passing

If Hughes’ “Passing” is a demonstration of how family expose the failures of

passing and threaten the privilege of those who pass, then Faulkner’s Light in August is a

look at what will happen in the absence of family. From his inception upon the page, Joe

Christmas confounds characters within the text and readers alike because of his enigmatic

nature. But it is this very enigmatic nature, combined with his own inability to truly

understand himself, that contributes to his violent undoing by the text’s conclusion.

Without sufficient knowledge of his birth name, family, and racial identity, Christmas is a

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blank slate onto which others project their own conjectures of his identity; one might

surmise that this is done because certain racial environments hold race to be “fixed” and

without certain fixtures of identity such as names, family and history, a racially

ambiguous figure is automatically read to be subversive and threatening to racial

hierarchies.

While other texts this study has introduced have focused on passing narratives in

which their respective protagonists knowingly pass for other races, Light in August

diverges from the pantheon of passing narratives in that it presents passing as an

unwilling or unconscious act, which is to say, one that is not the result of self-

determinism. Many characters that Christmas encounters attempt to determine his race

for him. Take for instance, the passage in which Gavin Stevens attempts to define the

reasons for Christmas’ actions by ascribing racial qualities to his behavior: “His black

blood drove him first to the negro cabin. And then the white blood drove him out of

there, as it was the black blood which snatched up the pistol and the white blood which

would not let him fire it” (Faulkner 449). What this passage makes particularly clear is

the binary present within racial conceptions of Christmas’ identity. That actions can be

divided based on their apparent amounts of “blackness” and “whiteness” reinforces the

absurdity of racial division. Because this passage is from the perspective of Gavin

Stevens, it reinforces the common practice within the text of others attempting to “write”

Christmas’ race. In short, this passage is a reflection of the subjugation Christmas

endures because of the bias of others.

The text never makes clear what exactly Christmas’ race is. But it does not have

to, as the very absence of this very definition is what Light in August points to as being

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integral to the narrative’s racial dilemma. While being black, biracial, or by any means

“colored” within Light in August’s Jim Crow South would be a challenging, the text

makes clear that to not know what one is can be just as, if not more, dangerous; this

inability to define one’s race is disruptive to the binary that Jim Crow presents—

whiteness is equivalent to normative standards and blackness is equivalent to “otherness”

and inferiority. Thus, it becomes apparent that Christmas’ lack of racial identity, and his

ability to enter both “white” and “black” spaces are upsetting to normative social

ideologies present within the text.

From the start, Christmas recognizes that he is “othered” when compared to other

children. He notes that he is “…different from the others: because he is watching me all

the time” (Faulkner 138). Although no one has verbally associated him with non-

whiteness, Christmas notices that he is watched by Doc Hines while other children

present are not. This sense of otherness is only complicated as Christmas matures. In his

article, “‘Liable to be Anything’: The Creation of Joe Christmas in Faulkner’s Light in

August,” Owen Robinson describes the racist environment surrounding Christmas:

‘Get me a nigger,’ says Sheriff Watt, in the aftermath of the discovery of

Joanna Burden’s body in her burning house. In this one command he

encapsulates a mode of thinking that characterizes Yoknapatawpha’s

system of racial codes. The assumption is, of course, that any ‘‘nigger’’

will do, just as it is taken as read that it was ‘‘ one of them done for her’’

as soon as the racial element is suggested. (122)

What is disturbing about Robinson’s suggestion is that because a white woman has died,

a black man must be to blame. The crowd conflates guilt with blackness, suggesting that

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even if a white man were responsible, it would matter very little if a black man were

available to assign guilt to. Though there is no evidence of Christmas’ blackness, it is

determined from the beginning that he is, at the very least, biracial. Doc Hines notes that,

“He knew somehow that the fellow had nigger blood . . . He aint never said how he found

out, like that never made any difference” (Faulkner 374). Therefore, Christmas is black

because someone else in a more authoritative position determines so. This example of

social determinism shadows Christmas until his violent conclusion. So too does Robinson

conclude, “In this way, Joe Christmas becomes a black man because we, as much as

anybody else, say he is, even as we recognize the same fatal tendencies in others” (131).

Robinson’s point is compelling because it points to the complicit nature of the racial

power systems at work within the text and how these systems of power rely on the

compliance of all those involved. This sense of compliancy is even more disturbing when

read in context with Robert Allen’s theory of U.S domestic colonialism in which he

describes the erasure of black identity within the U.S. Allen explains, “They [blacks]

were forced to speak in the tongue of the masters and to adapt to the master’s culture. In

short, blacks were the victims of a pervasive cultural imperialism which destroyed all but

faint remnants…of the old African forms” (13). Given this, the erasure of black identity

within America makes Christmas’ relationship to black identity all the more complicated.

If blackness has been erased, or at best absorbed into the greater culture in power, then

blackness becomes conflated with whiteness. While others in power convince Christmas

of his blackness, Christmas in turn, behaves in ways in which he believes reflects these

racial assumptions. It quickly becomes apparent that Christmas is caught within a deadly

paradox, or as Hughes’ character Jack would call it, “the color mire.” It is in this respect

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that the text suggests that Christmas performs blackness and whiteness in ways that

reifies whatever others in power believe him to be. Others project their notions of

blackness onto him because his racial ambiguity does not fit into their internalized

notions of the black and white binary. If he is not white or if he cannot sufficiently locate

his whiteness through fixed markers such as family and class, then he must be black.

Because Christmas was raised within a white community steeped in racism and

mistrust for blacks and socialized in this respect, so too does Christmas develop and

internalize these very same racist ideologies. This is complicated, however, when he

begins to realize his “otherness” and blackness. As Christmas comes to express these

racial derisions towards blacks, so too does he come to despise himself. Although,

Christmas’ actions expression violence and aggression towards black, this could be a

reflection of the anxiety he has in being unable to fully immerse himself within the white

community without being “othered.” In a particularly descriptive passage in which

Christmas observes a white family going about their usual habits, he expresses a need to

belong:

There were people on these porches too, and in chairs upon the lawns; but

he could walk quiet here. Now and then he could see them: heads in

silhouette, a white blurred garmerited shape; on a lighted veranda four

people sat about a card table, the white faces intent and sharp in the low

light, the bare arms of the women glaring smooth and white above the

trivial cards. “That’s all I wanted,” he thought. “That don’t seem like a

whole lot to ask.” (54)

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Christmas idealizes his vision of the white family and in doing so, desires to belong

within it. He perceives the family as being a solution to his race problem; if he were to

have one, then others would affirm his whiteness. When physical indicators fail to be

adequate proof of race, then Light in August makes clear that behavior is looked upon as

a suitable replacement. This is why Christmas provides the point of contention for the

narrative’s racial dynamic. Because of the racial ambiguity he presents, others can no

longer look to assign his behaviors as being “white” or “black.” However, by the novel’s

conclusion, Christmas’ fate falls in line with the trope of the tragic mulatto—he is shot

five times and castrated for a white woman’s death, the matter of his guilt being of little

import to the white mob at his heels.

In the chapter “The Man of Color and the White Woman,” Frantz Fanon all but

solidifies the certainty of violence that faces black males who have, or who are suspected

to have sexual relations with white women: “We know historically that the negro guilty

of lying with a white woman is castrated” (52). Although Fanon approaches race most

specifically through a postcolonial lens, his rhetoric does describe Christmas’ dilemma of

race rather well. Fanon notes that “As long as the black man is among his own, he will

have no occasion, except in minor internal conflicts, to experience his being through

others” (82). If Fanon’s statement is taken to be fact, then this makes Christmas’ sense of

displacement all the more tragic. Because his blackness is never substantiated, and

because his features are taken to be foreign but not always black, Christmas fails to locate

a space for himself within the black community. As a result of this displacement, he

always “experiences his being through others,” as Fanon would suggest. Fanon goes on

to explain that the awareness of one’s race is largely spatial and that this awareness

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develops as a sense of consciousness: “In the white world the man of color encounters

difficulties in the development of his bodily schema. Consciousness of the body is solely

a negating activity. It is a third person consciousness, the body is surrounded by an

atmosphere of uncertainty” (83). And although Fanon’s description of racial

consciousness comes some time after Du Bois’ theory of double consciousness, both

theories work in tandem to reinforce the prospect that blacks experience a sense of racial

awareness that is often at war with one another—the black identity with that of

whiteness. And when we consider the colonial framework at hand, this negotiation of

identity is paradoxical at best, which is to say that the colonized are forced by those that

have colonized them to aspire to an ideal that will always elude them. Even if they are to

express this ideal, this ideal being whiteness, externally, their internal racial

consciousness will conflict with this performance.

Light in August welcomes this gambit of identity politics into its narrative,

perhaps as an effort to point towards the thought that Christmas, and all blacks by

extension, are riddled with a desire to belong as this is the desire of the colonized. But

this desire is most certainly troubled by the hand of the colonizer. And for its part, the

colonizer does not allow for the colonized to celebrate their inborn culture nor to

participate within its own selective cultural practices. This is Christmas’ dilemma, and so

too is it the dilemma of all those under colonial rule.

IV. Conclusion

If Hughes’ “Passing” is but a fleeting window into the male-centered passing

narrative, then Faulkner’s Light in August is the dimensional portrait in color—every

interaction is not a moment, but a scene and the presence of Joe Christmas is unfolded in

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slow, languid extracts that reveal his complex interactions with race, very much unlike

the obvious confessions readers glean from Hughes’ Jack. The difference between the

two stories are found not in their narrative structure, one a short story and the other a

novel, but rather in their handling and treatment of matters related to racial passing and

its effects on the passer’s own psyche. Both texts engage with identity politics, although

at varying degrees of detail. Hughes’ “Passing” best illuminates the experience of a black

male who can pass for white without detection. Jack’s only threat to his newly made

identity is that of family, thus his need for secrecy and letters are born. In comparison,

Light in August’s Christmas cannot pass for white when he pleases; he passes when

others around him assume him to be “white” or “black”. Because his passing is without

choice, he lacks the agency Jack finds within “Passing.”

In this way that any privilege afforded to Jack is magnified by comparison—he

can choose to pass his mother on the street, he can choose to have a safe relationship with

a white woman, he can even choose to assign the blame of dark children onto his white

wife if he so pleases (and he threatens to do just that). In short, he can choose. Christmas

is not given this benefit. Unlike Jack, he cannot “locate” his heritage—his identity is at

the whim of others. In fact, Christmas’ passing only seems to deepen his sense of

displacement, unrest, and lack of agency. His end is tragic and reflection of the violence

that befalls “black” men who dare entangle themselves with whites, specifically white

women.17 Because Christmas is not afforded the knowledge of his familial heritage, he is

                                                                                                               17 It is important to note that Christmas’ race is never confirmed, an act that might be Faulkner’s way of gesturing towards the nonsensical nature of racism. In this period of American history, certainty about race was much more about perception than it was about objectivity.

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denied any privilege from his passing. He faces only punishment—an existence upon the

fringes of race and the certainty of a violent conclusion. When considered together,

Hughes’ “Passing” and Faulkner’s Light in August make clear that the men of male-

centered passing narratives are only afforded a sense of privilege when they can

successfully locate their own sense of race through family and that by doing this, they are

able to better subvert and immerse themselves in identities of constructed whiteness.

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Chapter Three: Chopin’s “Désirée’s Baby” and The Intersectional Narrative: When

Female-Centered and Male-Centered Passing Narratives Meet

I. Introduction

Kate Chopin’s “Désirée’s Baby” (1893) tells the story of the dissolution of a

marriage caused by racial confusion. Slave-owner Armand Aubigny and his wife,

Désirée, discover that their young son has a complexion equivalent to a quadroon, a

shattering realization within mid-nineteenth century plantation life. Enraged by the

prospect of his wife’s and child’s blackness, Armand rejects them both, and Désirée is

leaves to disappear into the bayou. Only after she has gone, and Armand is in the midst of

destroying all record of her existence upon the plantation, that he discovers he is the one

of African ancestry after all. But this reading hardly speaks to the various systems of

race, class, and gender at work within the text. Whereas the trope of the tragic mulatto is

often associated with the text, the twist at the conclusion acts as a subversion of the angst

typically associated with the tragic mulatto figure. The tragedy lies in Armand’s

assumption of whiteness, an assumption arguably born from his own male privilege.

Critical reception of the text highlights both the convention of the tragic mulatto

and the gender bias its presence reveals, although some have noted the text’s presentation

to be stereotypical in nature. However, in his essay “Fear and Desire: Regional Aesthetics

and Colonial Desire in Kate Chopin’s Portrayals of the Tragic Mulatta Stereotype,”

Dagmar Pegues suggests that Chopin’s depictions of the mulatto or “mulatta” experience

are hardly anything but stereotypical. In fact, he would suggest that they are cultural

symptoms of a postcolonial-influenced color system. Pegues finds that “...parallels

between this pervasive image of southern local color fiction and the post-colonial

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paradigm, i.e. the dichotomy of the colonizer versus the colonized as it is suggested by

Frantz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks as well as the notion of stereotype as a form of

normalizing, yet contradictory” (1). What Pegues suggests here is that postcolonial

thought is an important lens through which to best view passing narratives and the color

systems that exist within.18 The tragic mulatto is not a stereotype, but a tragic reflection

of an individual’s failure to successfully or fully adopt the ways of the colonizer.

The complex workings of the “white” and “black” worlds of passing narratives

are exposed when we consider the text in a colonial sense. In Black Awakening in

Capitalist America, Robert Allen describes the condition of blacks within America and

their relation to whites as being indisputably imperialist and colonial in nature: “For if it

is admitted that blacks compromise an oppressed nation, then it must also be admitted

that as blacks press for liberation a violent and anti colonial struggle becomes

increasingly likely. Imperialist powers are not wont to relinquish gracefully…their

propriety claims over their colonial subjects” (5). For Allen, his theory of domestic

colonialism is an implicit way of applying postcolonial thought (which is typically

reserved for colonial experiences outside of the U.S centric black experience) to describe

the racist realities of Jim Crow, colorism, and miscegenation that were born from the

                                                                                                               18  This view is integral to this study as my reading directly endorses post colonialism and Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks as being a tool in which to view the internalization of colonial commodification within my chosen texts. My use of the term “commodification” is meant to allude to the fact that color hierarchies in place often seek to “commidify” those that adhere to its values; in this case, these individuals, or ‘commodities’, participation in color hierarchies only serves to reinforce the belief that they are unchangeable and fixed. It is important to note the distinction between this study and Pegues’; while this essay invites an interrogation of gender, specifically the female experience in this case, Pegues’ moves away from this reading by suggesting that the “virgin/whore” dichotomy in place is reflective of just colonial discourse, and not so much as being the result of gender.

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colonial structure of white imperial powers. If we consider Allen’s theory of domestic

colonialism with “Désirée’s Baby,” the text’s use of colorism is more thoroughly

exposed, especially when considering the power relations between the “dark” Armand

and the fair-skinned Désirée. Though “Désirée’s Baby” is the only text of this study to

focus on life during slavery, the application of colonial discourse will surely reveal that

issues of colorism affected blacks long before segregation and that slavery is the origin of

such issues. While this study’s previous chapters have treated its examinations of gender

separately through the female-centered and male-centered passing narratives, this chapter

examines both the female and male passing figures in “Désirée’s Baby” collectively.

In essence, Désirée’s racial ambiguity functions as a blank slate onto which

Armand projects fears of his own blackness and that, in doing so, exposes the irrationality

of colorism and racial essentialism. Because he is at the height of racial privilege, a white

and wealthy slave master, Armand’s projection is powerful enough to “rewrite” Désirée’s

race. Consequently, this exposes the colonial centric dynamic of power at work within

the text because Armand’s governance over Désirée’s race is an ironic reflection—

because he is the darker one—and textual metaphor for the colonizer’s governance over

the colonized.

II. Désirée: The Unfixed Feminine Identity

As the central female character of the text, Désirée becomes a figure who suffers

not only because of racism, but also because of blatant sexism; ultimately these two

factors meet to cause much confusion on Désirée’s part. In the beginning, Désirée and all

those around her, believe her to be a white woman and, as such, she is associated with

femininity to the point of embodying stereotypical feminine traits—innocence and a

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“baby” (Chopin 146) like quality. It is only when she and Armand conceive their “dark”

child that Armand shuns Désirée for her supposed blackness. This very supposition of

race seems to supersede any prior notions of feminine innocence; she is at once shunned

and othered. Similarly, in her article, “Semiotic Subversion in Désirée’s Baby” Ellen Peel

finds that the presence of sexism and racism causes much ambiguity in regard to matters

of identity: “The parallel between racism and sexism in the story is complicated, because

insufficient concern for blacks and slaves corresponds to excessive concern for women.

Excessive concern can be debilitating for women by defining them solely as victims”

(230). Peel notes that both factors (racism and sexism) lead to much confusion regarding

Désirée’s treatment within the text. While Désirée’s femininity and whiteness might

cause Désirée to be treated delicately—even to the point of conventional gender bias—

this treatment is worsened once Armand “discovers” her blackness. In short, Désirée’s

identity is decentered and her agency compromised. Peel continues, “Whether or not

Désirée is black, the impossibility of knowing her race reveals the fragility of meaning

more than Armand's knowable race does. The presence of a traditional, oriented twist

located at the end of the story veils a troubling, oriented absence—of knowledge based

on skin color or on writing—that has no particular location” (233). Peel suggests that

what is most telling about the text’s racial ambiguity is that it reveals the fragile nature of

meaning and, to that end, the inherent fragility of racial constructions such as notions of

colorism.

Désirée herself points out that, by all accounts, she appears to be white, more

white than Armand at the very least: “‘It is a lie; it is not true, I am white! Look at my

hair, it is brown; and my eyes are gray, Armand, you know they are gray. And my skin is

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fair,’ seizing his wrist. ‘Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand,’ she laughed

hysterically.’ As white as La Blanche's,’ he returned cruelly; and went away leaving her

alone with their child” (Chopin 154) Here, the two women—Désirée and and the fair-

skinned mulatto slave—La Blanche, are cruelly compared by Armand. While Désirée

notes that she is fair skinned, to indicate her apparent whiteness, Armand rejects this

proposal of evidence because she is the same complexion as the mulatto, La Blanche.

Phenotypic, Eurocentric features are rejected in favor of abstract assumptions. It is as if

the supposition of blackness, once brought up, is enough to determine Désirée’s race,

much like the way Faulkner’s character Christmas’ race becomes socially constructed

based on what those around him determines to be true. La Blanche’s presence is also

indicative of the absurdity of a racial system based on color—as both her name and

appearance indicate whiteness, despite her being a slave. The one-drop rule of Jim Crow

permeates the text, dictating who is labeled “black” or “white” irrespective of color and

physical indicators. “Désirée’s Baby” exposes the paradoxes of colorism: both Désirée

and La Blanche are fairer than the “dark” Armand, but only he is considered white.

Given this, Crenshaw’s intersectional theory becomes especially helpful in understanding

the variance of privilege among gender lines; there is not a monolithic way to experience

racism and gender directly modifies the extent to which privilege is afforded.

There is undoubtedly a separation between supposed opposites—white and black;

male and female. The very nature of this rigid structure is what undoes Désirée’s sense of

self; she cannot reconcile her apparent blackness with her role of wife and mother. And

just as Armand notes that Désirée’s fairness is arbitrary—she might be pale, but so is the

mulatto slave, La Blanche after all—so too does Désirée’s mother attempt to use visual

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cues to indicate race: “Madame Valmondé had never removed her eyes from the child.

She lifted it and walked with it over to the window that was lightest. She scanned the

baby narrowly, then looked as searchingly at Zandrine, whose face was turned to gaze

across the fields” (150). Although Madame Valmondé senses that something is different

about the child, she only comes to an understanding of the child’s blackness by

comparing the child to the slave, Zandrine. Thus, she locates race in a spatial sense—the

child’s “otherness” is only confirmed in the presence of Zandrine, who is openly

acknowledged as being black and therefore othered.

Ultimately, Désirée cannot live with the possibility that she is not white. Crossing

from whiteness into blackness leaves her only one recourse—to cross from life into

death: “She [Désirée] did not take the broad, beaten road which led to the far-off

plantation of Valmondé. She walked across a deserted field, where the stubble bruised

her tender feet, so delicately shod, and tore her thin gown to shreds” (156). Désirée does

not go down the path towards her family’s home, Valmonde. She instead goes off into the

bayou, an implied suicide: “She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick

along the banks of the deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come back again” (157).

Although Désirée’s departure into the bayou suggests a rather dramatic course of action,

it also suggests that as a woman without a known heritage, that her only legitimacy—and

therefore stable marker of whiteness for that matter—is derived from Armand’s name and

validation. Without her marriage to Armand to substantiate her identity, Désirée’s race

and identity is unfixed. To this end, the text seems to reveal the harmful binary of race.

Without a definite claim to whiteness, one is not considered white, and therefore outside

of the cultural norm. Désirée is only suspected to be a mulatto because her past cannot

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substantiate a white heritage. Without a surname, or familial history, Désirée’s origins are

untraceable, thus rendering her the perfect slate onto which Armand can project his racial

suspicions.

While critics like Peel have noted that Désirée’s final disappearance into the

bayou is a subversive act that ultimately symbolizes a woman’s break away from

patriarchal confines, I contend that Désirée’s disappearance is not so much a conscious

rebellion as it is an acceptance of the loss of identity; Désirée does not seek to continue

her existence (if she had, she would have returned home) but instead finds that she cannot

continue life with the knowledge of her blackness. Désirée’s lack of origins lessens her

sense of agency. Désirée becomes the catalyst for racial confusion within the text; it is

only by suspecting Désirée’s race, that Armand comes to understand his own race. In

short, Désirée functions as a mirror, one in which not only does Armand come to truly

see his reflection of self, but also the reader comes to see the absurdity of colorism.

III. Armand: Masculinity and the Assumption of Whiteness

As examined in this study’s introduction, critic Elaine Ginsberg notes that the

inherent boundary crossing nature of passing narratives causes cultural anxiety within

both individuals and society. In Chopin’s “Désirée’s Baby” the source of anxiety is

manifested in Armand. He is the seemingly white husband of a suspected quadroon wife.

He exiles his wife for her “blackness” while burning evidence of his own “blackness” in

order to maintain his identity as a white man. Although the colonial nature of the racism

of mid-nineteenth-century U.S literature is undoubtedly patriarchal in nature, in Armand,

this masculine privilege proves to be his very undoing. As a presumed white male,

Armand is in a position to accuse. This presumption on Armand’s part—that he couldn’t

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possibly be black—is the assumption of privilege. Although critics have often supposed

Désirée to be the text’s sole tragic mulatto, the text proves that Armand is the tragic

mulatto because not only has he shunned his family, the revelation of his blackness by the

text’s conclusion only solidifies his future of self-loathing caused by his own racist

ideologies.

Long before Armand and Désirée conceive their child, the text foreshadows

Désirée’s racial origin, or at least, the trouble that may come about because of its

absence. Initially, Désirée’s father, Monsieur Valmondé, wants Désirée’s origins

considered: “Monsieur Valmondé grew practical and wanted things well considered: that

is, the girl's obscure origin. Armand looked into her eyes and did not care. He was

reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her

one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana?” (148). He reminds Armand that she is

without an established aristocratic background—the implication, of course, is that her

whiteness is not confirmed. Armand disregards the implications of Désirée’s “obscure

origins” because he does not see any sign or suggestion of blackness—yet. Ironically, the

system of power in place relies on visual signs of color but does not always acknowledge

visual signs as being definite. Armand is, after all, darker in complexion than both

Désirée and the slave, La Blanche. The text makes clear that only those in the highest seat

of power—white males—can assign meaning to color as Armand is very quick to do.

Armand assigns the blame of Désirée’s blackness to God: “He thought Almighty

God had dealt cruelly and unjustly with him; and felt, somehow, that he was paying Him

back in kind when he stabbed thus into his wife's soul. Moreover he no longer loved her,

because of the unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name” (155-

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156). This attempt to assign blame elsewhere for not having detected Désirée’s blackness

is an ironic oversight of Armand’s own sense of perception. He had known that Désirée

was from an unknown background and yet proceeded to marry her based on only visual

evidence of whiteness. But to accept that even the fair Désirée could be black or mixed

would be to welcome the possibility of his own blackness given his dark complexion. He

is described as being dark, “But Armand's dark, handsome face had not often been

disfigured by frowns since the day he fell in love with her” (151-152). Given the

knowledge that visual signs such as skin color are used to determine a specific race or the

lack thereof within the text and Armand’s darkness, it is ironic that Désirée does not

suspect that the child’s blackness could have come from him. Instead, she turns to

Armand to make sense of the child’s complexion to which he hastily ascribes blame to

her: “It means,’ he answered lightly, ‘that the child is not white; it means that you are not

white’” (154). Désirée accepts Armand’s word, and instead of seeking solidarity with

others of her “new” race such as Zandrine or La Blanche, Désirée chooses to disappear.

Therefore, Désirée’s subversiveness is limited at best. While she inherently disrupts the

sense of racial absolutism within the text, this disruption is silent and passive. She does

not seek active rebellion nor does she voice further complaint.

Armand’s discovery of his mother’s letter to his father—the means by which both

Armand and the reader become privy to his blackness—is found by chance as he goes

about collecting remnants of Désirée’s love letters to burn; "But above all," she wrote,

"night and day, I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear

Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is

cursed with the brand of slavery” (158). This twist is the text’s final subversion. Armand

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is not white, but mixed race. Whether this knowledge comes to light is irrelevant.

Armand knows and this is enough. This moment of self-realization functions as means by

which Armand’s sense of power is destroyed. Even if he continues on as a slave master—

his destroying of the letter implies that he very well may—it will be with the

unchangeable knowledge that he shares kinship and the “curse of the brand of slavery”

with those he lords over. By the conclusion, the allegorical nature of the text is revealed:

while Armand wishes to pass on his name, and thereby his power and heritage as a

prominent slave holder to his son, he cannot. So too does the text make clear that

hierarchies of power that depend upon racial essentialism cannot remain fixed when

racially subversive figures such as Désirée exist within them. Ultimately, the only thing

Armand “passes” is his projection of blackness onto Désirée and, in the end, himself.

IV. Conclusion

Robert Allen’s term of domestic colonialism exposes the colonial nature of power

at work within the text and the truth that African Americans can be viewed as existing

within an internal colony in the superstructure of the U.S, effectively mirroring the way

that African countries are colonies of European colonial powers. By reading both

segregation and slavery as being colonial in nature, conventions of passing and

assimilation are made sense of; they are the obscure byproducts of a colonial institution

of power. By applying domestic colonialism to the passing conventions present within

“Désirée’s Baby,” one is able to identify the need and cause for such actions. Désirée’s

passing is not so much a conscious act, as it is an imposition; Armand takes it upon

himself to “rewrite” Désirée’s race because of his own assumption about his whiteness.

Désirée is befuddled by this explanation, but makes little attempt at rebuking Armand’s

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claim. Despite her race, or her husband’s race, Désirée is powerless to refute Armand’s

assertion because the problematic nature of gender roles will not permit her to.

The absolutism of the world in which Désirée and Armand exists contributes to

the failure of both. Chopin constructs a world in which there are no certainties or “whole”

truths especially where matters of race are concerned. In terms of the colonial system of

power in place, Désirée becomes a figure of disruption, one that Armand must hate and

reject instead of lovingly accept in order to reestablish the racial hierarchy that he

subscribes to as a slave master. To love Désirée in her present state of blackness is to

acknowledge the folly of racism and colorism. Ultimately, the boundaries between other

and self are negotiated, reflective of Faulkner’s Christmas within Light in August. But

unlike Christmas’ explicitly violent end, and Désirée’s implied suicide, Armand is forced

to live a life that is, arguably, just as tragic; he is forced to acknowledge that race is not

an absolute construct and to trade his prior feelings of certainties for a mode of existence

riddled with only ambiguity. Armed with this knowledge, Armand is no longer white, but

will pass for white.

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Conclusion: A Paradigm of Power Made Visible

Langston Hughes’ “Cross” (1926) functions as a pertinent literary model of the

impossible racialized climate of America’s Antebellum and Jim Crow eras. Hughes’

poem “Cross” is a necessary theoretical model because it poses the absurdity of racial

definitions of the colonizer—the white Eurocentric tradition—upon that of the

colonized—African Americans, blacks, or those of mixed race ancestry. The poem is as

follows:

My old man's a white old man

And my old mother's black.

If ever I cursed my white old man

I take my curses back.

If ever I cursed my black old mother

And wished she were in hell,

I'm sorry for that evil wish

And now I wish her well

My old man died in a fine big house.

My ma died in a shack.

I wonder where I'm going to die,

Being neither white nor black?

The speaker of the poem expresses an uncertainty of their future, wondering if

they will die in a “fine big house” (9) or “shack” (10), metaphorical representations of

racial classifications and societal designations. Given this context, the poem presents a

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figurative dichotomy in which to view the passing narratives of the characters of the texts

I have analyzed. Furthermore, “Cross” provides an excellent example of Robert Allen’s

theory of domestic colonialism in which he describes the division of the “house” and

“field” binary:

The most important such division was between ‘house niggers’ and ‘field

niggers’. The former were the personal servants of the masters. They were

afforded slightly better treatment than the field hands and frequently

collaborated and consorted with the white rulers. Vestiges of this early

social division still can be found in black communities today. (12)

When considering the aforementioned layout of theory, “Cross” not only becomes the

fitting epigraph to precede the conclusion of my reading of Larsen, Hughes, Chopin, and

Faulkner—it also becomes the literary model in which to view the problematic binary

that exists at the heart of each passing narratives’ color systemized environments and the

racial performativity and confusion that is made possible by its existence. Frantz Fanon

expresses similar frustration with the cultural binary blacks face: “Not yet white, no

longer wholly black, I was damned” (138). Again, this expression of frustration mirrors

the speaker’s within Hughes’ “Cross,” exemplifying the sense of cultural anxiety that

many blacks and people of color face when contending with an American culture that

normalizes white hegemony. The white and black binary present within Hughes’ “Cross”

illustrates the interracial attention that was given to this study’s specific passing

narratives. Although passing narratives were typically written during the Harlem

Renaissance, some texts, such as Faulkner’s Light in August, Chopin’s “Désirée’s Baby”,

and George Washington Cable’s “Salome Muller, The White Slave” were written before;

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interestingly enough, these texts were written by white authors. For many African

American authors of passing narratives, their texts are joined by common themes of racial

permeability that often sought to refute claims of racial essentialism. While this can be

seen or interpreted within passing narratives by white authors, some of these particular

narratives often express fears of racial contamination, black exoticism, and the anxiety of

upending racial hierarchies that promote white hegemony.

The publishers of James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-

Coloured Man include a preface that describes the unique sense of racial awareness that

blacks possess, one that eludes whites:

It is very likely that the negroes of the United States have a fairly correct

idea of what the white people of the country think of them, for that

opinion has for a long time been and is still being constantly stated; but

they are themselves more or less a sphinx to the whites…In these pages it

is as though a veil has been drawn aside, the reader is given a view of the

inner life of the Negro in America, is initiated into the free masonry, as it

were, of race. (xxxix-xl)

What this passage suggests is that because of their unique position within the racial

hierarchy of America, blacks possess a hypersensitivity to race relations and a

consciousness how they are perceived. If blacks are “sphinxes” to whites, then they are

an enigma. Given this, white authors’ portrayals of black characters in passing narratives

may be interpreted, in some cases, as being insufficient portrayals of the black experience

because the authors themselves cannot see fully beyond the “veil” of their whiteness.

When read in the context of this thesis, one might come to see the ambiguity that

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permeates both Faulkner’s Light in August and Chopin’s “Desirée's Baby” as being the

result of a lack of this racial perception. In spite of this, I position my chosen texts in

dialogue with one another in the hope that any similarities or as Gruesser would call

them—confluences—will reveal overlapping truths such as the class-oriented motivations

of those who pass. These cultural anxieties are not just held by those who seek to uphold

racial classifications, but by those who decenter them. This is very much true for Larsen’s

Passing, for much of the tension of the novel is derived from the “anxieties” of Irene

Redfield and Clare Kendry and their different, but similar modes of passing.

While one—Irene—seeks to “quietly” pass for white, Clare’s passing is “loud” in

that she fully crosses the color line; she both audibly and visibly proclaims herself to be

white and has fully immersed herself within white society. The source of comradery that

Irene and Clare might share because of their “passing” experiences is quickly eclipsed by

the prospect that one might “out” the other. Thus, the shared experience becomes a

liability, and Ginsberg’s environment of “cultural anxiety” is created. This anxiety, and

the fear of “outing” is not just specific to Larsen’s Passing, but also is a common

phenomenon found within all of the primary texts of this study. In Hughes’ “Passing” the

cultural anxiety is not obvious, but implied. The young man who silently passes his black

mother on the street while “passing” for white attempts to justify his reasons in a letter to

his mother as best displayed in Hughes’ epistolary form for the short story. In Chopin’s

“Désirée’s Baby,” the source of anxiety is manifested in Armand whose assumption of

whiteness ends up being his undoing. Ginsberg’s cultural anxiety is, perhaps, most

clearly seen within Faulkner’s Light in August within the character of Joe Christmas.

While Christmas does not know for sure whether he is black, this very suspicion dictates

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how he is treated by others and shapes his own conceptions of race. Thus, a common

thread of anxiety is located within all of the proposed texts. This connection is integral to

this study because it illuminates the possibility of shared experiences within all of the

chosen texts despite the fact that this study is separated into a gendered reading.

Although my reading of female passing narratives is limited by the small selection

of texts on the matter, these very same texts do suggest, rather than explicitly state, that

feminine agency and sexuality are both agitators for passing and attaining privilege. But,

they are also factors that contribute to maintaining this privilege.19 Marriage both grants a

sense of privilege to women and has the power to stifle it, all of which is possible through

the privilege of the husband as seen in both of the spouses of Larsen’s Irene and Clare

and Chopin’s Armand. While both Irene and Clare are privileged because they can pass,

whereas other blacks cannot, they also suffer from a sense of marital restriction, this

restriction manifested in a lack of voice over their husband’s. This restriction is also

spatial in a sense because Clare cannot go to Black Harlem with her white husband

without being “outed” and Irene cannot go into white spaces with her husband because he

cannot pass. Consequently, this observation reveals that while men may move more

freely than women, this ability to cross into spaces so freely leaves male passers

vulnerable to racial reading by others. While men who pass can enter black and white

spaces without the need for marriage to anchor their sense of identity, this higher sense of

visibility means a higher chance of scrutiny by others—black and whites—who may

judge the passer’s actions as being justifications for racial classifications that they, the

                                                                                                               19 “Motivations” would perhaps be a better choice to describe one’s reason for passing but this word lacks the connotation of anxiety and unease that is associated with the term “agitation.”

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viewers, might impose. Even so, within the bounds of both marriage and the family unit,

men have the power to “write” the race of women—mothers, sisters, daughters, and

wives. Despite this classification of privilege, it is important to remember that this exists

within a hierarchy of power meant to disenfranchise blacks. Critics like Fanon make clear

that stratifications of power and privilege exist among the colonized as remnants of

policies of oppression from the colonizer. Thus, the trope of passing is perceived as a

vehicle to transcend class barriers and to provide access to services, goods, and wealth

that were previously unattainable to the passer.

This study called upon an eclectic mix of African American literary studies and

postcolonial theory: W.E.B. Du Bois’ theory of double consciousness; Kimberlé

Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality; Frantz Fanon’s postcolonial-centered work, Black

Skin, White Masks; Robert Allen’s term of domestic colonialism. My hope is that in

doing so, the paradigm of power that dictates race within the U.S–colonial in nature and

steeped in white hegemony—is exposed. In the conclusion of his hybrid post colonial and

African American study, Gruesser acknowledges the separate functions of each field, but

in the same vein, urges scholars not to dismiss connections between the two where they

can be sufficiently made: “This does not mean, however, that we should hesitate to map

out and explore the confluences of these fields. Nor (to change the metaphor) does it

preclude the possibility of cross pollination between post colonial theory and African

American literary studies” (132). I agree with Gruesser’s thoughts as both schools of

thought are inherently different but despite this, might provide clearer analysis of texts

when considered together. After all, this study has shown that race is nuanced and defies

classifications and as such may benefit from multiple readings. Gruesser goes on to say

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that with certain texts, one theoretical model can be used but also that “…with others a

combination of two or three of the theories can produce sounder, more profound, and

more densely textured readings” (133). If race is multifaceted, then surely it benefits from

a multifaceted approach with literary theory.

Although many nuances exist within the myriad of U.S-centered passing

narratives, one desire remains consistent—the need for class elevation. That blacks

desired to pass is a reflection of class consciousness. To be white is to be normal and to

be normal is to be acceptable or respectable. Considering this, the desire to pass as white

can be understood as a way in which to ascend the class system, a system coded with

color-centric ideologies. In Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon expresses blacks’ desire to

achieve a sense of normalcy and respectability, qualities that blacks understood to be

associated with whiteness: “The black man wants to be like the white man. For the black

man there is only one destiny. And it is white. Long ago the black man admitted the

unarguable superiority of the white man, and all of his efforts are aimed at achieving a

white existence” (228). For Fanon, the superiority that blacks recognize within whites is

not a suggestion that blacks believe whites to be inherently superior; it is the realization

that whites hold power and influence and that in order to achieve these qualities as well,

blacks sought to more fully integrate their identities in whiteness.

Taken from Madison Grant’s study of race, The Passing of the Great Race

(1916), the following passage describes Madison’s stance on the fixed nature of race and

the inferior nature of “lesser races”—all those who are non-white: “The favorite defense

of these inferior classes is an unqualified denial of the existence of fixed inherited

qualities, either physical or spiritual which cannot be obliterated or greatly modified by a

66

change of environment” (32). This passage exemplifies Grant’s (a eugenicist of the

twentieth century) belief of racial essentialism which categorized races based on

perceived biological differences. Although Grant’s rhetoric suggests that the “inferior

races” wrongly reject the actuality of “fixed” qualities of race, passing narratives, by their

very nature, refute the “fixed-ness” of race. If we consider Larsen’s Clare Kendry who

passed herself successfully as a white woman for years despite her blackness, then her

very passing suggests that these apparent fixed qualities of race are not fixed at all, or at

the very least, malleable. While Grant’s rhetoric of racial essentialism preceded the

Harlem Renaissance, it can be said then, that the authors of Harlem Renaissance passing

narratives constructed their texts as blatant refutations of this essentialism and instead

pointed towards attitudes that suggested the absurdity of racial constructions such as

colorism.

In closing, it is my intention that this study, while being comparative in nature,

contributes to the fields of postcolonial theory and African American literary studies with

its intersectional reading of the power systems within passing narratives as being colonial

in nature. This intersectional examination is reflective of the truth that racial power is

largely determined by issues such as colorism and specific iterations of the intersections

of race and gender.

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Smith, Dale Edwyna. "Gender." Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the

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Toth, Josh. "Deauthenticating Community: The Passing Intrusion of Clare Kendry in

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Tuttle, Kate. "Lynching." Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African

American Experience, Second Edition. Ed. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry

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