Summary Of Passing By Char Larsen
The interaction between the narrator and Irene portray race through the perception, silencing, and breakthrough of oppressed individuals.
Narrating Passing in the third person perspective parallels the concept of race. The third person perspective is that of an outsider looking in. The person who is narrating is distant from the person of narration. Therefore, because of third person perspective, the readers create a perspective of the character based off the narrator’s point of view. And this is precisely one of the basis of race: the practice of being identified and characterized only by the perceptions of outsiders. People, who fall victim to this system, are stripped of their identity and silenced by the voice of someone far removed from …show more content…
In the novel, Larsen frequently used exclamation marks casually in characters’ dialogues, simply to show emotion and feeling. Notwithstanding, Larsen’s most important use of exclamation marks were inserting them in the middle of the narrator’s narration. For instance, the narrator stated “, Ah! Surely! They were Negro eyes! mysterious and concealing” (29). The exclamation marks add an abruptness to the text and paves the way for the text to read-like and relate more to speech. In turn, bridging the divide between how a sentence is spoken and how it is written. As result, the exclamation mark supplies life to the usually lifeless narrator. Because a third person narrator is removed from the subject of narration, there exists a disconnect that deprives the narrator of certain emotional attachments. Without those attachments, the narrator is maintained as a distant outsider of the tale. This distance allows the narrator to separate themselves from the tale. Racism thrives because those who oppress choose not to hear the oppressed; they choose to not see their emotions or thoughts as being valid. Thereby, by using the exclamation marks to convey emotion on the behalf of the narrator, there is an attempt made to bridge the distance between Irene and the narrator. The narrator, the outsider, temporarily becomes aware of the world of the perceived, the
Narrating Passing in the third person perspective parallels the concept of race. The third person perspective is that of an outsider looking in. The person who is narrating is distant from the person of narration. Therefore, because of third person perspective, the readers create a perspective of the character based off the narrator’s point of view. And this is precisely one of the basis of race: the practice of being identified and characterized only by the perceptions of outsiders. People, who fall victim to this system, are stripped of their identity and silenced by the voice of someone far removed from …show more content…
In the novel, Larsen frequently used exclamation marks casually in characters’ dialogues, simply to show emotion and feeling. Notwithstanding, Larsen’s most important use of exclamation marks were inserting them in the middle of the narrator’s narration. For instance, the narrator stated “, Ah! Surely! They were Negro eyes! mysterious and concealing” (29). The exclamation marks add an abruptness to the text and paves the way for the text to read-like and relate more to speech. In turn, bridging the divide between how a sentence is spoken and how it is written. As result, the exclamation mark supplies life to the usually lifeless narrator. Because a third person narrator is removed from the subject of narration, there exists a disconnect that deprives the narrator of certain emotional attachments. Without those attachments, the narrator is maintained as a distant outsider of the tale. This distance allows the narrator to separate themselves from the tale. Racism thrives because those who oppress choose not to hear the oppressed; they choose to not see their emotions or thoughts as being valid. Thereby, by using the exclamation marks to convey emotion on the behalf of the narrator, there is an attempt made to bridge the distance between Irene and the narrator. The narrator, the outsider, temporarily becomes aware of the world of the perceived, the