Biography: Nella Larsen (1891-1964)

Nella Larsen was born in 1891 in Chicago, the city in which Passing takes place. Like the two main characters of the novella, Larsen was of mixed race. Her mother was a Danish immigrant and her father a man of West Indian heritage. After Nella’s father’s disappearance, her mother married Peter Larsen, another Danish immigrant, and they had a daughter, leaving Nella the only person of color in her family. Nella kept some distance between herself and her white family members and did not have a warm relationship with them. As a young adult, she moved out of her parents’ home and enrolled at Fisk University, but was expelled, one biographer speculates, for violating the dress code.^[1] Later on, she would enroll in nursing school and worked as head nurse at the Tuskegee Institute. She would resign from this position in 1916.

After marrying Elmer Imes, a physicist and one of only two African Americans with doctoral degrees in the field, Nella Larsen moved with him to Harlem where the two got to know many of the prominent figures involved with the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a period of artistic and literary creativity in the 1920s-1960s amongst Black intellectuals in Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City. Upon moving to Harlem, Larsen took a position at the New York Public Library, and began her career as an author. Larsen was a successful writer and published two novellas and several short stories that were well-received by her peers.

After many years of marital struggles, Larsen and her husband divorced in 1933. Soon after, her literary career came to a halt after she was accused of plagiarizing a short story. Though she successfully defended herself with the aid of her editors, she felt discouraged by the incident, and she never published another story again. Soon after, Larsen became withdrawn from her family and friends, eventually cutting all of them off and completely disappearing. After Elmer died in 1941, Larsen lost the alimony from the divorce, which forced her to go back to working as a nurse, and as far as can be determined, she gave up writing entirely. She died at the age of 72. However, though her long period of silence meant that she faded from the spotlight during her lifetime, her work was recovered in the 1960s, and she is now regarded as a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance, providing an insightful perspective on the tensions and contradictions that mixed race women had to inhabit in the 1930s as they tried to reconcile themselves with both sides of their heritage.^[2]

Passing (1929)

Part One: Encounter

In Part One, we are introduced to our protagonists, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, two women of mixed race who can pass for white. The two meet by chance at an upscale hotel in Chicago after many years apart. After establishing their connection, Clare invites Irene and her friend Gertrude, another woman who passes for white, to come visit her at her home. During the visit, Irene and Gertrude meet Clare’s white husband, who teasingly addresses his wife using a racial slur and expresses his dislike for Black people. It becomes clear that Clare’s husband is very racist and that he does not realize that Clare and her friends have Black ancestry. Irene and Gertrude, who both identify as Black, feel insulted and upset by the encounter and are both angry at Clare for exposing them to these racist remarks and afraid for her safety. Irene decides she doesn’t want to remain Clare’s friend, and when Clare sends her a letter thanking her for her visit, Irene tears it up and throws it away.

Part Two: Re-Encounter

In Part Two, Irene reads a second letter from Clare in which Clare states that she misses spending time with Black people and wants to rekindle her friendship with Irene. Irene doesn’t want to see Clare again, and when she tells her husband about their last encounter, he agrees. However, when Irene doesn’t reply to the letter, Clare comes to visit her. During their conversation, Irene mentions that she will be attending a dance for the Negro Welfare League, and Clare convinces Irene to let her attend. Clare makes an impression on everyone at the dance with her charm and good looks, and she soon starts attending events regularly whenever her husband is out of town.

Part Three: Finale

In Part Three, Irene begins to feel estranged from her husband Brian and starts to suspect that he may be having an affair with Clare. Later, she meets Clare’s husband John while walking with a Black friend who does not pass for white. John recognizes Irene and tries to greet her, but when he connects the dots and realizes that Irene, too, is Black, he frowns, and Irene rejects his greeting. Irene isn’t sure whether or not to tell Clare about the meeting; she doesn’t want Clare and John to divorce because she fears what will happen to her own marriage if Clare becomes single and Brian prefers Clare. Later, Irene and Clare both go to the same party. John figures out the truth about Clare’s race. He comes to the party and starts to cause a scene. In the confusion, Clare falls from the window and dies. Irene isn’t sure whether or not she pushed her.