LITR 4332: American Minority Literature

A'Tousha Ricks

Passing Through the Harlem Renaissance with Nella Larsen

                      Initially, I sought to research the Harlem Renaissance era, via two women writers: Nella Larsen and Zora Neale Hurston.  Both women contributed rich African American literature to their time.  As a contemporary student of literature, I am drawn to the feminine voice, depicted in “Objective 2, [which] observes the representations of gender and ethnicity as a means of defining minorities.”  This attraction fueled my further research on Larsen and Hurston.

                      While researching the first woman writer, I grew very fond of Nella Larsen.  Her story is inviting.  Therefore, I decided to tailor my work exclusively to her.  Magnificently, Larsen’s biography highlights her personal and literary contributions to this period, and thus, reshaped my research.  Therefore, this report will pass through the Renaissance of Harlem, New York, and highlight the woman writer Nella Larsen.  

                      “The Harlem Renaissance refers to the artistic, cultural, and social revival of the New York City neighborhood, Harlem, during the 1920's” (Wikipedia).  As more liberated African Americans moved from the south to the northern United States, they adopted new and liberated attitudes towards their heritage.  Thus, the African American culture was altered, by the liberated thought of its changed people.  As these minorities rose up, extraordinary works resulted from their uplift.  Famously, this period was “recognized by James Weldon Johnson for its "flowering of Negro literature,’” which also birthed Nella Larsen (Wikipedia). 

                      Larsen, or “Nellie Waker was the daughter of a Danish immigrant and a West Indian man of color from Saint Croix” (Wikipedia).  Hence, she embodied both the dominant and minority cultures.  As a child, Larsen resided with her mother’s family in Denmark.  Her initial formal education ended rapidly at Fisk University.  This historically black, and conservative, college was intolerant to Larsen’s rejection of its feminine standards that governed her dress and behavior.  From the start, Larsen was her own woman, and did not yield to society’s submissive standards for her sex and race.  

                      In a previous American Literature course, Nella Larsen’s Passing was on our syllabus.  I read it enthusiastically.  This thinly paginated text carries weighty subjects relevant to African, and all Americans.  “In Passing (1929), Larsen explores the cultural identity and positioning of modern black individuals unmarked by difference[s] from whites….She critiques a societal insistence on race, as essential and fixed by representing the racial fluidity inherent in Clare Bellow and Irene Redfield, women who choose their racial identity” (Larsen ix).  Clare and Irene are two light-skinned black women who identify, and conduct their lives as white women.  They pass the color barrier.  Thus, Larsen’s narrative speaks to “Objective 4a [by] identifying the ‘new American’ who crosses, combines, or confuses ethnic identities. 

                      Like her subjects in Passing, Nella Larsen crossed racial and gender boundaries.  “Although Larsen was considered legally black, she wanted to be able to identify herself with both races: black and white” (Figueroa).  She was interested in establishing her own identity, independent of the existing labels, which failed to capture her authentic self.  “Larsen flaunted her break with tradition: in her behavior, values, appearance, and particularly in her verbal and written expression.  Indeed, she was very much a person, who cut herself loose from the anchors of the past, [and] freed herself during Harlem’s heyday” (Larsen xxvi).   

                       Racial individualism and Nella Larson will prompt my continual research.  However, I was enlightened by this report.  I expected to find an African American woman, writing in contempt of her societal standings.  Instead, I found Nella Larsen, whose take on individuality and racial fluidity I respect.   

Works Cited

Figueroa, Priscilla.  “Nella Larsen: African American Writer Associated with the Harlem Renaissance.”  December 1998.  True Women, New Women: Women in New York City, 1890-1940.  20 April 2007 <http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/386/nlarsen.html>

Larsen, Nella.  Passing.  New York: Penguin Books, 1997.

Poets: A Brief Guide to the Harlem Renaissance.  2007.  20 April 2007 <http://www.poets.org/printmedia.php/prmMediaID/5657>

Wikipedia: Harlem Renaissance.  2007.  9 April 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Renaissance>

Wikipedia: Nella Larsen.  2007.  2 May 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nella_Larsen>