The Intersectionality of Sexuality, Gender, and Race

The Intersectionality of Sexuality, Gender, and Race in Nella Larsen’s Passing, Toni Morrison’s Sula, and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

by

Susanne A. Kaan (S2276747)

Supervisor: Dr. A.C. Hoag Date of Submission: 10 June 2016

Word Count: 16.457 Dissertation Educational Master. Department of English Language and Culture.

Table of Contents

Abstract ... 2

Introduction ... 3

Chapter 1: Sexuality, Gender, and Race as Aspects of Identity ... 8

Chapter 2: Female Queerness ... 21

Chapter 3: Traditional Versus Progressive Gender Roles ... 33

Chapter 4: Race and Performativity ... 45

Conclusion ... 53

Abstract

This dissertation examines the intersectionality of sexuality, gender, and race in Nella

Introduction

In her 1973 review of the novel Sula in the New York Times, literary critic Sara Blackburn wrote that if Toni Morrison would write about more than just “the black side of provincial American life” she might “transcend that early and unintentionally limiting

Edemariam par. 12). Yet, it is quite likely that it was the combination of racial, gender, and sexual issues that made the novel so controversial, and placed it year after year in the top twenty of the top 100 banned and challenged books in the United States (“Banned & Challenged”).

Both novels feature what Christopher S. Lewis calls the concept of ‘black lesbian shamelessness’, which is “defined by its celebration of the fact that same-sex relationships sustain and nurture the lives of countless black women” (159). According to him, this

particularly comes forward in the works of “a number of black women writers from the 1970s and 1980s” (159). However, the novel Passing, written by Nella Larsen in 1929, shows that the concept of black lesbian shamelessness can be traced further back in time. The concept only becomes more visible during the 1970s and 1980s, after the Civil Rights and with the growth of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) movements. Passing is characterised as a novel that focuses mostly on racial and gender issues, but approaching the novel using queer theory shows that it can be interpreted as a book that addresses queerness as well.

The novel is written during the Harlem Renaissance period, which spanned the 1920s and 1930s. The movement involved increased racial consciousness, but also became

characterised by artistic advancement (Price xviii). Furthermore, it became a “socialcultural stirring that occurred in the African-American community as a result of the Great Migration when the masses of blacks living in the rural South made their way to the urban centers in the North and Midwest” (xviii). Yet, at the time the period was called the Negro Renaissance or New Negro movement with ‘Negro’ being “a word of pride, of strong vowels, and a capital N” (Hutchinson 1). Larsen’s novel Passing is part of this movement as its “literary

attention as naughty but exciting options for adventurous, modern women” (Blackmore 479). This explains why Larsen is able to relatively freely address various issues that are not addressed for a long time in literature after the 1930s.

When writing about these three novels, critics often examine how social issues are addressed in the texts. They analyse binary oppositions when it comes to, for example, race, as “binary thinking operates on the notion that one term of an opposing pair will be

privileged” (Bergenholtz 91), and they conclude that whites in the novels are in a superior position. These conclusions are based on statements such as Albert’s, the protagonist Celie’s husband in The Color Purple, who states to her “Look at you. You black, you pore, you ugly, you a woman. Goddamn, he say, you nothing at all.” (Walker 187). What they miss out on is that both gender and race are mentioned in the same statement, linking both concepts together into Albert’s view of the character Celie. In this dissertation, I will examine the

intersectionality of the concepts of sexuality, gender, and race. Paradoxically, to show this intersectionality I will attempt to examine concepts separately. By doing so it will become clear that it is impossible to look at one concept apart from the others, as points of

intersectionality keep coming up between the various notions. To indicate that these concepts may be changing, but the intersectionality of them does not, novels from three different periods were chosen.

(Bergenholtz 90).

To begin with, in Chapter One, a theoretical framework will be constructed in which the three concepts are looked at from both an essentialist and a constructivist point of view. Moreover, there will also be an examination of how these concepts are socially constructed, and how these three notions connect to each other. Chapter Two will focus on the novels itself with regard to the theme of sexuality. There will first be a discussion of how the novels’ main characters can be viewed as heterosexual, which will be followed by an analysis of how their sexual identity could in fact be seen as queer. However, these attempts at defining the

characters’ sexual identities will show that sexuality is in fact a spectrum, and that one’s sexual identity can change. Furthermore, this chapter will also feature an examination of why most of the female, queer elements are not recognised by readers, since in the novels there is more emphasis on issues of race than of sexuality. Chapter Three will then build upon

Chapter 1: Sexuality, Gender, and Race as Aspects of Identity

Generally recognised as “the first coming-out novel,” Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, written in 1928, not only addresses non-heterosexual themes but is written by an author who identified herself as a lesbian as well (Rosenman 264). While this novel is seen as the first novel in the lesbian literature genre, not all novels can be as easily categorised. It is important, as lesbian feminist and literary critic Bonnie Zimmerman argued, to consider beforehand:

Whether a lesbian text is one written by a lesbian (and if so, how do we determine who is a lesbian?), one written about lesbians (which might be written by a heterosexual woman or a man), or one that expresses a lesbian “vision” (which has yet to be satisfactorily outlined). (Zimmerman 46-47)

While the discussion below and in Chapter Two will show that the characters in the novels cannot simply be identified as lesbian, Zimmerman’s argument remains relevant. The texts used here are categorised as lesbian or queer literature because of the female,

non-heterosexual characters and themes that feature in the novels, not because of the sexual identity of the authors.

others it does not. Moreover, as the LGBT movement that gained popularity from the 1970s onwards shows, to identify as a lesbian also has political implications. This means that there is a difference between having a lesbian identity and lesbianism as a sexual orientation, as a woman can have sexual relations with another woman but not identify as a lesbian, and the other way around. Therefore, to form a definition that includes all of these components creates the risk of equating “lesbianism with any close bonds between women or with

political commitment to women. [...] By so reducing the meaning of lesbian, we have in effect eliminated lesbianism as a meaningful category” (Zimmerman 44).

Categorising the characters in the novels used in this dissertation based on their sexual identity thus raises problems if definitions for sexual orientations, such as lesbian, are difficult to form. The reason this is the case is because one’s sexual identity can be viewed as fluid, which is exactly the reasoning behind queer theory, which emphasises that one’s sexual identity “evolves and can change over time” (Andersen & Taylor 343). Since, as Chapter Two will show, the sexual identity of the characters in the novels changes, the term queer will be used to best describe their sexual orientation because of “its definitional interdeterminacy, its elasticity,” and its “resistance to definition” (Nelson 22). The term, while mostly associated with non-heterosexuality, thus indicates the fluidity of someone’s sexuality. While this term will prevent us from placing the characters into a static category, it is also in accordance with the argument that sexuality, gender, and race are interconnected, as both gender and race influence and change the characters’ sexual identities, which will be discussed in Chapters Three and Four.

Operates by engendering, encouraging, and compelling a specific type of relationship between two forms of desire: the ‘desire-to-be,’ which includes the subject to live up to hegemonic norms, and a ‘desire-for,’ which induces a desire for sexual intimacy with the other gender. (Rottenberg 497-498)

Non-heterosexual types of sexualities, whether in literature or in real life, stand out because they do not perfectly fit in this system of women desiring men, and men desiring women. Novels that feature these queer types of sexualities are criticised because they reveal the failure of this regime.

The heterosexual regime is based on the idea that all humans are in essence

heterosexual. Heterosexists argue that other types of sexualities are deviations, and therefore either not important or viewed as non-existent. They insist “that the ‘unnaturalness’ of homosexuality [and other types of sexualities] supports the superiority of heterosexuality” (Sterba 114). However, opponents of this heterosexual regime argue that “apparently

elemental categories, as heterosexual and homosexual, do not designate fixed essences at all – they are merely part of a structure of differences without fixed terms” (Barry 140). This means that sexuality becomes a question of identity and “degrees of concealment and

sexual identity. Sexuality can thus be understood as a combination of these two points of view as “[b]oth essentialists and constructivists believe that there’s an interaction between the desires and sensations we experience physically and the cultures and societies in which we find ourselves,” the only difference is the degree to which they stress the physical or social aspects (7). Therefore, sexuality can be seen as both a biological and a social identity, which in both cases goes against the heterosexual regime that denies and suppresses the existence of different types of sexualities.

is only partially determined by sex, and is in fact a social and cultural construct. In 1990, in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, gender theorist Judith Butler introduces the idea of ‘gender performativity,’ which means that one’s gender is constructed by one’s own repetition of performances that relate to that specific gender. According to her, gender is “a stylized repetition of acts,” which means that:

If gender is instituted through acts which are internally discontinuous, then the appearance of substance is precisely that, a constructed identity, a performative accomplishment which the mundane social audience, including the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the mode of belief. (Butler 179)

In this view, gender is thus a concept that is socially constructed and performed, rather than biologically determined.

and claim that there exists a difference between sex and gender. Sex refers to the difference between men and women, whereas gender refers to the difference between masculine and feminine. While the heterosexual regime requires men to ‘desire-to-be’ men and therefore masculine, and women to be feminine, feminists have argued that these two characteristics cannot be seen as binary oppositions.

This means that gender is inextricably linked with sexuality as in the heterosexual society identifying oneself as one gender means a desire for the opposite gender.

Heterosexuality in this way requires a binary division between the genders, and “any other form of desire is an incoherent sexual identity and an unnatural inversion of a putatively natural heterosexuality” (Kamtisuka 61-62). A heterosexual society thus keeps specific gender roles in place, and vice versa. This means that in order to impress or seduce someone of the other gender in a heterosexual society, people are inclined to emphasise their own gender, creating gender stereotypes. While “stereotypical masculine traits [are] [...] strength,

dominance, and virility” (Clement and Reinier 93), femininity is associated with sensitivity, thoughtfulness, beauty, and vulnerability. This also means that when men are seen as gentle or sensitive, or when women show qualities that are characterised as masculine, they are viewed as being queer, because they do not adhere to the gender roles that society prescribes. An analysis of the novels in Chapter Three will show that this stressing of masculine and

feminine qualities in order to impress the opposite gender does indeed occur and proves to be initially successful in heterosexual relationships.

That heterosexuality is the seat of patriarchal power; [that] lesbianism is a political choice and not an essential identity; and [that] lesbians occupy a unique and

empowered position vis-à-vis sexism and patriarchy because they do not rely on men for emotional, financial, or sexual attention and support. (Ritzer and Ryan 353)

According to lesbian feminists and black feminists, who will be discussed below,

‘mainstream’ feminism assumed “that there existed an essential female identity which all women had in common irrespective of differences of race, class, or sexual orientation” (Barry 136), which lesbian feminist believe not to be the case. In their manifesto The Woman

Identified Woman, published in 1970, they argue that a lesbian “is [a] woman who, often beginning at an extremely early age, acts in accordance with her inner compulsion to be a more complete and freer human being that her society – perhaps then, but certainly later – cares to allow her” (The Woman 1). Moreover, they argue that female queerness is different from male homosexuality, because when you strip away sexual orientation, a lesbian or queer woman remains a woman that in society is still inferior to a man. To them, the problem is that society uses “the male classification system of defining all females in sexual relation to some other category of people” (2), and lesbian feminists, therefore, call upon women to develop a new identity in relation to themselves instead of men. This again shows the relation between gender and sexuality, and the norms that are set by the heterosexual regime. The novels themselves take a similar stand against the prescribed gender roles that seem to be connected to heterosexuality, by showing that in a queer relationship both partners can take the same role. They thereby provide evidence for the idea that gender roles are not biologically, but socially constructed.

and male, but it is also one that privileges white people over people from other races. This, however, is again based on the essentialist point of view. According to Robyn Wiegman, “the definition of blackness in America relies solely on the visual, while whiteness depends on the visibility of blackness not whiteness to define itself” (Landry 32). Over time, “a series of traits linked to whiteness (civilized / intelligent / moral / hardworking / clean) and blackness

(savage / instinctual / simple / licentious / lazy / dirty) have been concatenated in the service of specific social hierarchies” (Rottenberg 493) and have been used as the basis for racism. In 1912, James Weldon Johnson published The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, a novel about a biracial man, which addresses various racial issues. Because of this, the novel was first published anonymously, and later republished by Albert A. Knopf Inc. in 1927, the same publishing house that published Passing in 1929. In a reaction to Johnson’s novel, Walter Benn Michaels, in 1997, wrote his “Autobiography of an Ex-White Man,” in which he discusses the concept of race. He explains that there exist two viewpoints: an essentialist view, in which race is part of one’s identity from the moment they are born, and a

constructivist view, in which race is an act or part of one’s behaviour. However, in the end he concludes that one cannot exist without the other, since “race is either an essence or there is no such thing as race,” (Michaels 125) yet people are also able to pass for different races, which from an essentialist point of view would not be possible. Furthermore, when it comes to passing, he asserts that “[i]f, then, it is only the [constructivist] conception of race that makes the project of crossover possible [...], it is only an essentialist conception of race that makes it desirable” (135), since there has to be an essential difference between races for a person of one race wanting to belong to another.

[T]here is no internal ‘truth’ to race. Rather, through being read as ‘belonging’ to a particular racial category – that is, visually appearing and conducting one’s acts, manners, and behaviours in accordance to disciplinary racial demands – all subjects are passing for a racial identity they are said to be. (Ehler 7)

The theory suggests that “race performativity compels subjects to perform according to [...] ‘fictitious’ unties, thus shaping their identity and their preferences” (Rottenberg 493). In this sense, race performativity is similar to gender performativity. Rottenberg, however, also points to a paradox that is created because of the binary between races. She argues that “[i]f a regime privileges certain attributes, then it must also encourage subjects to desire and strive to embody them” (501). The system thus compels people to identify with their own race, but cannot control the desire for belonging to a different race that arises from this. Evidence for the race performativity theory is provided in Chapter Four in which the concept of passing for another race is discussed, as the characters in Nella Larsen’s novel are able to change their race by changing their behaviour and surroundings.

The similarities between issues of gender and race were also important for the formation of black feminism in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement. The main objective of the movement is to fight the oppression of women by not only whites, but specifically white males. The movement was created because of the fact that:

U.S. Black women encounter societal practices that restrict [them] to inferior housing, neighborhoods, schools, jobs, and public treatment, and hide this differential

On top of that, in the media, in films, and in books, black women are continuously presented as either “the oversexed jezebel, the prostitute, the superwoman, or the aggressive,

intimidating bitch” (Manatu 9), but hardly ever as a realistic, intelligent person. This portrayal of black women as superwomen at first seems to sound positive, and it is often referred to as the myth of the Strong Black Woman. However, it puts African-American women in a position in which they themselves are not allowed to have desires or emotions, and only exist to support others, which in many cases means taking care of the children and their husband.

(87). The more radical members viewed lesbianism and male homosexuality as

counterproductive to the movement. They argued that black lesbianism would damage the image of African-Americans that they were trying to create, which is why despite the fact that the 1960s are seen as a revolutionary decade, black lesbianism in that period did not have much public prevalence.

According to Kimberly Springer, a solution to the invisibility of black lesbianism “would require black lesbians to be more open in declaring their sexuality to confront homophobia in the black community, in other women who were struggling to come out, and within themselves” (108). Black lesbian writer Audre Lorde had argued the same thing and asked “black lesbians, in particular, to liberate themselves from the operating presumption that their silence on issues of same-sex desire can protect black people [...] from heterosexist and/or racist judgement” (Lewis 161). These past few decades, in particular in literature, many attempts have been made to bring black lesbianism out in the open. Not only to counter homophobia, but also to make people think about the stereotypes that they attach to black women. The Color Purple, written in 1982, is one of the novels that does exactly that as Walker’s novel has explicit non-heterosexual scenes, yet also emphasises the positive changes that the love between two women brings not only to them but also to those around them. Moreover, Kevin E. Quashie argues that a lesbian woman “is encouraged by her girlfriend to be herself, radically, even as the weight of this being might be too much for the connection to bear. The girlfriend, the other to a Black woman’s self, offers a rare opportunity for that Black woman to be selfish” (190). The abovementioned myth of the

However, perhaps a revision that disposes of the binary divisions within the

abovementioned categories is not even enough, as L.H. Stalling asserts that “[r]eal resistance to stereotypes [sh]ould entail more than simply reversing the binary logic of stereotypes about Black women’s sexuality; it would mean destroying systems of gender and sexuality that make the stereotypes possible” (qtd. in Lewis 165). This can be done by recognising the intersectionality of sexuality, gender, and race. It are the connections between the concepts that show how they influence each other. Therefore, because one’s sexual, gender, or racial identity can change when another part of one’s identity changes, these concepts are not static, which a binary division would require. They are all part of someone’s identity and should be seen as one entire system instead of separate ones.

The different concepts influence each other in various ways, which becomes

particularly visible when looking at black, queer, female characters. As was discussed above, when it comes to sexuality, women should ‘desire-to-be’ feminine, and ‘desire-for’ men. However, a queer woman changes this interplay between men and women as she no longer desires men but instead desires women. The same happens with gender, since a woman in a queer relationship has the option of not taking on the feminine role of taking care of the household. In fact, when in a relationship with another woman, she can take on the same role as a heterosexual man normally would of providing for her partner. She, similar to

progressive women, thus no longer can be seen as only showing feminine characteristics, but in fact shows masculine traits as well. Moreover, as the characters in the novels will show, some women, whether queer or not, show a combination of feminine and masculine traits, which indicates that there is no binary division between the genders.

Chapter 2: Female Queerness

The most interesting aspect in all three of the novels is the queer sexual identity of the female main characters. It is this aspect that has made the novels controversial, yet it is this non-heterosexuality that is often missed or denied by most readers. The discovery of the character’s own non-heterosexuality changes Irene, Nel, and Celie’s perspectives on sexuality in general, and the heterosexual society that they belong to. It is thus important to examine how their queer sexual identity comes forward in the novels, and how these characters, therefore, prove that the concept of sexuality is fluid and can change, which enables it to influence the other concepts, and vice versa. Moreover, a small discussion of how sexuality links to the concepts of gender and race will be included as well, which will be continued in Chapters Three and Four.

As becomes clear when reading the novels, in all three of them a passionate friendship between two women exists, in which one of the two women always seems to hold more progressive views. In Passing this is Clare, in Sula this is Sula, and in The Color Purple this is Shug. All three women influence their female, often more conservative, companion in such a way that their companions turn towards more progressive ideas as well. At the beginning of the novels, Irene, Nel, and Celie are all traditional house-wives: they are all married or get married, take care of children, and are in charge of housekeeping. Yet their friendship with another woman changes their perspectives on, for example, sexuality. While this is most clear in The Color Purple, in which there not only exists a passionate or romantic friendship

between Celie and Shug but also a sexual one, queer, female relationships can also be found in the two other novels.

family” (189). However, several sexual metaphors and hints can also be found in the novel that suggests a queer relationship between the two women exists. The same goes for Passing. However, because this novel was written in the late 1920s, Larsen was only able to explore “black female sexuality obliquely,” and could permit it “only within the context of marriage, despite the strangling effects of that choice both on her characters and her narratives”

(McDowell 371). Another reason for why sexuality is less openly discussed in that novel is because “the stereotype of the lascivious, oversexed black woman was still much in

circulation during the period Larsen depicts” (Rottenberg 503), and which she did not want to emphasise any further.

In “Passing, Queering: Nella Larsen’s Psychoanalytic Challenge,” Judith Butler also analyses the way in which Passing works as a novel part of queer literature, the effect a non-heterosexual relationship has on the characters, and analyses the use of the word “queer” in the novel. She asserts that at the time “‘queer’ did not yet mean homosexual, but it did encompass an array of meanings associated with deviation from normalcy which might well include the sexual” (426). The eleven instances of the word “queer” in a novel of only eighty pages seem to suggest that Larsen deliberately used this word, and Butler argues that Larsen employs it as “[a] term for betraying what ought to remain concealed” (427). It is also the very notion of passing itself, meaning to be accepted or received as something else, that might not only refer to Clare’s race, as the title suggests, but perhaps to Irene and Clare’s sexuality as well. While Clare and sometimes Irene pass as white women while in fact being black by changing their behaviour, one can argue that she and Irene are at the same time passing as heterosexual women while in fact being queer. Performativity thus plays a role when it comes both to sexuality and to race, as will be discussed in more detail in Chapter Four.

Celie becomes obsessed with Shug Avery from the moment she sees her: “Shug Avery was a woman. The most beautiful woman I ever saw. [...] I ast her to give me the picture. An all night long I stare at it. An now when I dream, I dream of Shug Avery” (Walker 8). In Passing, Irene describes Clare when she first sees her as “[a]n attractive-looking woman, [...], with those dark, almost black, eyes and that wide mouth like a scarlet flower against the ivory of her skin” (Larsen 9). It is also later on in the novel that she describes her as a “lovely

creature” (12), refers to her “incredibly beautiful face” (33), and calls her “stunning” (65) as she is both “beautiful and caressing” (65). Clare is continuously associated with sexuality and “Irene’s descriptions of Clare are exotic, sensual, [and] couched in the discourse of desire. While she dare not articulate explicitly her attraction, Irene cannot escape the urges which Clare evokes in her” (Blackmore 476).

The attraction between Sula and Nel can be said to be different, as it is mainly

spiritual. They share their entire youth together and when Sula returns to the town after years of absence Nel states:

Her old friend had come home. Sula. Who made her laugh, who made her see old things with new eyes, in whose presence she felt clever, gentle and a little raunchy. Sula, whose past she had lived through and with whom the present was a constant sharing of perceptions. Talking to Sula had always been a conversation with herself. (Morrison 95)

close she felt to her, which hints at the existence of more than just a friendship between them. Although at first sight almost all of the women seem heterosexual because they are married to men, the more conservative women, Irene, Nel, and Celie, are all either sexually unsatisfied by men or even scared of them. This is sometimes the case because they were hurt by men or forced to have sex with them, yet these feelings are mostly caused by the fact that the women do not yet realise or deny the fact that they are queer, and are therefore not sexually interested in men. It is when they grow closer to Clare, Sula, and Shug respectively that they start to realise this.

In Passing, Irene and her husband Brian Redfield have not had sex in a long time. Brian asserts that “[if] sex isn’t a joke, what is it?” (Larsen 42). They even sleep in separate rooms and often he is “remote and inaccessible” (68). David Blackmore argues that this is why Brian thinks it is alright for their son Junior to have queer ideas about sex, because it “will save him from the emptiness of Brian and Irene’s heterosexual relationship” (477). Moreover, Clare does not desire another baby as she is afraid to have another child with dark skin, for her husband would find out she herself is actually black. Here, her racial identity thus influences her sexual behaviour, and her passing might even strengthen her queer sexual identity, as in a relationship with another woman she would be and feel safe from the danger of having a coloured child. Nevertheless, it is likely that Clare’s marriage is relatively sexless as well. Therefore, “having established the absence of sex from the marriages of these

women, Larsen can flirt, if only by suggestion, with the idea of a lesbian relationship between them” (McDowell 371).

unsatisfied by men, but is simply unable to love them. She describes that “[t]he men who took her to one or another of those places had merged into one large personality” (Morrison 120), because “[s]he had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade and could never be – for a woman” (121). It is only with Nel that she can find actual love.

Celie, however, is the clearest example of a woman not only being sexually unsatisfied but also afraid, which already comes forward in the horrific scene described at the opening page in which she is raped by her stepfather, which at the time she still considered to be her biological father. Later on, she faces rape, abuse and oppression from her husband Albert, which for some part explains her queer sexual identity. This is because the male oppression she faces as a woman encourages her to explore her sexual identity with a woman with whom she actually feels safe. Here, her gender identity and her position as a woman thus influence her discovery of her sexual identity. Her queerness is already there, yet at first goes

unrecognised as being her sexual orientation. Quite early on in the novel, she describes that she does not “even look at mens. That’s the truth. I look at women, tho, cause I’m not scared of them” (Walker 7). When she has sex with her own husband, she describes that often she pretends that she “ain’t there. He never know the difference. Never ast [her] how [she] feel, nothing. Just do his business, get off, go to sleep” (74). Walker thus “represents black women’s sexual relationships with and tutelage of one another as an alternative to being subjected to masculinist and dominative ideas about sex” (Lewis 162), as only with Shug, Celie is able to find sexual satisfaction which, as will be described in Chapter Three, also allows her to escape her husband’s oppression. One’s gender and sexual identity are thus closely connected.

describes that “it seemed a dreadful thing to think of never seeing Clare Kendry again” (21), and to protect her friend she does not tell Clare’s husband about the fact that Clare is actually black, as the impulse is “obliterated by her consciousness of the danger in which such

rashness would involve Clare” (30). Sula and Nel’s friendship, however, is much stronger as they grow up together, and “it was in dreams that the two girls had first met” (Morrison 51). These dreams, according to Smith, are:

Actually complementary aspects of the same sensuous fairytale. Nel imagines a ‘fiery prince’ who never quite arrives while Sula gallops like a prince ‘on a gray-and-white horse’. The ‘real world’ patriarchy requires, however, that they channel this energy away from each other to the opposite sex. (189)

Since they are both “[d]aughters of distant mothers and incomprehensible fathers (Sula’s because he was dead; Nel’s because he wasn’t), they found in each other’s eyes the intimacy they were looking for” (Morrison 52). Their friendship is described as both “intense” and “sudden” (53), and the two girls cling together because they are to each other “the closest thing to both another and a self” (119). The way in which the relationships between the women are represented as strong friendships explains in part why many readers have not picked up on the possible queer relationships in Passing and Sula. Yet, it are these friendships that develop into spiritual attraction and romantic love between the women later on.

Shug’s body as she states “[a]ll the men got they eyes glued to Shug’s bosom. I got my eyes glued there too” (77). Celie’s sexual awakening because of Shug “not only transforms her relation to her body and to pleasure in general, but also leads to a major shift in her understanding of mastery of power in the world” (Berlant 851). Because her sexual

encounters with Shug are characterised by equality rather than her being dominated by a man, her views regarding power and oppression change as well.

This discovering of one’s sexuality together with another woman also occurs in Sula in which the two girls are playing with sticks. It is described that “[i]n the safe harbor of each other’s company they could abandon the ways of other people and concentrate on their own perceptions of things” (Morrison 55). The language used in the scene, in which they first “[i]n concert, without ever meeting each other’s eyes, [...] stroked the [grass] blades up and down, up and down” (58), clearly hints at a sexual encounter between the two girls. Interestingly enough, although the scene takes place between two girls, the imagery seems heterosexual as the “grass blades” can be seen as a symbol for the male sexual organ, which they stroke “up and down”. Nevertheless, the sexual tension between the girls in the scene clearly comes forward since when the girls later dig a hole using sticks it is explained that “Sula traced intricate patterns in it with her twig. At first Nel was content to do the same. But soon grew impatient and poked her twig rhythmically and intensely into the earth” (58). However, even if one does not interpret this scene as a sexual encounter, it remains an important moment in their relationship as “their friendship develops not just as a bonding of two people in a union, but as a being in the company of one’s self” (Quashie 193), since they continue to dig “until the two holes were one and the same” (Morrison 58). Their relationship is thus transformative as it changes their identities and causes the women’s happiness to be dependent on each other. The same use of language and a metaphor in the digging scene in Sula is also

Deborah McDowell, who was the first critic to read the novel as part of lesbian literature, argues that it is Larsen’s employment of “fire imagery – the conventional representation of sexual desire” in the opening pages and “the novel’s opening image [of] an envelope (a metaphorical vagina) which Irene hesitates to open” (374) that already at the beginning hint at a queer relationship between the two women. Moreover, although only the occasional kiss from Clare on Irene’s “dark curls” (Walker 45) and “bare shoulder” (74) are described, Jordan Landry writes that:

Irene associates Clare with the colors “black,” “scarlet,” “ivory,” and “green” (9), after Irene discovers Clare’s identity, she consistently weds her with gold, the color of the melon (10), Clare’s “golden bowl of a hat” (65), and the “golden tea” in the teacup 64). These phrases link mixed ethnicity (gold), vaginal shapes (melon, bowl, hat, and [a] teacup), and oral consumption (melon, bowl, and tea). (43)

The sexual tension between the two women, similar to that in Sula, is thus hidden in the language and narrative of the novel, which is understandable as, in particular in the time when Passing was written, non-heterosexuality was still a subject that was prohibited and

unaccepted by society.

what would happen if someone were to find out about Clare’s black skin colour and heritage, it can easily be about their secret non-heterosexual relationship as well. Moreover, Irene also worries about the implications for her and her friends if she would bring a seemingly white woman to a dance as she describes how:

[S]he was aware that she had consented to something which, if it went beyond the dance, would involve her in numerous petty inconveniences and evasions. And not only at home with Brian, but outside with friends and acquaintances. The disagreeable possibilities in connection with Clare Kendry’s coming among them loomed before her in endless irritating ways. (Larsen 52)

She mentions how it would bring “inconveniences and evasions,” which would be the case both if people would see the friendship between her and the seemingly white Clare, or the queer relationship between them. However, since queer sexual identities hardly ever featured in novels in the 1930s, readers then and now focus on the racial issues that a mixed-race friendship would bring and do not recognise the possible queer relationship between the two women.

Race thus clouds the discourse of sexuality in Passing, but the same happens in Sula. The discourse of race is more prominent as the underprivileged position of blacks leads to violence and lynchings also referred to in the novels, which will be discussed further in Chapter Four. The only piece of discourse surrounding sexuality in all three of the novels appears at the end of The Color Purple where Celie talks to Albert who states:

let me gain understanding enough to know love can’t be halted just because some peoples moan and moan. It don’t surprise me you love Shug, he say. I have love Shug Avery all my life. (Walker 244-245)

His view is a rather accepting and modern view, even though the book is set in the early twentieth century. The other view that comes forward rather indirectly is slightly less

accepting as “Sofia and Harpo always try to set [Celie] up with some man. They know [she] love[s] Shug, but they think womens love just by accident” (236). They do not condemn the relationship between Celie and Shug, yet do not understand it either. It is this lack of

discourse of sexuality in the novels that causes readers to focus on the discourse that is visible and more prominent, namely that of race.

Furthermore, because Irene is scared of her own sexual feelings for Clare, most critics agree that it is she who pushes Clare out of the window, because to her “Clare is both the embodiment and the object of the sexual feelings that Irene [by killing her] banishes” (McDowell 377). In this way she actually becomes the “instrument and reinforcer of social prejudices and legal prohibitions designed to keep women and African-Americans in place” (Blackmer 58). Irene feels that she cannot threaten the way in which African-Americans are viewed any further by having a queer relationship with Clare. By not challenging, but instead giving into the system, she thus becomes a reinforcer of the social norms as she discards the non-heterosexual attraction she feels towards Clare by murdering her.

even hurt. Wait’ll I tell Nel” (Morrison 169). Even when death is near she thinks only of Nel, and at the end of the novel it is Nel who thinks of Sula when she asserts:

‘All that time, all that time, I thought I was missing Jude.’ And the loss pressed down on her chest and came up into her throat. ‘We was girls together,’ she said as though explaining something. ‘O Lord, Sula,’ she cried, ‘girl, girl, girlgirlgirl.’ It was a fine cry – loud and long – but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow. (Morrison 174)

Here, she realises that after Jude cheated on her with Sula, it was not Jude’s love she was missing but in fact Sula’s, and she finally recognises her own non-heterosexuality. In The Color Purple, the connection between the two women is both romantic and sexual, as both their sexual encounters and their love for each other are described in detail. It is the female queer relationship in the novel Passing that is most complicated to define as a clear attraction between the women exists, but is continuously denied by Irene.

Chapter 3: Traditional Versus Progressive Gender Roles

In the previous chapter, the queer sexual identity of the main characters in the novels was examined, and the effect that this has on the characters’ views on society. However, one other result of the characters’ discovery and acceptance of their non-heterosexuality is the change in their views on masculinity and femininity, which will be discussed at the end of this chapter. However, there will first be an examination of how the characters fit into the female gender role that is in accordance with the heterosexual system. After that, there will be an analysis of how the women are in fact taking on a more progressive, female gender role as a result of their non-heterosexual relationships with other women. This then illustrates how sexuality and gender are in fact connected.

The novels discussed in this dissertation all feature different female characters, yet all of them grow towards being strong African-American women. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, one of the characters mentions that “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world” (Duplessis 104). While the novel is similar to The Color Purple in that the author chose to let some of her characters use African-American English Vernacular (AAEV), Walker “shifts [the] focus from the immediate negative charge carried by the world mule to identify a peculiar strength embodied in the image” (G. Collins 75). This strength comes to the foreground in several ways, especially in Celie’s, but also Irene and Nel’s, “ability to survive” (75). It can be argued that they do this by taking on the role of the traditional woman, who is “a sovereign and executant in the private sphere, which mainly entails housekeeping and caregiving. These women build their identity mainly on the basis of their role as mothers” (García-de-Diego, et al. 41). However, as will be discussed later on in this chapter, the

influence of another progressive black woman alters their views on gender and changes their position in society.

describes, “She was, to [Brian], only the mother of his sons. That was all. Alone she was nothing. Worse. An obstacle” (Larsen 66). Albert’s son Harpo expresses a similar view when he argues that “[a] woman needs to be at home” (Walker 78). However, not only male

characters but also female ones believe that women’s main role should be being a mother, as Albert’s sisters argue that “[w]hen a woman marry she spose to keep a decent house and a clean family” (Walker 20). While one would expect some women to perhaps not openly challenge but at least inwardly object to this point of view, Nel is certainly not one of them, as she thinks that “Sula was wrong. Hell ain’t things lasting forever. Hell is change” (Morrison 108). Nel believes this is not only true for grief and love, but also for motherhood. While “Sula lived her experimental life believing in a hell where stability debilitated; Nel lived her responsible life believing in a Heraclitean hell where flux and change were the painful constants” (Rushdy 145). Nel would rather keep everything the same than run the risk of changing.

When it comes to femininity and masculinity, the women seem to hold traditional views as well, as Irene describes Brian as:

Extremely good-looking. Not, of course, pretty or effeminate; the slight irregularity of his nose saved him from the prettiness, and the rather marked heaviness of his chin saved him from the effeminacy. But he was, in a pleasant masculine way, rather handsome. (Larsen 37)

However, Irene’s views of femininity are traditional as well, as she views Clare as being “intelligent enough in a purely feminine way. Eighteenth-century France would have been a marvellous setting for her, or the old South if she hadn’t made the mistake of being born a Negro” (Larsen 61), suggesting that female intelligence is different and worth less than male intelligence. She also portrays herself as being ignorant compared to men when she asserts “It’s simply that the rest of you are so clever that I’m speechless, absolutely stunned” (78), while she is in fact worrying about a possible affair going on between Brian and Clare. Here, she takes on the role of the black superwoman, as she cannot show her own emotions. She wants to please others, as she describes that she “wasn’t merry. She sat almost silent, smiling now and then, that she might appear amused” (78). This also illustrates the

performative aspect of gender, as she only acts amused and pleased to fulfil her gender role, while in fact she does not feel joyous at all.

She fits nicely ‘into the scheme of things,’ into her society’s hierarchical structure which has a clear moral top and a definite moral bottom. Indeed, Nel admirably performs all of the obligatory roles: dutiful friend, respectful daughter, loyal wife, and nurturing mother. (Bergenholtz 92)

Embracing more progressive views will make her more like Sula, who in the community becomes a “pariah” (Morrison 123), which for Nel would mean losing everything that she now has.

Celie, in particular, is an interesting character when one examines passive behaviour, as she changes a great deal as the novel unfolds, which will be discussed below. In the beginning, she surrenders to the violence and rape she faces from first her father and later her husband. When her father rapes and hurts her, she describes how, when she started to cry, “He start to choke [her], saying You better shut up and git used to it” (Walker 3). The very first line of the novel “You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy” (3) is important here as well, as:

These words, uttered by the presumed father who is also the rapist of his daughter and who has twice impregnated her, establish not only the primacy of a male text, but also convey the essence of patriarchal repression – a silencing of the young Celie – that leaves no recourse but communication with a transcendent white male deity. (Tucker 83)

obsession with Shug, as she represents for her a new opportunity for a strong female bond, which Celie could not have with her mother, who died when she was young, nor her sister, whom she was separated from when she was married off to Albert. It is the support of another female character, who has faced the same kind of oppression and social pressure as she has, that causes her to take more action and control over her own life.

Moreover, it is this passivity of the women that causes them to take up the traditional female supporting role, as Irene describes that “[s]he had only to direct and guide her man, to keep him going in the right direction” (Larsen 77). The manner in which she portrays herself suggests that “[w]ithin the hierarchy of Harlem society, she must identify herself solely in terms of her husband and sons; she is Mrs. Brian Redfield. A wife is by definition only an extension of the husband to whom she remains subordinate” (Blackmore 479). Despite the male oppression, Irene does not feel like she has any other choice, as her whole identity depends on her husband. A similar view is expressed in Sula, where it is described that Nel and Jude “together would make one Jude” (Morrison 83), and thereby Nel’s whole existence seems to be denied.

The way [he] look[s] at the children when they come in while [he is] listening to Gabriel Heatter and break [his] train of thought – not focusing exactly, but giving them an instant, a piece of time, to remember what they are doing, what they are interrupting, and to go on back to wherever they were and let [him] listen to Gabriel Heatter. (105)

To him she is nothing more than an annoying distraction, and he feels no need at all to apologise to her, nor to explain his actions. This, again, shows the oppression that these women face, as he expects her to just walk away and let him continue.

Furthermore, a similar thing happens with Irene, who, when she assumes Brian and Clare are having an affair, asserts “It hurt. It hurt like hell. But it didn’t matter, if no one knew. If everything could go on as before. If the boys were safe. It did hurt. But it didn’t matter” (Larsen 67). She, similar to Nel, does not take any action, and blames herself rather than her husband. Moreover, she also similarly negates herself as she describes that her own pain does not matter. This shows the oppression she and Nel continuously face and how passivity becomes an intrinsic part of their gender identities, as even in a moment of crisis they only think about their husbands and push away their own feelings, just as society has taught them to do.

“[t]here are other things in the world, though [she] admit[s] some people don’t seem to suspect it” (58). Although Irene asserts that it is also “the most responsible, Clare. We mothers are all responsible for the security and happiness of our children” (48), she first “softly agree[s]. For a moment she was unable to say more, so accurately had Clare put into words that which, not so definitely defined, was so often in her own heart of late” (48). It is Clare who helps Irene make sense of her own, already growing, progressive views, but it is society who expects Irene to go against Clare’s argument. For Irene, being a mother is all she knows, and agreeing with Clare would mean that she should be living or fighting for a

different way of life. However, her fear of losing control and her desire to keep everything the same, causes her to disagree with Clare, even though she actually feels the same. She gives in to the social pressure and fulfils the role she is expected to fulfil by arguing that motherhood is the most important job for women.

Moreover, Corinne Blackmer describes that:

While Irene finds Clare’s refusal of her own ‘feminine’ ideal of effacement, self-denial, and service to men proof of her selfish, immoral, and ‘cat-like’ disposition, the example of Clare’s nonconformity not only invokes her reluctant admiration but also eventually shatters her illusions of the inviolability and ‘sanctity’ of masculine propriety and power. (59)

Clare, thus, not only changes Irene’s views concerning motherhood, but also regarding femininity and masculinity, even though Irene actively tries to deny the changes that Clare brings about in her.

have it all?” it is Nel who states “You can’t do it all. You a woman and a colored woman at that. You can’t act like a man. You can’t be walking around all independent-like, doing whatever you like, taking what you want, leaving what you don’t” (Morrison 142). What is even more interesting is Sula’s statement that “You say I’m a woman and colored. Ain’t that the same as being a man?” (142). Sula is arguing that black women are not seen by society as feminine. She, however, takes this negative view and turns it into a positive one, by arguing that African-American women are thus masculine, and equal to men.

Moreover, Andra Gillespie argues that:

There are a number of controlling stereotypes about Black women which serve to diminish their humanity and intrinsic femininity. For instance, the classic mammy stereotype is a Black female figure who is loyal to the White family she serves

(usually as a domestic); however, serving het White family often comes at the expense of being available for her own family. (237)

like a good time, you do,” Celie notices:

How Shug talk and act sometimes like a man. Men say stuff like that to women, Girl, you look like a good time. Women always talk bout hair and health. How many babies living or dead, or got teef. Not bout how some woman they hugging on look like a good time. (77)

Her perspective on this changes, however, and when Albert argues that “Shug act more manly than most men. [...] You know Shug will fight. [...] She bound to live her life and be herself no matter what” (244), Celie argues that he “think all this is stuff men do. But Harpo not like this, [...] You not like this. What Shug got is womanly it seem like to me” (244). While she at first thinks that women are weak and should be subordinate, her relationship with Shug changes this. When Shug tells her she “got the hots for a boy of nineteen” (224), Celie states “My heart hurt so much I can’t believe it. How can it keep beating, feeling like this? But I’m a woman. I love you, I say.” (226). Here, Celie uses the word “woman” as a synonym for strong, which shows how much Shug has influenced Celie’s views.

Clare, Sula, and Shug are all active and progressive women in their own way, and indirectly encourage Irene, Nel, and Celie respectively, to act the same. Clare’s

could already see. It is thus the case that “control of women’s racial and class identity is crucial to men’s identity, and, further, that any threat to this control initiates a violent response” (Landry 35). He feels threatened by the fact that Clare has taken control over her own life, but Irene does a similar thing when she pushes Clare out of the window. She has learned from Clare how to act upon her own feelings, but the feelings she has, as was discussed in Chapter Two, are not accepted by society, and she, therefore, decides to

eliminate them by murdering Clare. Since Irene wants control, even though as a woman she has little influence on her surroundings, she feels empowered when she realises that for once she can make a big change in her life by pushing Clare out of it. Clare’s murder is thus not only the result of non-heterosexual feelings between her and Irene, but is also caused by years of social pressure that Irene has had to face, which she, for a moment, is opposing.

Paradoxically, this means that she is at the same time reinforcing all of society’s expectations for black women, as she eliminates the one character in the novel, Clare, who was going against them by passing for another race, by holding more progressive views about motherhood and femininity, and who potentially had a non-heterosexual identity.

Sula is progressive in that she does not have a husband, but, like her mother, sleeps with whomever she likes as a form of resistance. She is simply “trying them out and

also Nel who takes action and asserts “It ain’t your fault. Sh. Sh. Come on, let’s go, Sula. Come on, now” (63). While Sula later on develops into a rather wild woman, and Nel into a dutiful housewife, it is at the end of the novel that Nel again realises that she was the one who said “Let’s go. We can’t bring him back” (170). Because the two girls spent their childhood together, they thus influence each other’s qualities.

While in Passing and Sula, the non-heterosexual relationship between the women is not explicitly described, in The Color Purple, the effect that being in such a relationship has on the characters’ gender identities comes forward more clearly. It is Shug who encourages Celie to stand up for herself. However, it is also Nettie’s letter with the knowledge “Pa is not our pa!” (159) that creates for Celie a “new tale of paternal origins, [which] empowers [her]” (Berlant 840). Soon after she confronts her stepfather, she and Shug start designing their own home together (189) and start living in Memphis, where Celie is not Shug’s “maid” (191), but her equal. Shug thus places Celie in an equal position rather than in the subordinate position which she was in in her heterosexual marriage with Albert. While this does not make her equal to men, it causes Celie to feel stronger and more empowered, which becomes clear from her conversations with Albert at the end of the novel, in which she expresses her own views and challenges him as well, rather than to simply agree with him or to say nothing at all as she would have done before.

Furthermore, her queer relationship with Shug allows Celie to take a different role in life, and she actually starts her own business making pants for both men and women. These pants are “a product of both female consciousness and female economy, and they are fashioned for individuals so as to encompass both their physical and emotional needs”

of Albert’s house and up to Memphis to live with Shug” (Tucker 90). Moreover, because the pants are meant for all genders, the “unisexuality of the pants deemphasizes the importance of fashion in the social context in which the pants are worn” (Berlant 852). It is thus her

relationship with Shug, whom encourages her to start her own business, which changes Celie’s perspective of gender and her own gender identity.

As this chapter has shown, the views regarding gender and the behaviour of Irene, Nel, and Celie in the novels changes because of their relationship with another woman. They are influenced by the progressive and active position their female companions take in life, and are encouraged to do the same. Furthermore, in the case of Celie, her economic and social

position changes as well because she no longer has to take on a subordinate role in a heterosexual marriage. This means that sexuality and gender are interconnected concepts, since as soon as the sexual identity of a character changes, so does his or her gender role, and vice versa. Furthermore, as we shall see in Chapter Four, the novels do not only show the connection between sexuality and gender, but also how these notions connect to race. The following chapter will discuss how racism is presented in the novels and how the combination of ideas about sexuality, gender, and race, creates the myth of the black superwoman,

Chapter 4: Race and Performativity

Issues of race are often discussed by critics when they are writing about the novels by Larsen, Morrison, and Walker. However, they are often examined separately from issues of gender, and sexuality. Critics focus on how racism comes forward in the novels, which is what this chapter will start with as well, but it will be followed by an analysis of how racism is caused by binary thinking. However, this thinking is proved flawed when one takes in consideration the fact that black women are frequently viewed as oversexed, while black men are not. This points to a connection between sexuality, gender, and race, which shows that one cannot look at a person’s race alone without taking into an account other aspects of their identity. There will then follow an examination of how performativity plays a role when it comes to race and the other notions. Moreover, there will be a discussion of how African-American women either face the myth of the Strong Black Woman or the stereotype of the sexualised Jezebel. This will then lead to a conclusion about the interconnectedness of the three concepts, and how race cannot be separated from sexuality nor gender.

One of the ways in which this interconnectedness comes forward is the similarities between sexuality, gender, and race, when it comes to binary thinking. In 1963, African-American author James Baldwin wrote in his book The Fire Next Time that “the power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s

definitions” (qtd. in Jones 85). However, the novels by Larsen, Morrison, and Walker show that this is not only the case for black men, but also black women. As Nadine Ehler had argued in Chapter One, race is often, similar to gender, performed, but, as the first part of this chapter will show, racism is based on the fact that there are supposedly essential differences between the various races.

have a nigger maid around her for love nor money. Not that I’d want her to. They give me the creeps. The black scrimy devils” (Larsen 29-30). He calls Clare “Nig,” because he finds it funny that “she’s gettin’ darker and darker” (29), yet does not seem to realise that his wife’s ethnic background is actually not purely white. He cannot see her as an African-American as long as she is with him, a white man, but when she associates with African-Americans at the end of the novel he realises that she is “a nigger, a damned dirty nigger” (79), even though she herself has not changed, only her surroundings. She thus becomes black through “proximity, where ‘race’ itself is figured as a contagion transmissible through proximity” (Butler

“Passing” 421)

Moreover, Butler argues that there is another assumption here that if Bellew:

Were to associate with blacks, the boundaries of his own whiteness, and surely that of his children, would no longer be easily fixed. Paradoxically, his own racist passion requires that association; he cannot be white without blacks and without constant disavowel of his relation to them. (421)

As was discussed in Chapter One, a person can only be white if that person defines him or herself as non-black, which means that to keep in place a system that places whites above African-Americans, the differences between races need to be continuously emphasised. This is where the racism that Bellew expresses comes from. When Irene, who is offended by his views but does not speak up, asks whether Bellew had “ever known any Negroes?” he states “‘Thank the Lord, no! And never expect to! But I know people who’ve known them, better than they know their black selves. And I read in the paper about them. Always robbing and killing people. And,’ he added darkly, ‘worse’” (30). In his eyes, “worse” could be

The mixing of races was not only socially unacceptable, but also prohibited by a law at the time when the novel was written and set. This explains why, as will be discussed further below, people condemned passing for another race, as this could lead to mixed-race children. Yet, as was mentioned before, racism can only exist if there are actually essential differences between races, which one can argue there are not. Race is performed by acting and portraying yourself as not belonging to the other races. One race can thus not exist or be defined as “white” or “black” without the existence of the other. The fact that race can be performed is clearly showed by how the African-American women are able to pass as white. Clare describes that she “often wondered why more coloured girls, [...] – oh, lots of others – never ‘passed’ over. It’s such a frightfully easy thing to do. If one’s the type, all that’s needed is a little nerve” (Larsen 18), which shows that it is not that difficult to pass as someone of another race. Irene states that “it would not be so simple for a white person to ‘pass’ for coloured,” and Hugh, a white man, states that he had “[n]ever thought of that” (56). This is not surprising as he, as a white person, has no reason to desire to be a black person, as society clearly privileges those who are white over those who are black. But the fact that blacks can pass as whites, but whites cannot pass as blacks, gives the African-Americans a kind of power and choice, which the whites do not have.

However, many of the African-Americans actually look down on passing, as Irene describes that “We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we

miscegenation as these mixed-raced people would again be able to pass and marry people of another race. Allowing miscegenation and passing would thus lead to a vicious circle that would end with whites losing their privileged position as there would no longer exist a pure white race.

Brian believes that passing is the “[i]nstict of the race to survive and expand,” just as the whites “left bastards all over the known earth” (39). But while Brian looks at passing from a positive, biological perspective, most of the other African-Americans characters in the novels look down on those who are of mixed race or who sleep with people from another race, as the men in Sula believe Sula is:

Guilty of the unforgivable thing – the thing for which there was no understanding, no excuse, no compassion. The route from which there was no way back, the dirt that could not ever be washed away. They said that Sula slept with white men. (Morrison 112)

For these men, it is not the problem of miscegenation, but the fact that she is willing to, even in a sexual relationship, subordinate herself to a white person. Yet, their point of view can be seen as hypocritical as “their own skin color [is] proof that it had happened in their own families” as well, yet not even “was the willingness of black men to lie in the beds of white women a consideration that might lead them toward tolerance” (113).

merely occurs in the blank margin of the page. It is so natural for Irene to pass that she is not even conscious of doing so” (Brody 399). Later on, she also states that she believes she has never “gone native in [her] life except for the sake of convenience, restaurants, theatre tickets, things like that. Never socially I mean, except once” (Larsen 70). Therefore, while Irene:

Voices a moral objection to Clare’s passing as white, it is clear that Irene engages many of the same social conventions of passing as Clare. Indeed, when they both meet after a long separation, they are both in a rooftop café passing as white. (Butler

“Passing” 419)

Irene can thus be seen as an unreliable narrator, who shows exactly how easy it can be to pass for another race when one views race as a spectrum.

When one compares the notions of sexuality, gender, and race, the existence of a private and a public identity comes forward, as one can decide to express oneself differently in public than in private. This is in particular the case for sexuality, which can be rather easily hidden from the public sphere. Yet, the performativity theory shows that one’s race can be hidden as well, since the women in Passing are able to pass for another race by adjusting their behaviour. However, having a white ethnicity, being a female, and being

non-heterosexual, forces Irene to look at race as if it is not performed but part of her identity. Irene feels she is:

might be, all three. (Larsen 69)

Here, Irene realises “how easily she could put Clare out of her life” (69) by telling Bellew that Clare is actually black, but is unable to do so because she feels the need to protect her as she belongs to the same race. She thus feels like she:

Must inevitably confront the stereotype that women of her race are Jezebels. White American culture tells her that black female identity centers around desire, that in fact an African-American woman is nothing but a beast driven by irrepressible sexuality. The key, then, to combating this stereotype lies in the repression of desire to the constricted realm of respectable marriage. (Blackmore 478)

While Clare is embracing the fact that she is able to pass as white because of her mixed ethnicity, Irene condemns the act of passing and represses her sexuality.

affect the others. Playing the role of a white woman, for example, also affects how people view her gender and sexuality. Moreover, the fact that she has the ability to choose shows the ineffectiveness of the supposed system, when people are able to switch between categories. It is Clare that already realises this, although Irene, the unreliable narrator, provides readers with a rather negative view of Clare’s passing. She argues that:

She had to Clare Kendry a duty. She was bound to her by those very ties of race, which for all her repudiation of them, Clare had been unable to completely sever. And it wasn’t, as Irene knew, that Clare cared at all about the race or what was to become of it. She didn’t. [...] Clare Kendry cared nothing for the race. She only belonged to it. (Larsen 36)

While both Irene and Clare are black, Irene believes that only she cares about the reputation of blacks and their social position, and that Clare does not. She believes that Clare is

negatively influencing the reputation of blacks. However, Clare is in fact positively

influencing the position of black women in society as she takes control over her own life, and is not the only woman who believes the world could be different. Celie argues that if men would listen to “poor colored women, the world would be a different place” (Walker 173), and Sula and Nel discover as well that “they [are] neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, [and] they had set about creating something else to be” (Morrison 52).

When looking at these novels side by side and comparing the various female