The term "passing" is shorthand for a racial passing which means people of one race passing for another. Nella Larsen's Passing is the story about two light-skinned women, who both have African blood. Clare Kendry is one of them who chooses and succeeds at "passing" and Irene Redfield is one who doesn't. They drive into each other twelve years later in a restaurant and Clare invites Irene to the tea party. The tea party which appears in the beginning of the story plays an important role throughout of the story because Jack Bellew enters the story at that moment. Jack is the white man who has a strong revulsion to African-Americans. He marries Clare, without knowing her secret ancestry. Jack's statements at the tea party lead the main characters' transformation throughout the story and shape the ending as well. Jack's disgust in colored people and assertion of his hate toward Negroes impact Clare Kendry, his wife, to re-estimate her value of life. When Clare and Irene run into each other at the restaurant, Clare is confident of her `passing' and is even sorry to those who didn't do the same thing. Passing to the white society is "even worth the price" to Clare (160). She believes that wealth is everybody's final desire and by passing she achieves that in a "frightfully easy" way (158). However she doubts her confidence on her passed life since the tea party in her house. At the tea party, Jack says words which humiliates African-Americans and shows how he hates Negroes (171-172). Against his statements, Irene exposes that Jack is "surrounded by three black devils" (172). It is significant that Irene includes Clare as one of the "black devils." This implies that Irene classifies Clare as a part of the black community even... ... middle of paper ... ...at Jack didn't show up frequently during the story but his words which had spoken at the tea party remain and continuously affect Irene and Clare. After the tea party Clare finds her happiness is no longer coming from being an upper class and having wealth but she confirms that she belongs to the black society and is happy to mingle with them. Also Irene who always concerning safety and put it up as the most important thing in her life turns out to thinking about others beside security; those are considering herself and relationship with husband . Clare's death, the ending of the story, was already foreseen at the tea party by Jack and followed by his words. Without doubt Jack Bellew was the character who opens up the story and also, finishes up the story. Work cited Nella, Larsen. Quicksand and Passing. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University press, 2002
Mrs. Turner is a mixed woman who dislikes and is racist towards darker black people. Mrs. Turner wants Janie to leave Tea Cake and go with her light-skinned brother. Janie isn’t interested, and Tea Cake despises Mrs. Turner. She views white people as some type of god whereas the black people are merely worshipers. Janie is also lighter skinned, so Mrs. Turner enjoys Janie’s company. Janie’s uninterested self feels that Mrs. Turner is racist but harmless. Tea Cake goes out of his way to get rid of Mrs. Turner with the fight in her restaurant.
Turner, whom Janie met during harvesting season, runs a restaurant with her husband. Mrs. Turner grew up with white folks, so she only knows the white peoples ways of doing things and thinks that their way is the right way. Mrs. Turner believes Janie needs to be classed off from other black people. Mrs. Turner says, “She didn’t forgive her for marrying a man as dark as Tea Cake, but she felt that she could remedy that. That was what her brother was born for” (Hurston 140). Janie refuses to be with Mrs. Turner’s brother and does not want to be classed off.
The characters are torn between who they are and who they need to be. Racial passing further perpetrates discrimination within American society, especially within the black community. Mr. Ryder’s actions further perpetrates the notion of race as a social and cultural construction. Mr. Ryder does not want to be accepted as black and he must live up to his principle through disassociation with the black culture. Mr. Ryder’s hope for a better future meant erasing his “blackness” and identify with his “whiteness”. Eliza’s narration of her slave life awaken his moral conscious. The path Mr. Ryder wishes to obtain is unrealistic in a post-American society because he cannot erase his past. In a post reconstruction era it was vital to connect in a time of instability. Mr. Ryder’s re-telling of Eliza’s story is connecting their fragmented family. Mr. Ryder’s acknowledgement Eliza, despite knowing the fact that he must go against his principles, he proposes that individuals must unite as a family if they want to promote change. Chesnutt short story proposes that black Americans need to unite in the struggle to end racial and social
The reader sees how much Gatsby wishes for Daisy and their past relationship, but Tom has become an issue through his wealth, power, and social status. Gatsby knows that he has to eclipse Tom’s appeal to Daisy in some way and that he would need money for this. This gets him into the illegal actions of bootlegging. In the end of the novel, the reader realizes the sign...
At first, Walter starts as a man who does not have many traits and characteristics that a leader in the family should has. He feels frustrated of the fact that his mother can potentially support his sister, Beneatha, in her education career. Walter complains and feels depressed about his current life when he has many aspects that not many African men had during his time. Walter has a happy family, a loving wife, and an acceptable occupation. Unfortunately, Walter wants more in his life, and he feels hopeless and depressed when something does not go in his ways. Walter starts to change when he experiences and learns Willis’s betrayal, his father’s hard work, his son’s dream of becoming a bus driver, and his mother’s explanation about the Africans’ pride. Through many difficulties, Walter becomes the man of the family, and he learns the importance of accepting and living a happy life with his family. Like Walter, many African men had to overcome the challenges and obstacles. They had to face and endure through racism. These two ideas often led to many tragic and depressed incidents such as unequal opportunities, inequality treatments, segregation, and
Lorraine Hansberry herself clarified it when she spoke about the play. She states, “We cannot…very well succumb to monetary values and know the survival of certain aspects of man which must remain if we are loom larger than other creatures on the planet….Our people fight daily and magnificently for a more comfortable material base for their lives; they sacrifice for clean homes, decent foods, and personal and group dignity”. (Lester 417). Hansberry used Walter Lee to stand for that exact representation. Many African American men in the 1950’s and the 1960’s suffered pride and personal crisis issues because of the incapability to support and provide his family with the minimum of their basic needs. Walter Lee incriminated himself and his family for what he sees as his personal failure. (Lester 417). During the meeting with Mr. Linder the family, with the exclusion of Mama and Travis, stated that they was not interested in the offer of selling the house back to the welcoming committee of the neighborhood. This showed that the family stood firm for their moral values (dignity) that they share as a collective unit. Then something switch; Walter recklessly invested the family insurance money on a shaky liquor business startup. Feeling that all hope is lost and that his way of changing the family way of life is out of reach, he despairingly call Mr. Linder and
Tom and Daisy Buchanan, the rich couple, seem to have everything they could possibly want. Though their lives are full of anything you could imagine, they are unhappy and seek to change, Tom drifts on "forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game"(pg. 10) and reads "deep books with long words in them"(pg. 17) just so he has something to talk about. Even though Tom is married to Daisy he has an affair with Myrtle Wilson and has apartment with her in New York.. Daisy is an empty character, someone with hardly any convictions or desires. Even before her relationships with Tom or, Gatsby are seen, Daisy does nothing but sit around all day and wonder what to do with herself and her friend Jordan. She knows that Tom is having an affair, yet she doesn't leave him even when she hears about Gatsby loving her. Daisy lets Gatsby know that she too is in love with him but cant bring herself to tell Tom goodbye except when Gatsby forces her too. Even then, once Tom begs her to stay, even then Daisy forever leaves Gatsby for her old life of comfort. Daisy and Tom are perfect examples of wealth and prosperity, and the American Dream. Yet their lives are empty, and without purpose.
The novel shows how the rich can often shirk their own responsibilities, and do unethical things in the interest of self-preservation. Daisy hits Myrtle with Gatsby’s car and doesn’t even stop. She never feels a personal responsibility to...
...for something more in their life. They are not so pleased with life and seek for amusement. They have traveled to France and drifted “here and there unrestfully wherever people were rich and played polo together,” (11). Tom found this “new” amusement he was looking for with the affair he is having with Myrtle. This affair was a vent for his dissatisfaction in his marriage. After Tom has learned of Daisy’s unfaithfulness and Myrtle’s death, their insensitive egotism is revealed when they are brought together. Neither Daisy nor Tom send their respects or grieve after both Gatsby and Myrtle are killed. The family shamelessly decides to take a short vacation. Actions do and will always continue to speak louder than words. The married couple’s actions signify the disadvantageous and emotionally numbing effects that materialistic wealth can bring upon an individual.
Directly following his experience in Mexico with a male prostitute—an interesting cut on Lee’s part—Jack is seen at a table with Lureen, her parents, and their son, Bobby, attempting to carve the turkey when his father-in-law rudely intercepts. The contrast between the scene in Mexico and this Thanksgiving scene allows the audience to perceive the tension between Jack’s sexual impulses and the constrictions of societal norms. As Jack and the Mexican prostitute walk into the dingy darkness of the alley they are swallowed by the darkness of the nig...
At the end of the story, Jack realizes that blending in with society is not ideal. He regrets the past decade that was full of loss and regret when it could've been full of trust and love. People may be tempted to make unwise decisions to blend in with society. But think about it: the world is like a crowded marketplace. If you don’t stand out, you are invisible. Unique qualities define your identity. Without them, you are not yourself. At least on Qingming, the mother’s poor spirit can rest easy, knowing her son is with her in heart, but that can never make up for the years of hurt and betrayal directed at
Fueled by the idea of love, Myrtle and Gatsby, the two most ambitious characters in the book, try to push through the gates of the upper class in order to be amongst the elite and to be regarded as their superiors. However, while the two characters are both willing to violate conventional standards of right and wrong for money, Gatsby’s motivation for wealth and status is fueled by his love for Daisy, whereas Myrtle utilizes her “love” with Tom in order to attain wealth and status. The final question that readers have to ask at the end of the book is: who had the most success?
the novel Jack only sought to fill needs that were necessary to survive. This can be seen when
Carrying so much guilt or anger can apparently bring certain individuals to where they have no will to live. Just as Williams has been through a lot of incidents, his character Blanche has to. In her dialogue to Mitch, she explains her husband’s suicide. “Suddenly, in the middle of the dance the boy I had married broke away from me and ran out of the casino. A few moments later - a shot! I ran out - all did! - all ran and gathered about the terrible thing at the edge of the lake! I couldn't get near for the crowding. Then somebody caught my arm. "Don't go any closer! Come back! You don't want to see!" See? See what! Then I heard voices say - Allan! Allan! The Grey boy! He'd stuck the revolver into his mouth, and fired - so that the back of his head had been - blown away!” (Williams 1819) In certain ways, Blanche’s character conveys Williams’s life with the exception of who committed suicide. Williams took his own life after many times of being institutionalized. “…Tennessee took 'the long swim' in his suite at the Hotel Elysée in New York in 1983, overdosing on prescription drugs before choking, apparently, on the bottle cap…” (Hodgkinson) He was never the same after his lover died and could never kick the habit of drugs or
She could try and marry someone who is better off, as she does with her brother’s friend Pete, but she will never succeed given the way Crane uses language within the story. Unlike Clare’s Tessa, she is not only poor, but uneducated and not well spoken. She can never pretend to be anything more than what she is, and Crane shows this fact plainly to the reader through his use of a disconnect between the dialog and the description of the