Nellie Larsen Research Paper

Nella Larsen was born in the year 1891, to a white Danish mother Mary Hanson, and Danish West Indies father Peter Walker, who died when she was very young. Her mother remarried a white Danish immigrant named Peter Larson, who later changed his spelling as Peter Larsen. Before she ascertains herself as ‘Nella Larsen,’ she changed her name several times as: ‘Nellie Walker,’ ‘Nellie Larson,’ and ‘Nellye Larson.’ The frequent change of her name signifies her thoughts and experience of consequent dislocations and mixed race identity. She was graduated from Lincoln School in the year 1915 and joined as the head nurse at the Tuskegee Institute Training School for Nurses in Alabama. The life in Tuskegee was not suited for her sensitivity. She returned to New York and was appointed as a district nurse in the New York Department of Health in 1918. Larsen married Dr. Elmer
Clare wants to return to her black culture, while Irene wants to accept the white’s lifestyle. Though Clare passed as white, still her sense longs for her black culture. On the other hand, Irene lives loyal to her black race, even as a live member of the Negro Welfare League, but still her inner conscious approves the white’s mannerism even when she is not passing as white. Therefore, both Clare and Irene’s double consciousness forces them to reach an integrated identity. Through this novel Nella Larsen strongly articulates an integrated identity is plainly impossible. Passing is not just imitating the behaviors, mannerism, and gestures of another race it also includes discarding the former race to which one belongs to. It is easy to emulate but difficult to get rid of one’s real race, here neither Irene nor Clare want to do that. They try to avoid being placed on either side of the race but unfortunately, the society constructs race to be divided into two adverse and antagonistic identities of black and