The 'Passing' of Protagonists

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that 'passing' does not necessarily have criminal connotations, as black men and women once "passed" to take advantage of greater social and economic opportunities accorded to whites, as does the protagonist of Nella Larson's 1929 novel, "Passing". The author points out that Guare's Kitteridges would never acknowledge that they are racist, and yet they are, if blackness does not conform to their worldview; and the society of Gatsby would never acknowledge that it is criminal, yet it is, as it consumes illegal alcohol. The paper states that the sense of class in American society, like the sense of race, is still fragile enough that these protagonists can fully become a part of its fabric.

From the Paper:

"The introduction of Gatsby and Paul to these societies thus makes the hidden hypocrisies of class and race respectively evident and uncomfortably present upon the surfaces of these surface-conscious societies. Of course, strictly speaking neither Paul nor even Gatsby are "passing" in the traditionally understood racial sense of the Harlem Renaissance or the antebellum South. The true definition, one might contend of 'passing' is to pass for white, not to pretend one is Sidney Poiter's son nor that one is of a higher class than one was born to in New York Roaring 20's society. "Passing" is usually understood to be "passing" for the light skin tone of white in the body of a presumably fair-skinned African American."

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