Securing the Archetype and the Community: Irene Redfield’s Resistance to Creative Democracy in Nella Larsen’s Passing

Abstract

This chapter examines Larsen’s second and last novel, Passing (1929), a work that depicts the growth and collapse of creative democracy. Clare Kendry, an African American woman who passes for white, attempts to rekindle communal interconnections with black women, only to face resistance from her childhood friend Irene Redfield. From Irene’s standpoint, Clare’s apparent creative democratic overtures are based on manipulation, capriciousness, and a rejection of her adopted social role as a white mother. However, Irene’s perspective is based not on a repudiation of creative democracy but on an increasingly stringent quest to demarcate the boundaries of black female identity. The more Irene tries to control the definition of this identity, the more she cuts off the most fruitful impetus for genuine creative democracy: communal interconnectivity among African American women. Insofar as the narrative is focalized through Irene, representations of Clare’s experiences disappear under Irene’s version of truth, a process that simultaneously shapes and undercuts creative democracy.