Passing: The Wife Of His Youth By Nella Larsen
Work Cited
Chesnutt, Charles W. “The Wife of His Youth.” Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition. Gen. ed. Patricia Liggins Hill. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 594-600. Print.
Larsen, Nella. Passing. Mansfield Centre: Martino Publishing, 2011. book. 26 February 2015. PASSING. Mansfield Centre: Martino Publishing, 2011. short story book.
Monique Stone
Professor McKinney
ENG 210-001
March 17, 2015
Color Does Not Make a Difference Even today the color line plays a big role in the lives of blacks in America. A person’s station in life is often based on their skin tone and the way people judge them based on their complexion. Passing by Nella Larsen and the Wife of his Youth by Charles W. Chesnutt; uses the color line of a person’s skin to help their characters to learn that the lightness of their skin will never change the fact that they are black.
Passing by Nella Larsen is a story which centers on the reunion of two childhood friends of mixed raced African American ancestry, Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield and their increasing fascination with each other’s lives. The Wife of His Youth by Charles W. …show more content…
Chesnutt features a light skin man, and a respected member of the Blue Vein Society in the north named Mr. Ryder. Mr. Ryder is a bi- racial man who was born free before the Civil War. Similar to the other Blue Veins, Mr. Ryder had idealized whiteness and dreams of becoming white.
In Larsen’s story Irene is a black woman who passes through society’s color line as white because she is light skinned.
A good example of this was when Irene was coming out of a store and a dark skinned man passes out on the Chicago Street; no one helped him. However, when Irene was about to pass out, a cabdriver helps her and puts her in the car and takes her to Drayton Hotel; a hotel for whites. But if she had been with her black husband, no one would have helped her (4) (5). Irene, who married a black man, passes for white only when she’s away from her family, otherwise she is denied entry into the all-white establishments. Although Irene has occasionally passed for white, she seems to be more intrigued with the concept of passing for white when she realizes that Clare has abandoned her black
heritage.
Clare passes as a white woman with her white husband. Clare, on the other hand, is at the other extreme; she married a racist white man and lives exclusively as a white woman. She married a white man who thought she was mixed race and accepted that she was not all white. When the two attend a party, Clare’s husband finds out that she is all black because someone made a comment about her race. When he confronts .her and says “so you’re a nigger, a damned dirty nigger!’(90), she replies “you’re the only white man here” (90). Clare realizes that she can’t hide any more from her blackness even though she was raised by her white side and was brain washed about everything.
Chesnutt shows the color line as a way to let the reader know that Sam Taylor and Mr. Ryder are the same person. Mr. Ryder “was not as white as some of the Blue Veins, his appearance was” [similar] (5). Since he was light skinned the Blue Veins and the Northern people accepted him as their own and he felt welcomed but if he was in the south he wouldn’t fit in because he was too light to fit in as black and too dark to be white. He said “our fate lies between absorption by the white race and extinction in the black” (6) (7). He was accepted by society as a white man because of his skin completion and the way he presented himself to the people. Over time his identity changed because he was recognized by whites as a Blue Vein but in the south he wasn’t recognized. “It has been so long that I have forgotten them” (8) because he put his black life out of his mind.
Sam Taylor realizes that he is Mr. Ryder in so many ways because both are black men, they both are two living different lives. The difference between them is that Sam Taylor is married to a black slave woman that he left behind because he was in “fear of slavery” (12). He told his wife, Liza Jane, “that marriage didn’t count because she was a slave woman and he was a free man and it happen when they were kids. He somewhat forgets about her because it has been 25 years since he has seen her. But at the end Mr. Ryder introduces his wife saying “this is my wife from my youth” (13).
Color doesn’t make a difference or change who you are as a person. Larsen and Chesnutt prove that being black or being light skinned doesn’t matter to people who are different from you and who thinks out of the box. Even though society makes people judge each other by perceived race, these authors teach us that being different from others is okay.
Chesnutt, Charles W. “The Wife of His Youth.” Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition. Gen. ed. Patricia Liggins Hill. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 594-600. Print.
Larsen, Nella. Passing. Mansfield Centre: Martino Publishing, 2011. book. 26 February 2015. PASSING. Mansfield Centre: Martino Publishing, 2011. short story book.
Monique Stone
Professor McKinney
ENG 210-001
March 17, 2015
Color Does Not Make a Difference Even today the color line plays a big role in the lives of blacks in America. A person’s station in life is often based on their skin tone and the way people judge them based on their complexion. Passing by Nella Larsen and the Wife of his Youth by Charles W. Chesnutt; uses the color line of a person’s skin to help their characters to learn that the lightness of their skin will never change the fact that they are black.
Passing by Nella Larsen is a story which centers on the reunion of two childhood friends of mixed raced African American ancestry, Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield and their increasing fascination with each other’s lives. The Wife of His Youth by Charles W. …show more content…
Chesnutt features a light skin man, and a respected member of the Blue Vein Society in the north named Mr. Ryder. Mr. Ryder is a bi- racial man who was born free before the Civil War. Similar to the other Blue Veins, Mr. Ryder had idealized whiteness and dreams of becoming white.
In Larsen’s story Irene is a black woman who passes through society’s color line as white because she is light skinned.
A good example of this was when Irene was coming out of a store and a dark skinned man passes out on the Chicago Street; no one helped him. However, when Irene was about to pass out, a cabdriver helps her and puts her in the car and takes her to Drayton Hotel; a hotel for whites. But if she had been with her black husband, no one would have helped her (4) (5). Irene, who married a black man, passes for white only when she’s away from her family, otherwise she is denied entry into the all-white establishments. Although Irene has occasionally passed for white, she seems to be more intrigued with the concept of passing for white when she realizes that Clare has abandoned her black
heritage.
Clare passes as a white woman with her white husband. Clare, on the other hand, is at the other extreme; she married a racist white man and lives exclusively as a white woman. She married a white man who thought she was mixed race and accepted that she was not all white. When the two attend a party, Clare’s husband finds out that she is all black because someone made a comment about her race. When he confronts .her and says “so you’re a nigger, a damned dirty nigger!’(90), she replies “you’re the only white man here” (90). Clare realizes that she can’t hide any more from her blackness even though she was raised by her white side and was brain washed about everything.
Chesnutt shows the color line as a way to let the reader know that Sam Taylor and Mr. Ryder are the same person. Mr. Ryder “was not as white as some of the Blue Veins, his appearance was” [similar] (5). Since he was light skinned the Blue Veins and the Northern people accepted him as their own and he felt welcomed but if he was in the south he wouldn’t fit in because he was too light to fit in as black and too dark to be white. He said “our fate lies between absorption by the white race and extinction in the black” (6) (7). He was accepted by society as a white man because of his skin completion and the way he presented himself to the people. Over time his identity changed because he was recognized by whites as a Blue Vein but in the south he wasn’t recognized. “It has been so long that I have forgotten them” (8) because he put his black life out of his mind.
Sam Taylor realizes that he is Mr. Ryder in so many ways because both are black men, they both are two living different lives. The difference between them is that Sam Taylor is married to a black slave woman that he left behind because he was in “fear of slavery” (12). He told his wife, Liza Jane, “that marriage didn’t count because she was a slave woman and he was a free man and it happen when they were kids. He somewhat forgets about her because it has been 25 years since he has seen her. But at the end Mr. Ryder introduces his wife saying “this is my wife from my youth” (13).
Color doesn’t make a difference or change who you are as a person. Larsen and Chesnutt prove that being black or being light skinned doesn’t matter to people who are different from you and who thinks out of the box. Even though society makes people judge each other by perceived race, these authors teach us that being different from others is okay.