The insoluble conflict of the racial divide – white and black – in Nella Larsen’s novels Passing and Quicksand

Abstract

This work presents a reading of the novels Quicksand and Passing in the classroom, with a focus on the question of race and ensuing conflicts of ‘passing’. These novels were published respectively in 1928 and 1929 by African-American writer Nella Larsen during the cultural and aesthetic movement called the Harlem Renaissance, a movement whose heyday in the 20´s in the last century brought about the uplifting of racial consciousness and the emergence of modern African-American literature. In the decade, the experience of ‘passing’ constituted one of the privileged topics in several novels by  Afro-American writers. My analysis draws supports from Thadious M. Davis, Elaine K. Ginsber and Martha J. Cutter in
relation to racial and identity conflicts. In the interweaving of psychological, cultural and literary elements, my reading shows how these novels dramatize the insoluble conflict of the racial divide – white and black – that underlines the characters’ struggles and difficulties when facing the void in belongingness that attends the experience of ‘passing’. This research aim at approaching and discussing in the classroom the cultural aspect of racial conflicts which is always up to date and relevant.