The Penumbral Spaces of Nella Larsen'sPassing: Undecidable bodies, mobile identities, and the deconstruction of racial boundaries

Nella Larsen's 1929 novel, Passing, is a psychological drama centering around two fair-skinned women. One, Clare Kendry, passes as the White wife of a financially successful racist; the other, Irene Redfield, is a ‘race woman’ living in upper Manhattan during the era of the Renaissance Harlem. Clare and Irene are undecidables, neither White nor Black, fluid subjects traversing the boundaries of race—passing. Passing is an act of insinuating oneself into forbidden spaces by jettisoning former identities. It is as much a transgression of spatial boundaries as it is of racial boundaries. In the novel Clare passes by merely crossing from Black space into White space, and along the way shedding a Black identity for a White one. This paper examines the mobility of identities across racial geographies and how this movement destabilizes notions of race and of raced spaces. We encounter the world in our bodies, and through our bodies' most exquisitely sensitive sense, our skins, we take the world into ourselves. We have made and remade a world where nearly every experience is shaded and shaped by the color of those bodies, the tones of those skins. (Jane Lazarre Lazarre, Jane. 1997. Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness: Memoir of a White Mother of Black Sons, Durham: Duke University Press. [Google Scholar], Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness: memoir of a White mother of Black sons, 1997, p. 94) Los Espacios Penumbrales de Passing por Nella Larsen: Cuerpos indecisos, identidades móviles, y la deconstrucción de fronteras raciales La novela Passing, escrito por Nellie Larsen en 1929, es una drama sicológica que se centra en dos mujeres con piel clara. Una de ellas, Clare Kendry, se hace pasar por la esposa blanca de un exitoso racista rico. La otra, Irene Redfield, es una ‘mujer de raza’ que vive en el Alto Manhattan durante la época del ‘Renacimiento de Harlem’. Clare e Irene son indecisibles, ni blancas ni negras, sujetas fluidas atravesando las fronteras de la raza—pasándola. Pasando es un acto de insinuarse en espacios prohibidos a través de desechar otras identidades; es un traspaso de fronteras espaciales tanto como fronteras raciales. En la novela, Clare se hace pasar solo por cruzando de un espacio negro a un espacio blanco y en el paso se muda una identidad negra por una blanca. Este papel examina la movilidad de identidades a través de geografías raciales y cómo este movimiento se desestabilizan ideas de raza y espacios racializados.