THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 2008
Weex XI
Palmer Hayden, Midsummer Night in Harlem (1938)This week's blog entry will focus on Nella Larsen's Passing. Use one of the following prompts/questions to guide your response:
1. Why do you think Larsen chose to include an excerpt from Countée Cullen's poem "Heritage" as the novel's epigraph? How does it highlight the novel's themes?
2. How does this novel reflect elements or concerns of the Harlem Renaissance and its writers? Likewise, how is it representative of the modernist literary movement?
3. In what other ways do characters pass - especially Irene?
4. Expand on why Larsen chose to write the ending as opaquely as she did. Even if you are certain that Irene pushed Clare, why does Larsen not make it more explicit? How does it retrospectively inform our reading of the novel and Larsen's decision to use the limited omniscient point of view with Irene's tale?
The ambiguity of the novel’s climax, although incredibly aggravating for its lack of detail and specificity, not to mention its leaving the reader completely baffled and furiously nonplussed, hanging after the final sentence without any real conclusion or comforting thought, wondering who the hell pushed the girl out the window and why we weren’t told anything more about it, actually fits quite well with the main theme of the rest of the book. It is this opacity, this unspecific description that forms the quintessential subject of the novel. Just like Irene’s back-and-forth indecision about whether or not her husband is cheating on her, and the fact that we are never actually given an answer, so it is the same with the death of Clare. It seems that even Irene is undecided about whether or not she did anything, and again we are never truthfully told of her responsibility.
Although, in both cases, there are several poignant descriptions that can be used to infer the answers, such as the provocative looks that Brian and Clare exchange at several occasions, or Irene’s anxiety over the realization that Clare might not be dead and could therefore “sing like a canary”. However, Larsen never solidly defines these things, leaving us to bicker and debate, and giving expert description and definition to this theme of indefinity.
One additional point to observe as well is the relationship between this theme of opacity and the concept of “passing” from one race to another, specifically from black to white. For it would be naively ignorant to forget to mention that in passing back and forth between black and white, Clare could be described as becoming “grey” in a sense, muddled between the two, neither goat nor sheep, but perhaps a bit of both. And so in speaking of this greyness brings about the connotations of being hazy, foggy, and opaque; and which again add even more to the novel’s theme of vagueness and uncertainty.
