ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: AFRICAN-AMERICAN MODERNISM IN THE NOVELS OF JESSIE FAUSET AND NELLA LARSEN Mary Hairston McManus, Doctor of Philosophy, 1992 Dissertation directed by: Dr. Joyce Ann Joyce Professor, English Because early critical evaluations of the literary works of Jessie Fauset and Nella Larsen were superficial, their reading audience generally regarded both writers as sentimentalists and authors in the genteel tradition. A close analytical study of Plum Bun, The Chinaberry Tree, Quicksand, and Passing reveals the presence of a feminist sensibility not widely discerned. The themes which these two writers e mploy are typically mainstream modernist, whereas their strategies are African-American. Both Fauset and Larsen depict the mulatta as alienated, restless, and c onfused in her quest for autonomy and self-expression. Because the rnulatta image is acceptable to a wide reading a udience, it becomes an ideal narrative strategy for deflecting attention from issues of female sexuality, female subjectivity, and female spaces. Fauset and Larsen bring their writing into the modern era by conjoining the historical, African-American technique of masking with thematic strands which adhere to the modernist ideology. Such a literary plan requires a re- defining of modernism to include race and gender. When the execution of that plan results in an empowering of oppressed groups and a heightened consciousness of the female presence in literature and in society, we have African-American modernism. Fauset and Larsen expand upon a sensibility which their literary predecessor Frances Harper suggested in her novel. These two writers of the Harlem Renaissance anticipate by approximately fifteen years the handling of feminist issues by such writers as Zora Neale Hurston, Dorothy West, and Ann Petry. Fauset's and Larsen's novels, along with those of Hurston, West, and Petry, demonstrate the evolution of sexuality from a masked female issue for reasons of morality and respectability to the greater openness seen in later works. The mulatta's significance as a masking strategy diminishes as these writers exercise a female subjectivity. Fauset's reliance upon a female subjectivity results in greater use of material consumption while Larsen explores unconventional female spaces. Both writers display African- American modernist tendencies through experimenting with greater sexual expression, individuality, and displacement of the woman from a male-centered perspective. Fauset and Larsen use the mulatta in their novels to explore new and broader arenas for female expression. Likewise, a re-configuration of modernism to include empowerment of race and gender insures both Fauset and Larsen a less marginalized position in the literary world. AFRICAN-AMERICAN MODERNISM IN THE NOVELS OF JESSIE FAUSET AND NELLA LARSEN by Mary Hairston McManus Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Maryland in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1992 C \ . 1v, Advisory Committee: Dr. Joyce Ann Joyce, hair erson/Advisor Dr. Jackson Bryer Dr. David Wyatt Dr. John Howard Dr. Maurice Bennett Dr. Cordell Black Mo. yl ~ L ? , t M ., <--1 M.~. @ Copyright by Mary Hairston McManus 1992 ii DEDI CAT I ON To the memory o f my parents iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express sincere thanks to all of the institutions, agencies, departments, and individuals that made it possible for me to complete this study. The most recent benefactor is the National Endowment for the Humanities, which awarded me, through Bowie State University, a fellowship for the 1991 calendar year. And during the 1989-90 academic year and the fall semester of 1990, I received a student Support Grant from the Graduate School of The University of Maryland, for which I am equally appreciative. Bowie State University's administration was generous in allowing me time off from my teaching duties. I owe special thanks to the Chairman of Humanities and Fine Arts. To my advisory committee I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude. Professor Joyce Ann Joyce not only advised me from afar after she joined the faculty at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, but it was also she who motivated me to resume serious graduate study and stimulated my interest in the Harlem Renaissance through courses she taught. Professor Jackson Bryer and Professor David Wyatt afforded me the opportunity in their classes to view American literature in its Lany dimensions. Professor John Howard, and later Professor Wyatt, instilled confidence and made the iv terminal degree process manageable in their respective capacities as Graduate Director in English. Professor Maurice Bennett also encouraged me and offered critical advice. The Department of English was generally supportive. Special appreciation goes to Professor Eugene Hammond as Chair of the department, who helped with the logistics of pursuing a degree in the English area. Also, Professor Mary Helen Washington gave me invaluable insight into feminist studies and critiqued my work in its embryonic stage. I want to express appreciation to the staff at the following research centers: the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, the Library of Congress, the Project on the History of Black Writing at Northeastern University, and the McKeldin Graduate Library at University of Maryland, college Park. Also, two gracious ladies whose families knew Fauset and/or Larsen granted me telephone interviews: Katharine Banks of Orange, New Jersey, and Alice Jackson Stewart of Richmond, Virginia. Numerous friends and colleagues offered encouragement and support, ranging from xeroxing to computer expertise. To my family I owe much gratitude for their personal interest and assistance: my two sisters, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, and especially my two sons and my husband. The lat-ter three returned to me the V moral support which they claim they owed from their undergraduate days, graduate school, and career building. Their faith in my ability was priceless. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Section Chapter I Introduction 1 Chapter II Female Sexuality: 23 A Display of African- American Modernism in Plum Bun and Quicksand Chapter III Female Subjectivity 81 Through Material Consumption in Plum Bun and The Chinaberry Tree Chapter IV Progression in African-American 139 Modernism: Deforming Female Spaces in Quicksand and Passing Chapter V Conclusion 188 Works Consulted 210 Works Cited 217 1 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION The Harlem Renaissance for several decades has held fascination for those persons -- scholars and the masses interested in the cultural milieu of African-Americans. Repeatedly historians refer to the 1920s as a seminal period in African-American culture, though even today disputes surround the exact period of this artistic revolution. Some historians and critics argue that the Harlem Renaissance began as early as 1919 and lasted until 1934. 1 Several writers focus on 1924 when the cultural revolution was publicly recognized. 2 But nearly all critics agree that the climax occurred in 1928. 3 By sheer numbers that was the year of greatest productivity: five different 1 David Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue (New York: Oxford UP, 1979). Lewis's historical account of the movement discusses a wide array of events and literary figures; however, Lewis, at one point in his text, marks the movement's inception with the end of World War I -- 1919 (xvi). Somewhat later a conflicting statement begins, "Nineteen twenty-five -- Year I of the Harlem Renaissance II (117} ? 2 See Arna Bontemps, "The Awakening: A Memoir," The Harlem Renaissance Remembered, ed. Arna Bontemps (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1972} 1; Amritjit Singh, The Novels of the Harlem Renaissance (University Park: Penn State UP, 1976)3. 3 Ernest Kaiser, "The Literature of Harlem," Black Expression. ed. Addison Gayle, Jr. (New York: Weybright and Talley, 1969) 239-255. Kaiser's essay documents the literary and historical publications, including dissertations, done by Harlem writers and about Harlem starting with the 1900s. 2 novelists -- W.E.B. DuBois, Jessie Fauset, Rudo l ph Fisher, Nella Larsen, and Claude McKay -- published the i r works; two of the writers were women; and most of these artists, along with others who comprised the "new Negro movement," had already published poetry, short stories, or novels by 1928. Other cultural developments also contribute to this zenith: Opportunity and Crisis awarded their first prizes for literary expression at the NAACP's awards dinner in 1924, and by 1928 the prizes had become a regular citation. And most notably, The New Negro had been in circulation long enough to become the "cultural Bi ble" for the movement . Important to the regenerative period which we call the Harlem Renaissance was the changing landscape for minorities, a shift from the rural south to the northern urban areas. Anticipating escape from the brutality, bigotry, and poverty indigenous to the south, thousands of African-Americans migrated north. The war industries provided jobs for many of those who ordinarily would not have been offered work and for many women who, were it not for men-turned- soldiers, would not have been expected to seek employment. Such a burgeoning labor market strengthened the economy, created the need for more housing, and unwittingly occasioned a more distinctive class system among African-Americans. The influx of minorities marked the beginning of Lenox Avenue as the main thoroughfare for Harlem's African-American community and "Sugar Hill," 3 overlooking the Lenox Avenue district, as the section of Harlem where the city's most prosperous African-Americans would live. Such a division marks more clearly the establishment of an elite class based on economic prosperity. Apart from the issue of class, Harlemites already knew or soon discovered that racism and sexism were not exclusively southern practices. However, the sense of power and possibility engendered in this period inspired them to organize and demand more equitable living and working conditions. Publications such as The Crisis, an instrument of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; The Messenger, a more radical paper run initially by A. Philip Randolph; and Opportunity, a scholarly paper and tool of the Urban League, aided the movement toward greater freedom for African-Americans. The spirit of progress which these publications imbued would go a long way towards the empowerment of a race. For although Harlem was the site for much of the expansion which characterized this period, persons outside Harlem witnessed reverberations from the growth as well. The politics of the Harlem Renaissance advocated a new world order which included placing race issues "before a world forum," as Nathan Huggins so aptly describes it in Harlem Renaissance (41). There was interest not only in improving the status of African-Americans, but also in 4 ensuring international protection of people o f Af r i can descent. w. E. B. DuBois's participation in the Pan-African Congresses effected much of the revolutionary attention to parity for minority races. James Weldon Johnson assisted DuBois on the international leve l while Charles Johnson, Jessie Fauset, and Walter White assumed leadership on a national scale. The philosophy of these leaders and their subsequent texts informed a race consciousness and an urban pluralism on the part of African-Americans, prompting them to reject white patronage and to encourage cultural autonomy. Such conscious behavior was termed "race building" and the disciples of such teaching were the "new Negroes." The term "new Negro" described not only the new racial attitude, but also the new literary movement led by Alain Locke, along with James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and Jessie Fauset. Many considered Locke to be the intellectual father of the cultural revolution . Championing intellectual achievement, he continuously challenged the "new Negro" to direct her/his talent to creative expression, away from mere propaganda and debate. Locke was, indeed, the one who identified modernist trends within the African-American literary community. He saw writers such as Fauset, Fisher, and Toomer producing a new aesthetic, a new body of art for art's sake, writing for themselves as African-Americans, but not necessarily for the race. Making a fine distinction 5 between the earlier writers who felt that their art should be propagandistic and these ''new Negro" writers, Locke noted, It has been their achievement ... to bring the artistic advance of the Negro sharply into stepping alignment with contemporary artistic thought, mood, and style. They are thoroughly modern, some of them ultra- modern, and Negro thoughts now wear the uniform of the age (The New Negro 50). What becomes problematic about Locke's observation is his tendency to approve conformity. While it seems plausible for the new artists to retain in their work some of the qualities of modern art, it seems even more important for the character inherent in an African-American culture to manifest itself in the creations of its people. As the intellectual leader, Locke failed to acknowledge the inclusion of culture-specific qualities in the music, painting, sculpture, or literature. One has only to hear the musical compositions of Eubie Blake, view the paintings of Aaron Douglas, watch the cabaret performances of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, or read the poetry of Gwendolyn Bennett, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes to recognize the African-American grain. While the works of Langston Hughes, Aaron Douglas, and Jean Toomer reflect the experimental form of mainstream 6 modernism, they also bear distinct tra i ts character i sti c of the African-American culture. Hughes's blues and jazz poetry earned him the title of "poet laureate of the Negro world." His blues poems reflect the sorrow, despair, and desolation of lost love, or the overpowering feeling of emotional and sexual ecstasy. Yet they praise the culture or protest the conditions of African-Americans. Douglas received wide acclaim for his geometrically styled paintings which served in many instances as illustrations for the poetry and fiction of his era. Though his work bore the formal qualities of modernism, he created images of Biblical stories, Negro spirituals, and African-American customs. 4 Coupled with Hughes and Douglas in their distinctive genres was Toomer whose Cane defied a genre classification with its pastiche of short fiction, poetry, and drama. Most critics assume that these artists are valid representations of modernism while their art shows the indelible presence of African heritage and ethnocentricity. Because this study seeks to evaluate the specific components of African-American modernism in Harlem Renaissance art, it seems necessary to show how African- American modernism differs from mainstream modernism. Modernism, as Norman Cantor discusses it in Twentieth Century Culture: Modernism to Deconstruction, encompasses 4 See David Driskell' s essay "The Flowering of the Harlem Renaissance" in Harlem Renaissance Art of Black America (New York: Abrams, 1987). 7 nearly a forty-year period from 1900 to 1940. Like other cultural revolutions, modernism emerged as a result of changing intellectual values and dissatisfaction with the ideology of previous eras. And, like the Harlem Renaissance, this more pervasive revolution had an impact on politics, philosophy, literature, and the visual and performing arts. Cantor identifies several new intellectual characteristics apparent in modernist literature: microcosmic thinking, rejection of polarities, anti- historicism, cultural despair, isolation and fragmentation. Micro-cosmic thinking as a modernist trait emphasizes the minute particles of human experience and art, devoting attention to detail and stressing the need to examine the specific in order to understand the whole (36). It represents a departure from the universalist thinking of the nineteenth century. Among American modernists, Ernest Hemingway's novels stand as prime examples of micro-cosmic thought. In the personal quest for self-identity, heroicism, or love, characters in Hemingway's novels engage in terse dialogue in a cafe scene or from a hospital bed, shutting out much of the action of the outside world. This study shows that Nella Larsen also replicates this kind of micro-cosmic thinking in Quicksand. Therefore, her novel is modernist to a degree. Modernism also advocates a commingling of forces and consequently a rejection of absolute poles of thought and 8 behavior. Where distinctions in time and space and gender existed, modernists perceive of interactive functions (38). such perception ostensibly results in a more liberal and open sexuality, paving the way for androgyny and feminism. 5 Critics turn to Gertrude Stein's Three Lives and Toomer's Cane as works reflecting this modernist blend. Both works, modernist in form and theme, depict ethnic masses concealing their disillusionment behind an exterior of physical satisfaction. Cultural despair or cynicism, depicted oftentimes in mournful and sad imagery, replaced the optimism of the Victorian era. A spiritual malaise resulted from the pessimism of the modernist movement. Much of the literature subsequently reflects individuals with an eroding self- identity. The loss of social or group action, sometimes known as contact with Other, manifests itself in a kind of "death-in-life" existence. European critic Hartwig Isernhagen explains the loss of communication in terms of "increased activity without productivity" {20). Writers use the modernist themes of frenetic activity, fragmentation, and isolation to depict such despair, personal as well as cultural. Jake and Ray, characters in Claude McKay's Home 5 See The Gender of Modernism: A Critical Anthology edited by Bonnie Kime Scott. Scott contends that modernist scholars need to move toward a new scope for modernism, to embrace gender, race, and marginal genres. She views traditional modernism as white male-gendered, emphasizing the privileged genres' of the novel and poetry. 9 to Harlem, represent the despair and marginalization which lower-class and middle-class African-Americans endured. Also, Wallace Thurman's Infants of the Spring depicts how racism exacerbates the alienation of artists. Though the modernist themes of isolation and fragmentation and the formal patterns of microcosmic thinking manifest themselves in some of the art of the Harlem Renaissance, African-American artists did not restrict themselves to that temper. Moreover, anti- historicism, one of the dominant traits of mainstream modernism, becomes problematic in Harlem Renaissance literature. Traditional modernism advocates the discovery of truth by the close examination of an object outside historical sequence. In other words, modernism holds that all time is irretrievable and that understanding the present through direct symbolic meaning is the responsibility of the creator and the interpreter of art. Denying the relevancy of historical events to modern art is an especially problematic aspect of modernism for African-American artists. They find it essential to connect historical events, especially slavery and its repercussions, with nearly all artistic expression. Although the characters in the 1920s fiction of McKay, Larsen, and Toomer, for instance, have what Michael Cooke refers to as "self- exhausting mobility," and "a rootlessness in time or space," a slave heritage informs these modernist traits. In terms 10 of the Harlem Renaissance then, ant i-historicism and rejection of polarities become prime examples of the need to re-define modernism. Two African-American scholars whose work articulates the relationship between modernism and Harlem Renaissance literature are Arnold Rampersad and Houston Baker. Rampersad explains the importance of blues and jazz music to modern poetry while Baker re-defines modernism to show interaction between tradition and the distinctive form of African-American expression. In an essay6 focusing on the beginning influence of modernism on African-American culture, Arnold Rampersad opens with a rather scathing attack of Ralph Ellison who, as a young undergraduate, confessed to seeing no connection between modernism and the blues. Rampersad reports, however, Ellison's recognition of a kinship between modern poetry and jazz music. Rampersad traces modernist traits seen in Paul Laurence Dunbar's, James Weldon Johnson's, W.E.B. DuBois's, and Fenton Johnson's poetry, in Jean Toomer's cane, and in Bruce Nugent's short stories. Rampersad notes that Countee Cullen and Claude McKay break from the canon of renaissance writers in that the two choose to remain with conservative forms. The indignation which Rampersad has for Ellison's inability 6 This essay, along with the others which H coar mle pm ri seR enaissance: Revaluations edited by Am Si rn ig tjh i, t originated from a conference on Harlem Ren l ait ise sr aa nt cu er e held at Hofstra University, Long Islan Y d,o rk N, e wM ay 2-4, 1985. 11 to see the blues as the progenitor of jazz matches his indignation at Melvin Tolson's repudiation of his own African-American heritage in the language of his poetry. Regarded as "the first authentic black modernist poet," Tolson comes under attack in Rampersad's essay for failing to make his poetry the accessible art which racial feeling demands. Further, Tolson appears to take on the modernist form of obfuscation at the encouragement of Allen Tate and similar white critics. "The result," says Rampersad, "was poetry beyond the ability of all but a few readers to understand, let alone enjoy" (58) . Rampersad's point is well-taken, for he shows how Langston Hughes's poetry, in contrast to Tolson's, is imbued not only with racial feeling designed to empower the Black race, but also is "loyal to the essential modernist criterion" (60) of focusing on the present. Indicating Hughes's rejection of European modernism and the elitism of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Wallace Stevens, Rampersad shows Hughes in a closer alliance with the earlier modernist poets Walt Whitman, Vachel Lindsay, and especially Carl Sandburg, singers of the common people. Whether Hughes embraced these writers to any great degree is still open to debate; what becomes more important to this study is his obvious awareness of " the black modern" being different from "the white modern" and subsequently "structur[ing] his art ... along the lines of that black modernism" (Rampersad 61). 12 The art form which Rampersad calls Afr i can- American modernism, which he claims Ellison was unable to identify, is the blues. Although the blues as the earl i est form of African-American modernism is the culminating point of Rampersad's essay, Hughes's blues poetry serves merely as a paradigm, for Rampersad adds the following qualification: Far from suggest i ng that only Langston Hughes in the Harlem Renaissance discovered the black modern, I see the whole Harlem movement as struggling toward its uncovering .... [T]he Harlem Renaissance was simply an attempt by the artists to understand blues values and to communicate them to the white modern world (67). Just as Rampersad expands the scope of modernism to include the blues form, in Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance Baker discusses forms of African-American expression which he terms mastery of form and deformation of mastery. These are strategies which Baker uses to inform a dichotomous state of African-American modernism begun by Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois. Citing Washington's Up from Slavery as a paradigm of mastery of form, Baker equates form with a mask which he shows Washington using to conceal those revolutionary ideas which a white audience would find offensive and to display those behaviors which the same audience anticipates. Washington's white contemporaries, for example, did not encourage oratory 13 and literacy skills among African- Americans although Washington himself possessed them and advocated them for his race. Washington masters form by interjecting a tale of his mother allegedly stealing a chicken which she prepares late at night and awakens her children to consume. His portrayal of his mother as a chicken thief becomes a mask which his white audience found "soothing and reassuring" because it projected, according to Baker, "a formidably familiar image of 'Negro behavior"' (27). Baker convincingly shows how Washington engages in the dialect i c of culpability and inculpability: though he produces the image of his mother as a chicken thief, he appropriates historicism, suggesting that she was "simply a victim of the system of slavery." More significantly in terms of Baker's theory of mastery of form, Washington's chief ambition is to write of literacy and oratory as skills related to the acquisition of freedom, skills which he must conceal behind the chicken-stealing incident. Baker observes that Washington "achieves an effective modernity," providing empowerment of his race (31, 3 6} ? African-American modernism acquires a fuller dimension through Baker's explanation of deformation of mastery as exemplified in DuBois's Souls of Black Folk. The mask, which Washington feels obliged to don, DuBois deforms or destroys. Unlike Washington, DuBois provides in Souls a "cultural performance" intended to display in a lyrical 14 manner the disappointments and aspirations of the African- American. With little inclination to couch his message in ambiguous language and compromising anecdotes, DuBois offers a new resonance. To reiterate his theory that mastery of form and deformation of mastery are African-American modernist forms which contribute to empowerment of the race, Baker concludes, "If Washington provides a speaking manual, then DuBois offers a singing book" (68). The lyricism of DuBois's work does not obscure his belief that African- Americans have suffered tragically from the institution of slavery and the racism subsequent to slavery's abolition. The appropriateness of the lyrical quality -- ''the singing book" -- lies in DuBois's belief also that African- Americans' double-consciousness affords them a view of society far clearer than the blind-vision which people outside the African-American center sometimes exercise. The twenty-five year time lapse between the release of Washington's and DuBois's works and the publishing/ performance/display of Harlem Renaissance art did not eliminate the need for concern about what the white reading audience would accept. 7 A retrospective analysis of the 7 See "The Negro in Art: How Shall He Be Port A r ayS ey dm ?p osium," The Crisis (April December E 1d 9i 2t 6o )r .s of this NAACP instrument considered the s i ig sn si uf ei cant enough to pose seven questions to a r vt ais rit os u. s The following is a sample questi p ou nb : lish "e Cr as n be criticized for refusing to handl t eh a nt o p vo elr st ray Negroes of education and accomplishm t eh ne t, g or no und that these characters are no differen w t hi ft re o mf olk and therefore not interesting?" (April 1926) 15 creative writing of that period can plausibly reveal the use of subversive strategies comparable to those in Up From Slavery. The theory of mastery of form, theref ore, seems especially applicable to the work of Harlem Renaissance writers interested in raising the consciousness of society on matters pertaining to race and gender. As DuBois predicted, race continued to be problematic, and a more equitable consideration of modernity would also include gender. Therefore, incorporating the talents of the intelligentsia and the proletariat, Harlem Renaissance writing embraces an African-American modernist ideology and form distinct from Euro-American modernism. What has not been fully recognized, in my view, is the significant role women writers played in shaping a female literary tradition as part of the African-American modernist movement. Jessie Redmon Fauset and Nella Larsen are part of that revision, contributing significantly to the consideration of gender as part of the movement. Fauset's Plum Bun and The Chinaberry Tree and Larsen's Quicksand and Passing embellish a tendency begun by several nineteenth century women writers -- focusing on the plight of the African-American woman. From the Harlem Renaissance emerge four novels which have female protagonists who express the tension between domestic roles and the pursuit of careers and who explore the limitations of female sexual expression. 278. 16 Fauset and Larsen improvise upon the strategies of nineteenth-century slave narratives and serve as precursors to African-American women writers of the 1930s and the 1940s. Such an empowerment of race places both writers in the vanguard of African-American modernism. Furthermore, Fauset and Larsen represent African-American modernism from a female perspective. The two writers' strategy involves the use of the mulatta, which becomes a mask for the exploration of a female sensibility. Each author is aware of the common tendency among writers of both races to portray the mulatta in fiction, sometimes as a tragic figure groping for her identity, pondering the notion of passing or of intermarriage, often belonging to the bourgeois class and nearly always emerging as a virtuous and intelligent character. 8 Thus the mastery of form as a modernist strategy becomes applicable to both Fauset's and Larsen's novels. As I analyze Fauset?s novels I intend to show that throughout them she masks the conditions, the treatment, the aspirations, and desires of women. Although Larsen utilizes 8 Judi th Berzon discusses the mulatto fictional types in her book Neither White Nor Black, noting distinctions between the mulatto used in African-American fiction and that written by whites. One theory by Berzon which deserves attention here pertains to a racist tendency by white authors to have the character's life always end in tragedy, the tragic end suggesting the racial disharmony and lost potential of the mulatto being. Where this occurs in Larsen's fiction, I take the position later in this study that the tragedy is gender related and not primarily racial. 17 the mulatta mask to a degree, she throws it off on occ asion to reveal the heretofore repressed desires of women. Essentially this study wi ll examine Fauset's and Larsen's representation of the African-Amer i can woman and their use of Afr ican-American modernis t trends to show their continued awareness not only o f the double- consciousness of which DuBois spoke, but of a "double" double-consc i ousness9 based on gender and race. I want t o examine three strands o f a female ideology embedded in the novels of Fauset and Larsen and discernible through the mulatta as an African- American modernist strategy: the attention to female sexuality, the use of material consumption as a form of female subjectivity, and the mirroring of symbolic female spaces. When modernism, both traditional and African-American, becomes inflected with gender, the issues of female sexuality, female subjectivity, and symbolic female spaces assume greater importance and women writers such as Fauset and Larsen acquire more prominent roles as modernist writers. I regard both women as sharing their status with predecessors and successors, for the works of these two women writers form part of a continuum of African-American women's writing. Frances E.W. Harper's Iola Leroy becomes the first work in the continuum; its alignment with African- 9 The idea of "double" double-consciousness was borrowed from an unpublished, untitled poem by Ken McManus . 18 American modernism stems from a historical perspective. Harper uses the female mulatta as a narrative strategy, not so much to mask female concerns as to posit the adversities of slavery. Much in the manner of Booker T. Washington, Harper masks literacy and race autonomy while writing openly of racial uplift. In her introduction to Harper's Iola Leroy, Hazel Carby writes, ''Iola Leroy was a novel written for the edification of black youth: a contribution toward their education and the ethical and moral precepts of intellectual leadership" (xvi). Carby concludes that Harper's concern for African-American youth "showed a concern for the future of the race." Through her use of the mulatta to depict literacy and racial uplift, Harper ostensibly directs "her voice toward women.'' Reconstruction, however, constrains Harper's novel, and Iola's search for family and true racial heritage precludes her search for an individual identity except that acquired through marriage. Having drawn the historical and literary parameters for the discussion of Fauset's and Larsen's works in the introductory chapter, I begin in Chapter Two of this study to discuss female sexuality as a conflation of the traditional modernist trend towards greater openness on sexual matters and the African-American modernist technique of masking sexuality for reasons of morality. The works which form a continuum for the analysis of female sexuality 19 are I ola Leroy, Quicksand, Plum Bun, a nd Their Eyes Were watching God. Both Fauset and Lars en, though still reluctant to write openly of sexual matters, move farther away from Harper' s ideas of marr iage f or moral i ty's sake and individual happiness subsumed by r acial uplift . Yet, the repression of sexuality remains: in Plum Bun, manifesting itself through Fauset's use of objective correlatives; in Quicksand, through fragmentation and frenetic travel. Both novels display a commodification o f sex: Helga Crane b e comes a sex object both in Harlem and in Denmark; Angela Murray initiates her own commodification through passing and engaging in free love. Finally, this section shows how Fauset and Larsen make space for Hurston's treatment of female sexuality: Janie's status as a mulatta diminishes; marriage for legitimacy of sex decreases, and sexual passion emerges through a romantic image rather than through the objective correlative which informs a condition or behavior completely devoid of emotion. In Chapter Three I analyze female subjectivity through material consumption. Just as female sexuality assumes a different status depending upon the societal codes which the author rejects, so does the significance of material and bourgeois property increase or diminish based on the writer's reliance upon individuality. This chapter refutes the androcentric approach to the use of middle-class symbols and bourgeois life-styles in Fauset's novels. While there 20 is no attempt to deny the presence of conventional propriety, I show that part of Fauset's African-American modernist strategy is to posit female individuality and immanence without regard for public reaction. Fauset takes her cue in Plum Bun and The Chinaberry Tree from Harper's Iola whose material possessions are linked patriarchally to her white father. Iola becomes disinherited upon the father's death and can re-acquire such possessions only through the roles of wife and teacher. Though Harper makes bold attempts as a nineteenth-century writer to liberate her female protagonist, on a continuum reflective of female subjectivity, Fauset has more success. Through daring plot and theme experiments, Fauset invokes race ''passing" and "free love'' to depict female subjectivity and to disrupt the formulaic principles drawn up for minority writers. Plum Bun and The Chinaberry Tree become precursors to later works such as Dorothy West's novel The Living Is Easy. This novel, published in 1948, seems to be the last in a series of African-American works to stress material consumption as a means of expressing female individuality. In Chapter Four of this study, the mulatta becomes a paradigm for the attention Larsen directs to symbolic female spaces in Quicksand and Passing. By female spaces I refer to traditional positions which Larsen's female characters are expected to assume. The archetypal character in these novels may emerge as a schoolteacher, the wife of a 21 successful man, the partner in a n i n t e r racial mar riag e , a society matron, the wife of a mi n i ster , or a woman oppressed by excessive childbearing . Whereas Harper , Larsen's predecessor, leaves her character i n some of those spaces as a presumed gesture of respectabil i ty, Larsen, as a modernist, experiments with displacement, wi th psychoanalysis of the character in specific spaces , and ultimately intimates through the open endings of both novels that such spaces can be life-consuming. The fluidity with which Larsen treats symbolic female spaces allows a later writer such as Ann Petry in The Street to disrupt entirely the theory of female spaces. Petry shapes her female characters' lives out of a sense of isolation caused by poverty and racism. Poverty forces Lutie Johnson to explore spaces not typically female, though a racist environment precludes her success in them. In a sense, Petry's novel becomes a conflation of modernism and naturalism. The female protagonist's fragmented existence takes her on an endless search for survival, portrayed, as Calvin Hernton notes, in "painstaking, graphic, naturalistic detail" (69}. While showing the effects of sexism and racism throughout her novel, Petry also decenters the feminist view to protest an environment where many negative forces defeat the individual. In the concluding chapter, the study shows how issues of female sexuality, female subjectivity, and symbolic 22 female spaces coalesce to reflect a heightened consciousness of the female presence in literature. Fauset and Larsen are indeed part of that group of writers omitted from the modernist canon because, as Bonnie Kime Scott so deftly describes it, "The inscriptions of mothers and women, and more broadly of sexuality and gender, were not adequately decoded, if detected at all" (2). This study should inspire a re-reading of Fauset's and Larsen's texts, resulting in a more adequate decoding of African-American modernism. 23 CHAPTER II. Female Sexuality: A Display of Africa M n-o Ade mrn ei rs im ca ni n Plum Bun and Quicksand A woman with a burning flame Deep covered through the years With ashes -- ah! she hid it deep, And smothered it with tears. Georgia Douglas Johnson from "Smothered Fires" It is more than coincidental that Georgia Douglas Johnson was writing poetry such as "Smothered Fires" at approximately the same time that Fauset was writing Plum Bun and Larsen, Quicksand. The excerpt cited above from Johnson's poem epitomizes the repressed sexuality which many middle-class African-American women of the twenties and thirties endured. Elise Johnson McDougald's essay "The Double Task: The Struggle of Negro Women for Sex and Race Emancipation" in the March 1925 edition of Survey Graphic states, "Negro women are of a race which is free neither economically, socially nor spiritually" (691). In spite of the gradual overcoming of limitations imposed by slavery, McDougald declares that "true sex equality has not been approximated" (691). Regarding sexuality, McDougald asserts a close connection between economic standards and sexual behavior and refutes the charge by "superficial critics" that Negro women have lower sex standards or that they are more immoral than women of other races. Still attempting to refute the myths that miscegenation, during 24 and after slavery, emanated from the wantonness of African- American women, the bourgeoisie of the early twentieth century repeatedly encouraged its female members to exercise a Puritanical or a Victorian fastidiousness in their sexual behavior. This defensive position on women's sexuality pervaded the thinking and writing of African-American middle-class women even as Kay Boyle, Janet Flanner, and Tess Slesinger -- white middle-class writers of the same era -- were flaunting free love and other sexual freedoms in their novels. 10 Apparently Johnson, Fauset, and Larsen knew that the social restrictions placed upon women's expression of sexuality were far more severe than those placed upon men. They knew also that those restrictions were even greater for African-American women. Yet, they dared to broach the subject in their literary works. Although Johnson's poem, when seen in its entirety, bears no reference to color, her role in shaping the Washington, D. c., segment of the cultural revolution of the 1920s is well-known. As one 10 I have chosen Boyle, Flanner, w anr dit e Sr ls e sw init gh e rw ho am s to contrast Fauset t ah ne dy Lse ae rm se nm o br ee c ale ug seit imately to be pee o rsn .l y To hn ee y t ao l l f wou ror ten ovels in addition s to tor ie ss e va en rd a lc h si hld or re t n's fiction. All r t eh ce ei ir v en do pv re als i seu p fo on r publication but so a on no ny rem ci ety d. e d N io nn te o took the radical sta G nce ert r ou nd e f eS mt ie ni in sm w oho f never faded from t S he ee pK uay b lB ico 'y sl e e, yY e.e ar Before Last 1932 B (o No ewks , Y o1 rk9 :6 0 P) e; ngJ ua in n et Flanner, The Cu ( bC ia cr ab lo nd Ca il te y: 1S 92o 6u thern Illinois UP, Sl 1e 9si 7n 4g );e r, andT h e T eU sn s possessed 1934 (Old Fe Wm ei sn tbis ut r yP , res Ns Y, : 1984}. 25 newspaper critic observed of Johnson, her poems became her "artistic credentials" after the death of her lawyer husband who during his lifetime stifled her creative talents. 11 The justification for attempting to draw parallels between Fauset's and Larsen's lives and the fictive lives of their characters is debatable. Both Plum Bun and Quicksand, however, provide proof of their author's awareness of gender limitations. Early in both novels the authors show their intent to utilize the mulatta to e xplore a female sensibility. Each novel opens with frenetic activity to suggest the protagonist's incompatibility with her environment. Though neither Angela in Plum Bun nor Helga in Quicksand realizes the specific shape of her future, each realizes that she must leave her present location. This initial departure marks the beginning of the restlessness and shifting state of mind which characterize the protagonists in both novels. Angela Murray leaves her birthplace in Philadelphia and goes to New York to live incognita, actually passing for white. Fauset has Angela ruminate on gender differences as she faces her new life: "She knew that men had a better 11 Sarah Booth Conroy, "Authors of Change: Locke, Johnson and The Black Renaissance," The Washington Post 3 April 1990, FJ. Conroy reports on the 17th annual conference of the Washington, D. C. Historical studies where one of the scholars argues for a Washington New Negro Renaissance, citing Washington's elite "composed of well-educated, wealthy men and women." Georgia Douglas Johnson and Alain Locke were the leaders of this group. 26 time of it than women, colored men t han colored women, white men than white women" (88). Angela does not contrast the condition of "colored and white women" because she has already chosen to pass based on her belief that "I [should] declare for the one [race] that wi ll bring me the greatest happiness, prosperity and respect" (80). Such thinking automatically sets Angela apart f r om her mother. Also, Fauset shows her awareness of generational differences, and thus her tendency to invoke history, through the use of a sub-plot involving Angela's parents. Angela's early restlessness, contrasted with the contentedness of her sister Virginia, is Fauset's method of foreshadowing the quest for independence which Angela will undertake. The sub-plot involves Mattie and Junius Murray attending church services with the two daughters. And on Communion Sundays Angela's fitfulness is juxtaposed with her sister Virginia's ecstasy over the minister's explanation of the sacrament. The transfiguration of the sacraments parallels the transfiguration of the Murray family -- the death of the parents and the separation of the sisters, along with the family estate. The breaking of the bread is a symbolic religious experience for Virginia, but for Angela, whose belief in conventional religion has waned, it is the breaking up of family, the disruption of cultural tradition and the shift towards a life outside her native culture where she expects to find independence, which will include 27 sexual autonomy. Larsen does not choose passing for her protagonist, but she situates Helga Crane in an environment where her marginality as a woman is apparent at the outset. Helga realizes that she must leave Naxos, the segregated preparatory school in the south where she had begun her teaching career. She suddenly becomes aware that Naxos's "air of self-righteousness" and "intolerant dislike of difference" do not constitute an ideal environment for a "pretty, solitary girl." "She was a failure here. Therefore, no need, no use, to stay longer" (5). Frenetic activity ensues. The African-American modernist trend of masking is apparent, though it has shadings of difference in the two novels. Larsen masks her character's desire for sexual expression behind acts of indecision and narcissistic behavior whereas Fauset shrouds the quest for female autonomy in the respectability of marriage. Employing an introspective approach, Larsen shows Helga engaged in a search for surroundings more tolerant of her own goals and ambitions. Her assessment of Naxos is that the people are resistant to change because of their certainty of being correct. The friction between Naxos's conservatism and Helga's desire for change, between Naxos's pride in what it represents and Helga's self-centeredness justifies the chasm which Larsen constructs. Yet Helga remains the ambivalent 28 restless character, for she is unsure what she wants; "[s)he couldn't define it, isolate it" for it had no tangibility" ( 11) ? Because Larsen retains such a high level of ambiguity in depicting Helga's desires, the obscurity itself becomes a mask for discussing female sexuality. Fauset, by contrast, veils female desire in the propriety of marriage. Shortly after Angela's arrival in New York, the reader sees Angela engaged in a kind of stream-of-consciousness about her new- found freedom in which she muses over the idea "free, white and twenty-one." Her sense of freedom is so strong under her new disguise that she adds, "If I were a man ... I could be president." That thought of "power, greatness, authority" she quickly reserves for men, adding that "there were sweeter, more beautiful gifts for women, and power of a certain kind too" (88). One speculates that even as a "white" woman, Angela confines her concept of power in this instance to the woman's sexuality. The irony is that her thinking extends back to her real heritage when she thoughtfully adds that she would need "protection" and "perhaps it would be better to marry . " ( 88) . Fauset' s use of the mulatta mask is obvious here, and she plausibly allows her character to retain aspects of her earlier culture. Angela's thinking is a throwback to Mattie's belief in the security and respectability of marriage. In her introduction to Quicksand and Passing, Deborah 29 McDowell remarks, "Jessie Fauset a nd Nella Larsen could only hint at the idea of black women a s sexual objects behind the protective covers of traditional narrative subjects and conventions" (xiii). As McDowell so adeptly points out in the introductory essay, the need to conceal avant-garde subjects with conventional narrative subjects a l so carried risks for the authors: "[R]eaders miss the more urgent problem of female sexual identity" (xvii). In his book The Way of the New World Addison Gayle critiques Larsen and her mulatta character. He sees Larsen's life as having been tragic and her work as belonging to the genre of tragedy: The tragedy of Helga Crane and Nella Larsen . is that neither knew of the values of courage and endurance depicted in the life- style of Toomer's Cane, and therefore looked upon black life as lived by the poor through the distorted lenses of white sociologists. In their flight from themselves, blacks have all too often accepted the same images of each other as have whites (111). Gayle suggests through his statement that Larsen transfers her self-hatred to her main character. Gayle misreads Larsen's strategy -- the use of the mulatta to depict the frustration, alienation, and marginality of the lives of women of color. Oddly enough, Gayle and Arthur P. Davis contrast what they consider to be Larsen's failure with Toomer's success in the artistry of depicting African- 30 American life. According to Davis in From the Dark Tower, Cane represents "the ability of the Negro to transfer his pain into artistic acceptance" (46). And though Davis praises Larsen for creating in Helga Crane an intriguing and complex character -- subordinate only to Kabnis in Toomer's Cane -- he remains critical of her dialogue, her depiction of life in Harlem, and her lack of confrontation between the races (96-97). In other words, he does not allow Larsen the aesthetic privileges he allows Toomer. Though Barbara Christian confirms a female sensibility in her assessment of Larsen's Quicksand, Christian, too, seems to dwell on the mulatta figure as "pathetic," one "seldom perceived as a person in either the black or the white world" (53). When Christian adds, however, that the mulatta Helga Crane is an image, she provides clearer perception of Larsen's purpose: to create through the character an image of the African-American woman inextricably bound by the values of a white male society. Christian explains, " . her [Helga's] tragedy is specifically a female one. She is destroyed by the womb" ( 53) . DuBois stands practically alone among male critics in applauding Fauset and Larsen for their craft in depicting the plight of the woman. Generally DuBois sees both writers' craft tinged by the "shadow of the Veil." He believes that African-Americans always view life from a 31 racial stance, that they are continuously aware of their blackness and their Americanness. He fittingly looks beyond the Veil for other formal and thematic trends . He praises Fauset's handling of morality, not i ng somewhat sardonically that "the variety of sex experience among colored folk is supposed to be strictly limited to frank prostitution or careless promiscuity" (Crisis 138) . In Larsen's Quicksand DuBois sees Helga as "typical of the new, honest, young fighting Negro woman" (Crisis 202) . That DuBois would see in Fauset's novels a depiction of morality among African- American women, of which he approves, and in Larsen's novel a true depiction of the assertiveness of "young Negro women" suggests a duality of purpose in Fauset's and Larsen's novels. It points to what I termed earlier as a "double" double-consciousness. Both authors apparently knew that they must mask the progressive behavior of their female characters behind standards of morality emanating for women of color from the days of slavery and Reconstruction. The residual effect of slavery on women's morality dominates the thinking of one of the earliest African- American women novelists -- Frances E. w. Harper. It is not uncanny that strong links seem to exist between Harper's Iola Leroy and Fauset's and Larsen's novels. Frances Smith Foster, in her introduction to the Schomburg edition of Iola Leroy. says that the Harper novel "represents the transition from the antebellum period to the Harlem Renaissance and 32 links Afro-American fiction to women's fict i on" (xxxvii). Foster is justified in expressing a his torical link between writings of the 1890s and those of the 1920s. More problematic, however, is Foster's i nclination to justify linkages between two genres which s he terms Afro-American fiction and women's fiction. Women do, in fact, write much of African-American fiction. To see two distinct genres is to acknowledge that women's writing lies outside the Af r i c an-American canon and that gender i s a justifiable discriminating base. Harper was aware of the resistance to an open expression of women's sexuality in l iterature. As Foster observes, Harper "understood the preferences .. . of her nineteenth century audiences.'' She knew of their interest in religion, temperance, slavery, Reconstruction, and racial uplift. William Still's introduction to the early edition of Iola Leroy is proof of what Harper's reading audience of both races expected. Viewing the novel in a polemical sense, Still noted, "Doubtless the thousands of colored Sunday-schools in the South, in casting about for an interesting, moral story-book, full of practical lessons, will not be content to be without 'Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted. 11112 Although Iola Leroy's use as a Sunday-school 12 William Still' s introduction w a au st h te hn et ic ka it ni dn g od fo cument necessary for th m ea n py u bo lif c at th ie o ne oa fr ly works by African-Am In et re icg ar na te ad u tw hoit rh s . the text of the novel in (ptr ao gd e u 3c )t ,i o sn tii ls l 't so be distinguished from Frances Smith 33 book would be an extreme, Harper's interest in racial uplift and emphasis on morality are so strong that other themes in which she has an interest are less apparent . In Invented Lives Mary Helen Washington agrees that the refutation of inferiority becomes a preoccupation in African-American writing but emphasizes the additional burden of the African- American woman writer to defend her intellectual capabilities as well (73-77). Writing in the nineteenth century as an African-American woman, Harper labored under the burden which Washington identifies. Harper creates a mulatta character who is capable of passing but in repeated episodes of looking for work Iola reveals her mixed heritage, causing employers or peers to subsequently reject her. In this manner Harper promotes racial uplift and validates the moral character of her protagonist. Whenever Iola speaks of women becoming enterprising, she subverts their independence to racial uplift or to marriage. For instance, after Iola moves north she approaches her uncle Robert with the idea of her joining ''the great rank of breadwinners." She believes her proposal will be more convincing if connected with a moral code which her uncle already embraces. Thus she begins, "I have a theory that every woman ought to know how to earn her own living. I believe that a great amount of sin and misery springs from the weakness and inefficiency of women" (205) Foster's introduction to the Schomburg Collection. 34 She further solidifies her argument i n t ell i ng h e r u nc l e, " I think that every woman should have some ski l l o r art which would insure her at least a comf ort able support. I bel i eve there should be less unhappy marr iages i f labor we re more honored among women" (210). Harper asser ts the need for self-discovery, though she suggests that the woman's right to a satisfying sexuality lies in the institution of marriage. Her female character's p e rsistence in acquiring a c a r eer, the negation of passing, and the rejection of the white doctor's marriage proposal al l point to Harper's primary concern for race-building over indivi dual achievements. Although racial uplift permeates Iola Leroy, Harper intermittently allows her character to recount the sexual oppression of her era and to articulate the potential for change. In the debate with Dr. Gresham over why she cannot marry him -- a white man -- Iola speaks of social ostracism, outcast girls, and fallen women. Showing her concern for morality and race, Iola refers to women who have broken the moral code. And even though the code applies to women of both races, Harper makes it clear that race is the determining factor. Iola cites the case of her mother's attempt to take an "outcast colored girl" to a shelter which rejects her. Later her mother, with two white women, takes an "outcast white girl" to the same shelter which accepts her. Iola summarizes the paradox: 3 5 It was as if two women were s inking in the quicksands, and on the sol i d l a nd s tood other women with life-lines in the i r hands, see i ng the deadly sands slowly creeping up around the hapless victims. To one they readily threw the lines of deliverance, but for the other there was not one strand of salvation (232). Here Harper makes one of her strongest stands on feminist solidarity. She strengthens her position on race uplift and her attitude against passing while she maximizes the need for women to support one another. In the chapter "Dawning Affections" she constructs the relationship between Iola and Dr. Latimer on the basis of a mutual feeling for their race. Iola speaks of her admiration for Dr. Latimer who chose not to pass: " . when others are trying to s l ip out from the race and pass into the white basis, I cannot help admiring one who acts as if he felt that the weaker the race is the closer he would cling to it." Dr. Latimer responds by citing an instance of "a young lady who could have cast her lot with the favored race, yet chose to take her place with the freed people, as their teacher, friend, and adviser" (263). It is in such cryptic language that the two declare their admiration for each other, make plans for marriage, and move back to the south to resume their work of race- building. Harper's tendency to subordinate sexuality to racial uplift is apparent in Iola's response in Biblical 36 analogy to her uncle's inquiry, "How do you like him?" Iola answers, '"I must have within me a large amount of hero worship. The characters of the Old Testament I most admire are Moses and Nehemiah. They are willing to put aside their own advantages for their race and country. Dr. Latimer comes up to my ideal of a high, heroic manhood" (265). Thus, in two chapters, "Dawning Affections" and "Wooing and Wedding," where the reader would anticipate more explicit statements of the protagonist's feelings, the narrator merely reports the effect Iola has upon Dr. Latimer. Iola's passion remains passive or even absent in the description of her "filling a larger place in his heart," of "[t]he touch of her hand thrill[ing] him with emotion," and of [h]er noblest sentiments [finding] a response in his heart." Ultimately even the doctor's passion assumes a subverted role, for "[i]n their desire to help the race their hearts beat in loving unison" (266). As if depicting a coital relationship, Harper writes of their desire for racial uplift. Such an analogue prompts more than one critic to assert that Harper uses the mulatta for political reasons. Mary Helen Washington refers to Harper's strategy, as well as Pauline Hopkins's, as "devising ways for their heroines to become political and social activists" (76). Hazel Carby, in her introduction to a 1987 edition of Iola Leroy, speculates on Harper's intent to create a possible Utopian 37 relationship between African-American men and women "at the expense of sexuality." Carby bel i eves that Harper "represses sexuality to gain an independent heroine" and that she "was unable to represent a black heroine who was also a sexual being" (xxv). Though Carby's reference to Iola Leroy as Harper's vision of an "uprising" of women is questionable, it is irrefutable that Harper opens doors to Fauset's and Larsen's further examination of female sexuality. In the introduction to this study, I alluded to slavery as a social and historical construct for African-American literature. In an attempt to explain and accurately depict present conditions, African-American modernists insist upon the need to recall the origin of their race. Slavery is an integral part of that origin. Implicit in Fauset's and Larsen's treatment of female sexuality is the notion that slavery had an inevitable impact on women's sexuality which the mulatta epitomizes. Therefore, both writers utilize the mulatta to gauge attitudes towards sex and marriage, to define sexual oppression, to analyze sex and childbearing all within a historical context. The importance of history is apparent in Fauset's novel Plum Bun. It makes use of a generational trope through the mulatta. Mattie Murray is the mulatta mother whose story consumes the first five chapters of the novel. Fauset depicts her as the "contented" mother of two attractive 38 young daughters. Angela is as fair as her mother and can engage in temporary acts of passing along with her mother; Virginia has "rosy bronzeness" and "deeply waving black hair," a combination of features inherited from both parents. Mattie's frenetic behavior readily suggests ambivalence, ranging from her contentment in motherhood and housekeeping and the ecstasy in being the wife of Junius to ignoring him and Virginia on a downtown street during one of her passing episodes. Later she reflects on her previous life as live-in maid, seamstress, and personal servant for a white actress. She recalls how Junius saved her from the sexual advances of Haynes Brokinaw, the lecherous politician. The mulatta, therefore, becomes an ideal model for displaying the ambiguity resulting from a slave heritage. Mattie vacillates between her life on Saturdays as a Philadelphia matron, which her near-white features make possible, and her routine life as Junius's wife. Fauset suggests in this scene and elsewhere that marriage is either a trap or a safety net. Another example of African-American modernism is Fauset's use of stream-of-consciousness to describe historical imperceptions about race and gender. The mulatta becomes an ideal paradigm for the expression of varied and disjointed thoughts regarding the charge that miscegenation resulted from the loose morals of African-American women. In Mattie's recapitulation of her experience working for the 39 actress, Mattie contrasts in her mind the actres s's mora l s with her own: "[She] was young, p r etty and innocent ; t he actress was young, beautiful and s ophist i cated" (28-29). Because Fauset filters the entire segment on the actress through Mattie's mind, Mattie's moral i ty and that of the actress at times become confused. For instance, when Mattie thinks, " [ H] igh ideals and persona l se l f - respect were too abstract for her slightly coarsened mind to visualize," the reader cannot be certain whether Mattie is expressing her own feelings about the actress or whether these are the feelings Mattie suspects the actress holds about Mattie and other women of her race. Fauset's ambiguity seems intentional. The impact of history prevents Mattie, a representative African-American, from thinking clearly about which charges are true about women of either race. Mattie's reverie closes with her imagining the actress thinking, "[A]t any rate they [high ideals and self-respect] were incomprehensible and even absurd in a servant, and in a colored servant to b oot" (29). The self-hatred implicit in Mattie's speculation on the actual words the actress uttered about miscegenation points directly to the effect of master/slave relationships on African-American female sexuality. "She felt dimly that all coloured people are thickly streaked with immorality. They were naturally loose, she reasoned, when she thought about it at all" ( 29 ) . Such was the actress's generalization 40 about "coloured people . " This faulty generalization became her major premise, from which she formed the minor premise : "Look at the number of mixed bloods among them; look at Mattie herself for that matter, a perfectly white nigger if ever there was one. I'll bet her mother wasn't any better than she should be" (29). The implied conclusion of this faulty syllogism is that Mattie is, therefore, immoral. Fauset creates in this episode the mulatta image based on race-mixing, self-hatred, and white women's disdain for the mulatta. Such an image becomes an i deal mask for discussing the African-American woman's position in the early 1900s. Sexually, she has little chance for individual fulfillment and in essence becomes a commodity for consumption and/or rejection. Mattie, for instance, assuages her unfulfilled needs with Saturday excursions into downtown Philadelphia department stores and tearooms, passing for white. Yet she is at such a tremendous loss for handling her own life that when Junius dies, she wills herself to follow him. It is as if Fauset depicts sexuality in Mattie as a commodity to be protected, through marriage to Junius, from the racist accusations and false generalizations of people such as the actress. Deborah McDowell's introduction to Plum Bun acknowledges the frequency with which critics fail to see the progressive and daring manner of Fauset's endorsement of female independence and her critique of the sexual double- 41 standard (xxi). Readers who fail to see beyond Fauset's mask relegate their interpretations to the "fairy tale" level of Angela's and Virginia's imagination when their mother ended their bedtime stories with the improvisation, "'And so they lived happily ever after, just like your father and me'" {33). Fauset capitalizes on the fairy tale, for subsequent to the storytelling she shows the mother contemplating her daughters' future, saying firmly, "My girls shall never come through my experiences," for "they [are] both to be school-teachers and independent" (33). As Fauset slips the mask from mulatta mother to daughter, she reveals the discordant and fractured lives of her modernist characters. In an incident that nearly parallels Junius's marrying Mattie to save her, Angela becomes humiliated when she and Matthew Henson attempt to see a film at an all-white theater. Though Angela can pass, Matthew cannot. An attendant, thinking them a mixed couple, directs Matthew to the segregated balcony. In a fit of emotion after the incident, Angela, like her mother, transforms her humiliation into compassion for Matthew: "Unexpectedly she lifted her delicate face to his, so stricken and freckled and woebegone, and kissed him, lifted her hand and actually stroked his reddish, stiff, 'bad' hair" (76). Angela's gestures of ardor cause Matthew to walk home contemplating when the two of them can be married. Angela decides, however, that she wants neither to marry 42 Matthew nor to teach school. Lying in bed, with the head- boards of their "narrow, virginal beds" touching the adjacent walls, Angela tells her sister of her decision to go away and "pass." This departure from the constricted life in a virginal bed or marriage to Matthew indicates the beginning of Angela's attempt to break out of the "mulatta trap." Fauset's own race ideology and her knowledge of the modernist concept of communication between self and Other become apparent at this point. When Angela leaves Philadelphia to live in New York, she loses intimacy with her sister. They no longer occupy the narrow chaste beds, and in terms of Angela's cultural and family heritage, a kind of death in life ensues. Angela's first experiences in New York, though initially seeming ideal, ultimately end in increased activity without productivity. Her action is mainly voyeuristic. She spends her days in Fourteenth Street Square observing people, strolling along the streets near the hotel where she lives, and focusing on a gathering of men in front of a piano store. She "follows their emotional gamut," watching their reactions to jazz, love songs, and Irish and Scottish tunes (90). Her face reflects heightened desire and takes on "the wistfulness of the men gazing in the music store" (93). Angela explores her own loneliness while denying any homesickness for Philadelphia. Her continuous activity, though devoid of productivity, ~_,,,,. _________ ,,,, ___ - .... ~ --- --- -- . --- 43 takes her frequently to the movie houses where she is l ess interested in the film than in attempting to achieve intimacy with the audience. The voyeurism continues when she goes to Harlem where she watches "the moiling groups on Lenox Avenue," paying especial attention to "amazingly well-dressed and good- looking throngs of young men on Seventh Avenue at One Hundred and Thirty-seventh and Thirty-fifth Streets" (97). There is, however, a remoteness with which Angela observes this group -- contrasting them with the people on Fourteenth Street and referring to them as "these people." The question becomes whether Fauset's protagonist, now out of the narrow confines of her Philadelphia community, can plunge into this heterogeneous society and find satisfaction. Sublimation of desire through art is the next observable pattern in Angela's behavior. She reminds herself that she was "neglecting her Art," and that art was the reason she had come to New York in the first place. Yet when she enrolls in an art class her immediate preoccupation is with establishing intimacy. There are students of Jewish, German, Scandinavian, and Spanish background and a "colored girl," Rachel Powell, all of whom Angela is soon on "jestingly intimate" terms with except Rachel. Rachel is the logical exclusion, not only because she is Black but also because her female sensibilities are similar to those 44 which Angela knew in Philadelphia. The sexuality which Angela practices in New York is a conflation of the sexual behaviors learned from her peers in the art class. Though she is somewhat astounded at Paulette's feminist philosophy, i t does for a time influence Angela. Paulette sees her femininity as a commodity to be bartered for more valued acquisitions. She insists, I've learned that a woman is a fool who lets her feminity [sic) stand in the way of what she wants. I've made a philosophy of it. I see what I want; I use my wiles as a woman to get it, and I employ the qualities of men, tenacity and ruthlessness, to keep it. And when I am through with it, I throw it away just as they do" (105). Paulette's philosophy serves a dual purpose in the novel. First, it has a profound effect upon Angela's behavior. Though she compromises her ambitions and becomes Roger's lover rather than his wife, initially she sets out to marry him for the economic security and social prominence marriage to him would bring her. Fauset thereby shows the extent of Angela's ambivalence. Secondly, Fauset may be using Paulette's philosophy to critique white morals, for Angela rejects the idea of "free love" after her return to her native culture, using an old adage "Marriage was good enough for my mother, it's good enough for me" (320}. Angela embodies the ambivalence of modernist characters, 45 however, as she confesses that she was using art now as sh e always had, "to get in touch with interesting people and with a more attractive atmosphere" (110). Fauset shows distinctly modernist trends in her representation of female sexuality through a pattern of objects, namely, the automobile and art. The automobile stimulates an emotional response at the outset and at recurring points in Plum Bun so that it becomes an objecti ve correlative for female desire. Mattie Murray falls in lov e with Junius after he rescues her from the lecherous Brokinaw, a friend of her employer. The irony of the situation is that Junius is a coachman without a car of hi s own. Fauset thereby suggests the plight of the underprivileged African-American man whose status makes hi m no less desirable in relationships within his race. To Mattie "he was God" (33). When Junius is finally able to own a car, he acquires a used Ford model which the entire family considers an indulgence now that both girls have grown up. The family Junius, Mattie, Angela, and Virginia -- take Sunday rides to the outskirts of Philadelphia. The car becomes the litera l vehicle by which Junius conveys his daughters to the outsi de world, marking the beginning of heterosexual relationships with middle-class professionals such as Matthew Henson. Though Virginia's world does not expand so rapidly, Angela will travel far from the route of the Sunday excursions to 46 i mmerse herself in another culture. Fauset continues her use of the automobile as an objective correlative for Angela's emotional feelings for Roger Fielding. Designated to escort Angela home from Martha Burden's party, Roger gives her the option of walking or riding. And though they elect to walk, the availability of the car impresses Angela. His little blue car, coupled with his attractiveness "like a blond, glorious god" (129), repeatedly suggests how Roger can carry Angela to unimagined boundaries in terms of desire, security, and privilege. The c ar continues to be the object which stimulates desire even when the relationship involves a different person. When Roger proposes keeping Angela as his mistress, she rejects him because her moral standards militate against such an arrangement. Resuming a friendship with Anthony prompts her to contrast his and Roger's social status: "Roger would have had the blue car at the door" (139). The car represents economic security just as it did for her father. Because Angela has decided that love for her is yoked with privilege and status, she does not accept Anthony's declaration of love. After all, she reasoned, "She was no sentimentalist" (142). As Carby suggests, Fauset represents the new genera- tion as revising the history of their parents. While Angela makes occasional references to her parents' way of thinking and doing, she has for the most part embarked on a new course for the attainment of happiness and security. 47 The frenetic activity characteristic of mode rnist l i t e rature, and depicted in Angela's quest for i ndivi dual s atisfaction and self-identity, dominates Quicksand, also . Thadious Davis, Larsen's biographer, l i nks the i nter est in and knowledge of modernism exhibited in both Quicksand and Passing to the scientific research Larsen's husband, Elmer Imes, did on relativity. 13 The "randomness of human exper i ence" manifested in Larsen's own l i fe may be relevant to her writing. Davis and other critics who have studied Larsen point out the changes and shifts in careers which Larsen herself underwent. Having rece i ved nurse's training, Larsen worked from 1915 until 1921 as a nurse at Tuskegee Institute, at Lincoln Hospital, and for the New York City Department of Health. Then she shifted in 1921 to work as a librarian with the New York Public Library where she remained until 1926 when she began her career as a writer (Dictionary of Literary Biography). Notwithstanding Larsen's erratic personal life and the speculation that Helga Crane is Nella Larsen's nemesis, Davis states the truth most succinctly in her essay in The Gender of Modernism when she observes, "Her (Larsen's) movement from 13 See Thadious M. Davis, "Nella Larsen ( 1891 - 1964)" in The Gender of Modernism, 209-216 ed. Bonnie Kime Scott (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990. Also, see Thadious Davis, "Nella Larsen," Dictionary of Literary Biography vol. 51. Though the latter is a more detailed account of Larsen's life and works, Davis does not refer in this piece to Imes' s work as having an impact on Larsen's own writing. 48 nurse to librarian to writer demonstrates a personal searc h for class position, meaningful work, social prestige, and full self-expression that was not unlike Helga Crane's in Quicksand" (212). Larsen herself was a modernist and it seems only logical that she would want to extend the modernist image through her writing. Being a middle-class woman and the wife of a prominent scientist and college professor, she w as also aware of the need to mask certain propensities in the African-American modernist world. One was sexuality. Jus t as Helga Crane the teacher at Naxos observed that the "smiling submissiveness" of her young students masked "poignant heartaches and perhaps much secret contempt for their instructors" (5), so Larsen must have known that in Helga's world she must mask the unconformity and desires o f an unmarried woman marginalized by gender and race. The novel opens with a suggestion of isolation. Helga sits in her large room with curtains drawn and a single light whic h gives the impression of her being on a "small oasis in a desert of darkness" (1). Her room, comfortable though isolated, is a metonymic contrast for the suffocating dese rt the Naxos campus. Repressed sexuality is evident in the opening scene of the novel: An observer would have thought her well fitted to that framing of light and shade. A slight girl of 49 enty-two years, with narrow, sloping shoul ders tw and delicate, but well-turned, a r ms and le gs, she had, none the less, an air of radiant, car eless health. In vivid green and gold negligee and glistening brocaded mules, deep sunk in th e big high-backed chair, against whose dark tape stry her sharply cut face, with skin like yellow sa tin, was distinctly outlined, she was -- to use a h ackneyed word -- attractive. Black, very broad brows over soft, yet penetrating, dark eyes, and a pr etty mouth, whose sensitive and sensuous lips h ad a slight questioning petulance and a tiny ich the dissatisfied droop, were the features on w h observer's attention would fasten; though h er nose was good, her ears delicately chiseled, an d her curly blue-black hair plentiful and always straying in a little wayward, delightful w ay. Just then it was tumbled, falling unrestrai ned about her face and on to her shoulders (2) . reader that this The third-person narrator twice informs th e Yet description of Helga is for the benefit of an observer. here is no observer; Helga is in her room alone. Her t sensual looks -- to include the petulant l ips and unrestrained hair -- are wasted on the room where she sits for the entire evening as if awaiting a ca ller. Though the setting is "intentional isolation," Helga typifies the 50 less, impetuous being, struggling to be fre e of her rest environment. When she stirs at the end of the evening, it is with an unnamed, perhaps unknown, desire for some kind of represents activity. The sexual repression which this scene omparable to the restraint implicit in tran svestism. is c Helga's provocative appearance signals sexu al desire, but and posing because her isolation is also apparent, dre ssing will be the consummate act. On the surface Helga gives the impression t hat what she totally frustrating is the futility of her endeavors finds to teach in such a stifling environment. In the same sce ne ing in the privacy of her room, however, she co ntemplates go ay from Naxos and knows that she must, ther efore, break aw the engagement to James Vayle, a colleague to whom she had hey become engaged during her first semester at Naxos, when t ere both new and lonely. Her thoughts of V ayle "took on w the frigidity of complete determination." Frigidity is only ces. one of a catalogue of ambivalences which H elga experien reflects on the relationship with Vayle, s he senses As she shame that her sexual attraction is the ma in attraction for an Vayle, and that, as Larsen describes her, s he becomes desire for Vayle. Her feelings vacillate, and she object of has a sense of power that she is part of th e "ancient appeal" which women become for satisfying m en's sexual desires. n in Close parallels exist between the scene in Plum Bu 51 which Mattie reminisces about events leadin g to her marriage to Junius and the spectacle in Quicksand w hich prompts Helga flee from Naxos. Larsen filters through Helga's mind all to that the reader discovers about Naxos and its oppressive iveness environment. Helga's repressed creativity , attract I and desires become the objects of pursuit by Dr. Anderson I the Naxos administrator, and James Vayle, the would-be scene, highly lover. The chapter closes with the followi ng suggestive of a setting involving two love rs: Books and papers scattered about the floor, fragile stockings and underthings and the startling green and gold negligee dripping about on chairs and stool, met the encounter of t he mazed eyes of the girl who came in the mor ning to a awaken Helga Crane (9). no sexual encounter; rather, it is the re sult There has been of Helga's frustration and disillusionment with an environment which suppresses self-expressio n and individuality. y on feminist literary criticism entitled In an essa "Black Women Writers: Taking a Critical Pe rspective," Susan Willis discusses community, journey, and s exuality as s about which African-American women write rs concern articulate their views. Regarding sexuali ty Willis observes ''Black women write against the e rosion and the I e repression of female sexuality as it is ch anneled by mal 52 desire and stifled by domestic life" (226). Willis's critique of women's writing is relevant to Fau set's and Larsen's strategy in Plum Bun and Quicksand res pectively. knew Depicting life at the turn of the century, both writers the need to sublimate women's sexual desire and to treat female sexuality subversively. Larsen depicts Helga's ambiguous feelings when subjected to the pressu re of male desire. Shortly after Helga decides to inform the headmaster that she is leaving Naxos, Dr. Ande rson's dominating view overwhelms her, nearly convinc ing her to stay. She becomes "silent, feeling a mystifyin g yearning which sang and throbbed in her." The urge to p lease Dr. nderson subsumes her own desires and she become s A momentarily complicitous with his urging that s he remain at Naxos. "She was shamed, yet stirred," and she now felt the "actual desire to stay." Arousal and desire in Helga are d to help masked behind the urge to serve the community a n Dr. Anderson. This ambivalence, however, gives way to the decision to leave for Chicago, a more modern an d cosmopolitan world. Repression of sexual passi on is in her thought associations, for she thinks no w of apparent her own mother who "risk[ed] all in one blind surrender" (23). Helga leaves Naxos, but Dr. Anderson rem ains indelibly in her memory to test whether she, li ke her s mother, will surrender blindly to the passion w hich she ha so neatly disguised as the need to serve. 53 rsen creates a tension between male sexual ity and La female sexuality as depicted in the relatio nship between Helga Crane and Robert Anderson. Helga's immersion in the tisfied Harlem culture diverts her attention from her dissa lings about her own identity. She obtains a job where fee for the first time "references" -- meaning for Helga a history of background which she does not h ave -- are he community she has established with Mrs. unessential. T Hayes-Rore bridges the chasm which Uncle P eter's rejection of her created. Even when Mrs. Hayes-Rore queries Helga about family background she maintains self- control, unlike ut her the scene in Naxos where Anderson's inquiry abo hastens her decision to leave Naxos. Mrs. Hayes- background Rore intimates a kind of community within the female gender u have Which Helga does not glean from Anderson's remark, "Yo breeding" (21). When cultural cohesion se ems dignity and most apparent, a re-encounter with Anderso n disrupts it. Helga senses a "strange ill-defined emotio n, a vague Yearning" (50) upon seeing him again. The tension emanating ged, that she from Anderson's remark that Helga hasn't ch an ill seeking something, thwarts the passion she had felt is st for him. Repeatedly Anderson is the singular person who brings out in Helga what Deborah McDowell sees as contradic- pulses. The tension between the two is an ideal way tory im for Larsen to project the modernist image of an ambivalent female character. 54 Although Robert Anderson is the dominant male figure in the male-female tension with Helga, Axel Olsen contributes to it when Helga travels to Denmark. Olsen's involvement suggests that Helga's quest for wholeness does not rest with Anderson alone, that her dilemma is indeed representative of a more expansive problem, and that race is an underlying force . Critic Amritjit Singh sees Helga's emotional and sexual problems inextricably bound to race. He speculates thusly: If Helga could have seen herself as an individual rather than a human organism dominated alternately by black or white blood, she might have been reasonably happy with Axel Olsen or even happier with Robert Anderson. . Helga Crane finds herself unable to accept her blackness and incapable of adapting to whiteness (102). Singh's point seems to be valid, for what Helga lacks is the DuBoisian concept of double-consciousness. Because she does not accept her blackness, she is unable to fully utilize the gift of double-consciousness with which DuBois says the African-American is endowed. One of Helga's acts of self-examination, though lacking substantial discovery, grows out of the sexual tension between her and Olsen. She refuses his offer of marriage, both because he had presumed she would be his mistress and because she could not marry a white man. Helga assumes that 55 ic mulatta features make her attra ctive to Olsen as her exot itage, that his mistress, but she also reflec ts on her her roduced her mulatta traits, and fi nds it Which p ectionable, historically and mora lly as well, to accept obj any plan for her either of Axel's offers. She real izes that of "doubts, rebellion, expedienc y, life would be a fusion and urgent longings" (83). The d ivided self is apparent n which she can live Whether she is searching for a cu lture i ction or a relationship that will sustain her de- and fun sires. On the day of her departure from Denmark she asks tisfied in herself why she couldn't have two lives or be sa one place? (93) the image of a divided self throu ghout Larsen projects oth of her novels, reflecting an ambivalence which results b clearly the modernist than in critics' regarding her as more , Fauset. Under the theory of African-Americ an modernism modernist. Only their techniques however , they are equally differ: Fauset's practice is the continuous masking of ality behind domestic scenes, espe cially female sexu marriage. Larsen has female passion repre ssed but rmittently removes the mask to re veal female eroticism inte and a degree of sexual freedom. Though both writers end sexual fulfillment within their novels with a depiction of sen's use of the marriage scene co nnotes a less marriage, Lar than positive image. Marriage in Plum Bun becomes a pa radigm of 56 respectability and moral uprightness while the author covertly raises questions regarding female sexuality. Fauset seems to give the nod to marriage even when a character on the surface seems opposed to it. In a scene involving Angela and Roger Fielding, Angela resides in an apartment so small that, without leaving her bed, she can reach around the door into the next room and answer her telephone. Several things are implicit in this tranquil scene which are absent from Quicksand and the scene in Helga's room in Naxos. Though small, Angela's apartment is satisfactory because it is essentially a "waiting room." She expects to transform her residence from this tiny apartment to a larger house through marriage, preferably to Roger who can also offer greater financial security. The compactness of her present living quarters represents the suppressed state of her sexual desires. The attention Roger devotes to her gives her a sense of power, and she is thus willing, momentarily, to suppress her desires until marriage can legitimize their expression. Fauset interfuses plots to show the problematics of passing and its ultimate effect on sexuality, whereas Larsen explores the psychology of her character as reflected in the character's self-examination. For instance, Angela's sister Jinny meets Anthony Cross after her arrival in New York. The relationship between Anthony and both sisters intensifies without either sister's knowing about Anthony's 57 r, of course, does Roger kn ow about Angela's double life. No a complex racial network a llows Fauset to former life. such n ect passing and to maintai n her firm moral stance o rej 's conscience when she sexual matters. Jinny act s as Angela inds Angela of Roger's inte ntions: "His ultimate rem you talking about? You intentions! Why, Angela w hat are intentions are. Isn't know perfectly well what h is ultimate man? Well, what kind of intentions would he have he a white (166) Through Jinny, who remain s toward a coloured woman?" a within the African-America n culture, Fauset posits male/female desire. Jinny ry and relationship between histo when recalls the awkward scene at the railroad station Roger's unexpected presen ce, cannot Angela, owing to lls cknowledge that Jinny is h er sister. She also reca a insolence and Angela's co ldness toward her. Each Roger's red nds Jinny that interracial affairs during slavery b remi coldness: "[I]t had been and the same kind of insolence le in slavery times for wh ite men and women to Possib d s, their own flesh and bloo mistreat their mulatto rel ation ' y in the far South or selling them into deeper s laver almost, if not completely, standing by watching them beaten nt two to death" (167-68). Thus, Angela and Jinny represe t poles in terms of race id eology. differen displays her craft as an A frican-American Fauset eology. modernist in the masking o f sexuality behind race id uset reports in Carolyn Wedin sylvander's biography of Fa 58 l the impact of growin g up in a segregated significant detai vironment on Fauset's own race and cational and social enedu tensely logy. Sylvander note s that "Fauset was in sex ideo ms faced by women of aware of the discrimi nation and proble f the dual discriminat ion faced by Black any race, and o ional sive work with the Na t women" (83). Yet Fau set's exten lored People (NAACP), t of Co Association for the A dvancemen forts to further art a nd culture through her undaunting ef tion that she ostensib ly nd the no her work with The cri sis, a erally to the middle-class resulted in her "gen belonged ard life." Sylvander de tow balanced and optimist ic attitu her tendency to rther links Fauset's g eneral optimism with fu of African-American w omen as well as emphasize the strength s Plum Bun Angela's dec ision to difficulties (83). In their ixture of two Pass relates to her b elief that she is a m te with the race which aces and should there fore associa r . Not only ng her the greatest h appiness and success Will bri enefit her she anticipate that m arrying Roger will b does but also she expects t o use her status as Personally, "Lots of coloured peo ple ity. Roger's wife to help human of me," she declares ff on account Will be much better o uplift will (162). According to A ngela's plan, racial auset's own ideology, however, es. F subsume her own desir o racial istant to passing as a viable alternative t Was res dercuts her character 's 0 nPPression. Therefore , she u t use marriage to intention to marry Ro ger. Angela canno 59 , as Iola Leroy did, prac tice racial legitimize sex and dle plot differently, Uplift. Though Fauset an d Harper han actually merge. Iola ref uses to pass, their ideologies proposal, and marries Dr. rejects Dr. Gresham's ma rriage rested in timer instead, a mulatta like herself who is inte La ican-American middle-clas s racial uplift. True to A fr ngela to marry Roger to w hom dition, Fauset cannot all ow A tra eign. Nor the concept of racial up lift is completely for code of ethics permit Ang ela to "ascend" from Will Fauset's ing native culture by passin g and subsequently marry her bute to the uplift of "lo ts White and hypocritically contri of coloured people." modernist tendencies in the Fauset and Larsen display um g values and changing lif e styles depicted in Pl shiftin Having the mulatta span t wo .fu!n and Quicksand respectively . for the erations enables Fauset t o expand the moral code gen s. The strict adherence middle-class which Angela represent the Murray religious principles un dergirding the lives of to nishes in the adult lives of Angela and Jinny. family dimi ed in church and family l ife In fact, the rituals emb odi f the radually wane so that An gela has memories only o g as the Monday night dinn ers on Opal domestic scene such n Because she expects to m arry, she wants to retai Street. l make her the proper knowledge of those quali ties which wil Wife. et even greater The shift in landscape pe rmits Faus 60 ging moral codes. Angela moves from the latitude in chan Philadelphia community t o the great Provincialism of her de of polis of New York City wh ere she experiences a mo metro ne passing for living indigenous to whi te people. As o primarily Angela's world , though she wanders White, this is d and impressed" at "colo ured aze into Harlem where she is "am "so thick, so varied, so life" which she had neve r seen omplete" (96). Fauset prepares t he reader for Angela's c lates her new freedom and temp changed behavior as she c on Thus straint which come from i solation and anonymity. unre echanistic secular white world of New York City, the m exotic "colored" world of ating, combined with the intoxic stic personality which An gela now Harlem, shapes the hedon i nforms the commodificatio n of i has. Such a changed mili eu um Bun. sex which pervades the tw o middle sections of Pl leaves her sister and the From the instant Angela amily residence in Philad elphia, she embarks on a f l venture of using her ne w status -- from fair- commercia r ed mulatta to white woman -- to barter for greate Skinn ically she freedom, independence, an d happiness. Paradox an of respectability can knows that those qualitie s for a wom r point of be acquired only through marriage. Thus from he ip with Roger must culmin ate in View, her relationsh According to tradition, h owever, she should give marriage. t the subject th d, noe appearance of being the object pursue Angela is the engaged in pursuit. From R oger's standpoint 61 e bject. her as if she were a work of art, and h o Examining finds her delightful, charming, a connoisseur of art , he stopped in g "an arrested movem ent" which "had been resemblin ood to another" (122) . the swift transition from one m f ver, begins to experi ment with the idea o Fauset, howe Lister, another art equality between the sexes. Paulette her increasing st gela ofudent and friend, for ewarns An from object pursued t o pursuer: "When Propensity to move anything there'll be no anybody or You've set your hear t on if the t you'll do, Angele" (127). And then as telling wha ette cautions Angela, rtering, Paul game becomes one of ba ? ound w?ith Roger be "One th?1 .ng, if you do start playing ar tter, and he doesn't care careful. He's a good bit of a ro ds" (128). What he says or spen ds to gain his en ly izes the modernist he roine with a narrow Angela epitom d. mory, for Paulette's advice is short-live focused me otions pture the commodified em Fauset manipulates ti me to ca Wh' or Roger: "She saw th e days of the week, 1.ch Angela has f isions of space" th in little narrow di v e months of the year r, Angela (128). a racte Like the true modern ist ch given moments spent w ith Roger. The concentrates on ory undermines compre - nts in her mem intensity of those m ome es that the flowers, hensiveness or ration ality. She assum he gives fr ? dy, books, and reprod uctions of paintings uit, can will incipal commodity wh ich he her are investments in the pr r it never occurred eventually acquire th rough marriage, "fo 62 to her that men bestowed attentions such as these on a Passing fancy" (131). When sexuality is viewed as a commodity, the person, even as an object, perceives of herself as having power. And that is primarily what keeps Angela involved with Roger. She is willing to flaunt her power, maintaining just the Proper amount of retreat and aggression, as her more experienced friends have advised. Angela is aware of Roger's interest in sex as a commodity, of his willingness to secure her as his possession in a seven-room apartment on Seventy-second Street with a maid. She would be his exclusively to enjoy, invest in, reinvest in at his leisure. Angela would become his museum piece. Knowing Roger's interest, Angela persists in her belief that using the power of her sexuality, displayed in a scene of domesticity, she can convert Roger's pursuit of the commodity of sex into the act of marrying. Their desires are not entirely in 0 PPosition; it is only that Angela must have hers cloaked in the respectability of marriage. Fauset employs the language of ambivalence to suggest Angela's wavering attitude in the scene culminating in intimacy between Roger and her. At the evening's beginning She is dispirited, appalled by her thoughts and longings, fearful, distraught, and tense. Yet when there is physical contact between them "her very bones turned to water" and ''th e air [became] charged with passion" (201, 201). Angela 63 has th Roger. Between the affairs she succumbs to sex w i r. Fauset's persi stence Periods of remorse for her behavio r character an acceptable mo ral stance for he in maintaining at al and historical analysis of wh results in a philo sophic Free love as a con crete act is sexual act connot es. the om. It is as if abstract symbol o f freed transposed into th e call that coital a cts to re Fauset reaches bac k into history not voluntary on n the master and f emale slave were betwee onception of part, that such a cts resulted in c the slave's hat a h t sex was indeed a commodity, and t t e mulatto/a, tha er uch as Angela move s a step furth Post-slavery mula tta s 14 ards freedom as a sexual being. tow steps toward sexua l freedom in her Whereas Fauset sho ws Bun, Larsen seems lum nipulation of the mulatta mask in P ma g a moral equilibr ium and terested in mainta inin less in delving into the a substantial par t of Quicksand to devotes en allows effects of commo difying sex. Lars Psychological ers in tain her heritage even as she wand Helga Crane to re hly ld. Creating a hi g nd rican w or a out of the Af rican-Ame on 14 to greater emphas is being placed uset' s f In regard a love in the phras e "free love," F . reedom than xts s as an entity among other te ~ exist with Harriet xtuality is espe cially observable e irl where Intert idents in the Lif e of a Slave G ead of J<:1cobs 's Inc inst t confesses to tak ing a white lover r. Her tincta Bren aste the sexual demand s of her white m to ing to give owing follows: "It s eems less degrad nale There is ratio than to submit to compulsion. self, o has no one?s in to freedom in h aving a lover wh hing ak by kindness somet ver you except th at which he gains control o 1 a nd attachment" (5 5). 64 Larsen makes her t he object of sexual character, t suitor's family and some of her r firs renunciation by h e and curiosity by hite relatives, th e object of envy W en, and the object of European wom African-American and an men. Helga's suit by African-Am erican and Europe Pur her to grope more desperately for rejection causes lity extent that she di splays her sexua acceptance to the becoming the obje ct of rtment, thus through dress and depo omen and men respe ctively. w envy and desire by ics in Black Cultu re and polit In discussing lite rature z makes the distin ction aissance, Carl Win t n .a!ld the Harlem Re terms of negative n Fauset's and La rsen's novels in betwee characters. Wintz notes nd strength o f a Positive imag es and es and exercised c ontrol th cat Fauset's chara cters "made choi sen "projected ver y negative lives" while Larover their rless sentially hopeless and powe images of women w ho were es es" (211). eir circumstances or their destini to control th ruth in what Wintz an element of t Though there may be tcome of the two rves, he seems to be judging the ou obse consideration to what ving adequate authors' craft wi thout gi nt. Wintz is less mindful uthor set out to represe each a Plum Bun so that th t Fauset creates a passing plot in a r nd appears to have control over he tion a Angela initiates ac frican- e passes. When sh e discloses her A life While sh the object of rej ection American blood sh e becomes more I doer status which th lga is, and thus l oses the subject/ at He 65 peared to have had pre viously. she ap s the powerlessness o f so discus Several women critics al to ne. Deborah McDowell , in her introduction Helga Cra erless to express Q_uicksand and Passing , sees Helga as pow fines of marriage and con her own sexuality out side the es appear to otherhood. The conclu sion of Quicksand do m Resignation to her fa te rvation. confirm McDowell's ob se ing emotion though dis satisfaction seems to be the overw helm in the end. Hazel and Pity are part of Helga's feelings presentation 111 5 Carby' s essay "The Qu icksands of Re . im pacting co siders race, class, an d gender as factors n s Helga as a elga's power or power lessness. Carby view H earance of m?ct lass woman who uses mon ey to gain the app idle-c ment but adds that Hel ga is also freedom through move cinct entially a consumable object." Carby's suc "Pot grees st f Larsen's objective, an assertion which a atement o that with the position take n in this study, is in Part f deologies of consumer ism, o Larsen illustrates "th e i nected" ca ? , and of sexuality as being intimately con Pitalism ever, as a critique of (173). ow If one reads Quicksan d, h t of desire, sex as a commodity, th at is, as an objec wer would conceivably lie in reJ? e c t.i on, or envy, Helg a's po more accessible. making herself more a ttractive and ed in one or more 15 is reprint er. . Carby I s essay ons in a1 anthologies. All parenthetical citati t ~ tic nstructing s study will refer t o Carby' s book Reco Wh i an The Emergence of the African-American Wom ~hood: 987) ? ew York: Oxford UP, 1 66 om n of Helga as a se x object comes fr The first rejectio a decides that she will es Vayle's family. When Helg Jam elationship that leaving mea ns severing her r leave Naxos and e hat his family wi ll b h Vayle, her imme diate thought is t Wit t in y had disapproved of the engagemen relieved because t he eless ily sees Helga as a valu the first place. His fam ckground. In her own nigmatic ba commodity because of her e m Helga speculates o n a graver proble blem analysis of the p ro kinship between re jection n uncanny her illegitimacy. A arent when amily and Helga's uncle becomes app by Vayle's f as complicated a nd ciety . [is] Helga asserts, "N egro so st strata of white ighe rigid in its rami fications as the h as Chicago and decide s Helga reaches society" (8). As soon as rifies her observa tion about the it Uncle Peter, sh e ve to Vis with rebuff from P eter two races' rigidit y. She meets based on race and a N ' elg llssen?s new wife who resents H ' because of her rs. Nilssen reject s Helga not only Class. M s that Helga's itage, but also be cause she suspect mixed her Thus in egally married to Helga's father. mother was not l ens, the idea of th nd the Nils s e case of the vay les a t . em to reject Helg a. And when the " ainted" sex cause s th cle Peter, with an e check arrives fr om Un Pre-paid inheritan c not to "do as your mother did," ached note advisi ng Helga att he uncle's th or five thousand d ollars suggests t e check f rom Helga's mothe r. odity different f desire to "buy" a comm s searching and s a result of reje ction Helga begin A 67 yearning for a constituency much like Angela Murray after her arrival in New York. Both Fauset and Larsen create modernist characters who are so alienated that they have no sense of Other in their lives and thus have less a feeling of being whole individuals than of being commodities available for consumption. Upon being turned away from her uncle's house, Helga returns to her tiny YWCA room and stands poised at her window looking down into the street at crowds of people. She moves to her doorway and finally into the crowd but never achieves a sense of belonging. 16 Helga's restlessness and lack of immersion into African-American culture becomes more apparent when her relationship with Mrs. Hayes-Rore and her niece Anne Grey proves unsatisfying and she sails for Denmark to live with her aunt and uncle. It is obvious that here under the tutelage of the Dahls she will be the object of curiosity, envy, and exoticism. Beginning with the maid Marie, who Helga speculates had never seen "a Negro outside the pictured pages of her geography book,'' there are curious glances at this unusual specimen with slightly brown skin and dark hair. Helga accepts with amusement rather than resentment her special status as an object of scrutiny. For the exhibitionism she experiences here as a foreign commodity she finds temporarily satisfying; ''she (gives] 16 The passage in Quicksand (30) describes Helga as feeling the same kind of isolation which Angela feels (Plum Bun 90, 96). 68 ating business o f being seen, wholly to the fa scin herself up as urely regard her self gaped at , t s desired" (74). She mus t bright e when Fru Dahl begins to selec an object of des ir lga's brown skin, dresses e othes to set off the color of H cl ith shoulders, and shoes w cut to reveal he r fine back and o accentuate her nice legs and er heels and buc kles t high and desire, is a ll feet. of cu riosity Helga, the objec t suggests adding l or viewing excep t that Herr Dah Packaged f Helga feel like s, the addition of which makes long earring "a . " veritable savage. center of attenti on within the In spite of bein g the rginal figure. T he s a ma s? social coteri e, Helga remain Dahl eling jealous; th e "cut down" men admire her w ithout fe Wo e make her an aric jewelry, the excessive roug dress, the barb t a woman to thre aten tic commodity, bu t no attractive, exo crutiny of Helga further th ? Axel Olsen's s eir status (70). Scandinavian crow d: om the marginalizes her fr t over her hand. econd he ben For an impercep tible s at her for what intently After that he lo oked length of time eemed to her an incredibly rude s t, removing is heavy droopin g lids. At las from h ged his of startled satis faction, he wag his stare [emphasis mine] l....eonine head app rovingly (71). tion is Helga's 'I'he eding description of Olsen's reac Prec the e ambivalence of Percept?i on of how he v iews her. Th t she is assessa ble flects both Helg a's feeling tha scene re 69 his Olsen shows so much power in nd a her resentm ent that ssesses Helga's en a scrutiny of h er. As an artist Ols aking her no le ss a ct for his work , m suitability as a subje ms excluded fro m n all instance s she see consumable obj ect. I with very th She is a fascin ating object e majority. conspicuous dif ferences. r a year which Helga ex periences afte The restlessne ss feels in D the lack of fu lfillment she in m enmark derives fro ocus of a cultu ral e f th where she is t h e European cul ture, t . r twelve months group but i's ure Fo not a part of that cul her aunt re has been on display, and tu She the exotic crea le. But Helga is fina sugg t a satisfacto ry es s marriage as he of capitulatio n. Perhaps s h a form not ready for suc as your mother o did. " recalls ' t d her uncle's advice: "D on milar to Iiere Larsen employs a genealo gical trope si nion between a F'auset?s. a u Helga is the produ ct of d a West ropean y a Euro-Ameri can, mother an Eu , or possibl irony. In ord er re is lnct? trope seen h e ian Negro fath er. The vice, Helga, a mulatta with follow Uncle Peter's ad to have to avoid m arrying a dom ? nt Negroid fea tures, would ina pursued for th e bject being pean. Helga re mains that o Euro s bait The Dahls want to use her a hers. gratification of ot closer to nd establish fo r themselves a capture Olsen a . ld. For Olsen himself she connect? tistic worion with the a r art, which he c ould the exotic su bject for his would be 70 aking Helga his m istress. 17 secure by m nist character wh o has the moder Helga Crane typi fies ? . . . t i. he ut 1 sigh nto her a ctual needs. T gradual b 1m1ted in er back and forth in the fren t? e le activity wh ich takes h rts her to the ne ed South ? Chicago, Harlem, and Denmark ale , as not found the become immersed in a culture. She h to ntist, she rce of atisfaction, but, like a mad scie sou real s are most out those "diseas ed" areas which laboriously seek s lsen are syche. Her parti ng remarks to O damaging to her p en, I am not for quite revealing: "But you see, Herr Ols care at sale. ou. Not to any whi te man. I don't Not to y 11 to b 8 7). a e owned. Even b y you" ( uld not knows that marria ge to Olsen wo Although Helga oper t discern what co nstitutes the pr be expedient, she c anno l1'f e . Sh ret urns to New of control and order in her e amount culture. When York . rican -American and immerses her self in Af ostal church serv ice, the self- She t mbles into a pente c s U and his r? Pleasant Green lghteousness of the Reverend d her as a waywa rd woman Par? regar lshioners prompt s them to ous conversion desir? to be saved. A seemingly religi lng inister, for whic h he m tapults her into an affair with t ca 's novel 17 semblances exist between Fausetterracial and Strong ren terms of their treatment of in aff ~arsen?s i in Plum Bun purs ues Roger for a a~rs. Angela Mu rray ? ' t I ar is mis res s. . n m .a..l:"1a'g:l e When he want s her only as h : of Axel's pu~s u1t, Q__uj ,...~ ect Helga is the obj the mulatta is th e p~ mistress. Wheth er ? ? t rrac1? a l ob)? r 11y to be h is he pursuer in in e uit or t of moral re1 ect. of purs the idea atlonships, both authors posit sta the race. nd in al:"ds lower than those with 71 she must atone by immediately becoming married to him. They return to his native home in the South. As the wife of a nearly illiterate southern minister she is not only the object of desire, but also the object of envy by the women parishioners. Helga believes that she will be a leader and teacher of the women -- practicing racial uplift. But her light skin and generally sophisticated appearance alienate her from the women who call her an "uppity" northerner. Ironically they are the ones who ultimately mold Helga into the proper commodity for bearing many children and acquiring the strength to care for them, her house and garden, and for meeting the needs of her husband. Indeed, she does become a consumable commodity. Larsen explores the expression of female desire beyond the point imagined in a novel of the 1920s. Calling attention to the frustration and alienation of the African- American woman, especially one of middle-class status, she flouts the conventions of her time. Larsen searches psychological depths to expose the dialectics of order and disorder, control and laxity, perception and myopia, which pervade the mind and shape the behavior of the African- American woman. Yet she provides no definitive answers. Her critics question the ending of Quicksand. Having exposed the marginality of the mulatta and her unwillingness to conform, Larsen leaves Helga in a state of ambivalence about her future yet about to bear her fifth child. 72 r progressiveness , show the Does Larsen, in h e modification of se x and :i::-ep:i::-es ? the co m sion of sexuality and ife icting Helga as a poverty-ridden w th ep en retrogress in d nd fundamentalist religion nd mother whom provi ncial mores a a few that the novel of fers " onstrict? Hazel Carby concludes c he notes Larsen's exploration and avenues of resolu tion." S he United States :re. to t tion of Europe as an alternative Jec social group" but pised anct th latta's disdain fo r a "des e mu Most notably Carb y he:i::- ? hite wor ld. inability to live in a w folk," a negative repres entation of "the sees the novel as ition as an altern ative d nd e folk tra a thus a reject ion of th Mary Helen Washin gton poses a to th e urban elite (17 4). 's literary career arsen :rhet ? al question perta ining to L oric cts the reader's itself t more pointedly the question dire , bu ing of Quicksand. blematic end attention towards the pro Washington asks: us the greater leg acy of the hy didn't she leav e W a woman who mature model, the perception of ation, and isolati on, and fronts pain, aliencon s until new insig ht onundrum grapples with the se c vented Lives been forged from the struggle (In has 165)? esolutions to the arsen provides few r While it is true that L t d hure, an w i? 1 e i? t valent na P:i::-oblems ambi surrounding Helga 's ating a sk why Larsen stop ped short of cre may be Valid to a and overcome Cha:i::-a to grapple wi th cter strong enoug h 73 alienation and isolation, it is also true that Helga epitomizes the African-American modernist character. Helga Crane the mulatta strikes a fitting pose for the problems of female sexuality, she calls attention to the ambivalences in order and control in asserting one's sexual identity, and she empowers race and gender by her position as protagonist. Larsen points to an aspect of African-American women's writing which she was only able to explore, but she leaves a legacy for other writers, a legacy best articulated in Helga's mental monologue at the end of Quicksand. The scene shows Helga physically bound to her bed yet dreaming of a ubiquitous future free from the oppression and degradation of her present life: It was so easy and pleasant to think about freedom and cities . It was so hard to think out a feasible way of retrieving all these agreeable, desired things. Just then. Later. When she got up. By and by. She must rest. Get strong. Sleep. Then, afterward, she could work out some arrangement. So she dozed and dreamed in snatches of sleeping and waking, letting time run on. Away (135). Helga's allusions to the future are indicative of Larsen's anticipation of greater freedom for writers who succeed her. Just as Fauset and Larsen are less inclined than Harper t o concern themselves with racial uplift and morality as a 74 female virtue, so do successors to these two Harlem Renaissance writers show less inclination to mask female desire . One of the writers for whom Fauset and Larsen provide space for greater exploration of female sexuality is Zora Neale Hurston as seen in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston diminishes Janie's mulatta status through the portrayal of a character immersing herself in African- American culture. Also, Hurston places less significance on marriage for the legitimizing of sex and employs symbols for sexual passion compatible with her lyrical style. Critics who see all African-American women writers prior to Hurston romanticizing the mulatta run the risk of overgeneralizing and of engaging in a superficial analysis of those works. 18 The mulatta, as has been discussed in this study, becomes an African-American modernist strategy for Fauset and Larsen. She represents the woman -- racially oppressed, socially marginalized, and sexually frustrated and repressed. Hurston's novel nearly a decade later employs a more direct approach as it celebrates what Cheryl Wall calls "the creativity and complexity of Afro-Americans that signal the survival of the human spirit despite 18 See Vashti Crutcher Lewis, "The Deel ining Significance of the Mulatto Female as Major Character in the Novels of Zora Neale Hurston, College Language Association Journal XXVIII (December 1984) 127-149; Hiroko Sato, "Under the Harlem Shadow: A study of Jessie Fauset and Nella Larsen," in The Harlem Renaissance Remembered ed. Arna Bontemps (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1972), 63-89. 75 oppress i on" (The Gender of Modernism 173). Th i s is not to suggest that Hurston entirely solves the problems related to female sexuality. Initially Janie, like the protagonists in Plum Bun and Quicksand, sees marriage as th e passage to experi, enci?n g l ove. 19 The differences lie in how the authors in all three instances sustain and/or dispel the myths related to sexuality. Janie marries three times, the first arranged by her grandmother to Logan Killicks to legitimize sex and to provide financial security. But Hurston allows Janie to grow to the realization that Killicks regards her as a commodity, more for material gain than for sexual desire. He signifies on her family, orders her to work, and accuses her of infidelity. When she flings off the apron and sets out to meet Jody Starks, the apron symbolizes Janie's break with 19 Fauset, Larsen, and Hurston have their protagonists express a nearly identical belief that love, if not present before marriage, will follow the legal ceremony. The notion suggests to me how drastic an effect Western mores have on the shaping of emotions. In Plum Bun Angela, anticipating marriage to Roger for security, thinks, "Well, anyway, if they married she would probably come to love him; most women learned to love their husban?s" (130). Helga, in Quicksand, contemplates breaking her engagement to James Vay le. She, too, reflects, "Certainly she had never loved him overwhelmingly ... but she had liked him, and she had expected to love him, after their marriage. People generally did love then, she imagined" (24). And finally in Their Eyes, Janie comforts herself with a similar thought prior to marrying Logan Killicks whom Nanny secures f~r Janie: "Yes, she would love Logan after they were married. She could see no way for it to come about, but Nanny and the o. ld folks had said it , so it must be so. Husbands .a nd wives always loved each other , and that was what marriage meant" (38). 76 Killicks's domestic domination. She marries again before sundown without the legal benefit of divorce. Her growth, however, is not complete because she accepts the idealized position in which Jody places her, isolating her from the people. In such a position Janie becomes an object of desire by the men and of envy by the women. The structure of Hurston's novel allows the reader to see Janie's development from adolescence to maturity. And though the maturation process spans three marriages, Janie achieves self-identity and a greater degree of parity only in her third marriage with Tea Cake. Robert Hemenway, Hurston's literary biographer, contrasts Tea Cake's acceptance of Janie with her first and second husbands' domination and elitism: "Without the hypocrisy and the role- playing that characterized her other marriages, this love is strong enough to make both parties open and giving" (233). The hypocrisy and role-playing which Hemenway observes in Janie's first two marriages are the same traits which dominate the lives of the characters in Plum Bun and Quicksand. For Angela Murray and Helga Crane, class and racial bias, moral restraint, and sexual inhibitions conflate to form an image of female sexuality as an irrepressible state always to be subdued. Hurston takes a more straightforward approach. First, although Janie is a mulatta, her immersion in folk culture lessens the importance of her mulatta status. 77 pening e early Their Eyes are v ery much like o Th scenes in vels provide bac kground on scenes in Plum Bun in tha t both no red in a middle- them l ta?s early life. Angela is rea u at mes from a poor Class hereas Janie co Urban environme nt w by her rura1 b d and is left to be ra ised primarily ackgroun al abuse to halt the sexu grandmother. nny's main goal is Na mily by having of the th ? omen in her fa ird generation o f w d ecure. Having t ol Janie 1 s egally married a nd financially kes a final plea : Janie family, Nann y ma the history of h er or de m enfolks white "And h can't die easy thinkin' maybe A some sympathy fu h black ? p outa you: Have ls Inakin? a spi t cu ed plate" (37). me. p Ah'm a cra ck ut me down easy, Janie, vemaster used he r "for a Janie now knows that Nann y's sla . er, was afy, Janie's mot h Wood-ox and e a brood-sow" and when L eaten. Further, y b born aveowner had Na nn ' the Wife of th e sl r, er raped her mo the Janie hooltea ch knows that the c olored sc So Janie Leafy was born of that forced union. ' and Janie d Nanny's advice that n takes t r heritage ahe knowledge of he ut roots" (31) a nd goes "us lored folks is b ranches witho Co atus s. Her mulatta st Off to k find happiness w herever it lur counts cultu re. for little in su ch a folk he folk environm ent -- Nanny's y, Hurston uses t Secondl ach Janie about ora1 h ? e -- to t e lstory lesson an d natur le s unlike Angela and Virginia fema sexuality. Jan ie i hem as young wo men Murray t se middle-class status compels Who ching to 1 . th h eadboards tou le in their "vir ginal beds" wi 78 heir act? g for a respectabl e expression of t Jacent walls gropi n who dresses in sexuality. N . or is Janie like H elga Crane us but g and immerses he rself in a sensuo sensual clothin manner of one pra cticing isolat ed environment mu ch in the st teacher is natu re. transvestism. Instead, Janie's f ir when she begins to spend her She is only sixtee n years old ssoming pear tree. blo leisure t ? ime in the back-ya rd under a Janie's gaze Unlike voyeurism in whic h Angela engages, the e sanctum of a 0 n the, h 'dust-bearing bee sink[ing] into t is bloom" She results in her fir st orgasm (24). ? 1 and i' t ? N m, is ann y wh o figuratively a pear tree in b oo Obs erves the change. Nanny invokes her own plan Ha vi? ng observed the change, cessarily for e Ord nd control, a plan which does not n er a essay "Change, Ch ance, plan. In her mesh With Janie's own . w watc ihn ' ere g and Goct i?n Zora Neale Hurston 's Their Eyes ?..Qg,,, yce sees all aspects of the novel critic Joyce Ann J o writer and being . e ton's skill as a c reativ influenced by Hur s onjunctive a beh . al scientist. Joy ce explains the c avior forces human behavior at work in Hurston's of nature and tic attitude novel r pr agma to shape Janie's c haracter and he towai:-cts God. Joyce writes , n tur e to represent Hursto merges her use of na e Ch . icat and her use of t he horizon to ind ange t 1 e t c hanc e control her Janie? s w?i lli?n gness o onstrates how the c ycle of life. For Hurston dem 79 ollows the same pattern of human existence f ransience as the caprice t unpredictability and ' cycle of nature (74). ure enlightens h er about human Janie?s communion with n at the pear tree nature. She watches the bees pollinate erself blossoms . back-yard. Con versely, Janie h in her lt' l e ge d stores i' t t o use i. n h er mu ip collects knowled an dy Starks, and T ea Cake relationshi' ps. As Logan K illicks, Jo ht i?1 1 empower h er. ? i? si?o n o f w a w Change, so does Janie's v equivocation wh ich Janie's the behavior does no t reflect Helga Char sexuality of An gela Murray and acterizes the Crane in Their Eyes t o ton makes use of a folk culture Hurs uality in comple te creat of woman's s ex ea Panoramic vi ew ? f 1 ema l e sexua 0 depicts PPosi tion w?i th masking. She . . tragic, at other times expres ? sion at times pa thetic and and nally celebrator y innocent f i and compromising , but eir Eyes nearly a decade after instruct ? ive. Hurston w rote Th cksand. Robert Pau e Plum Bun and L arsen wrote Qui set Wrot . .imens .i on . in Thei r Be"' rsona l D ?11enway?s ervation in "The Pe obs ing the impact o f E es W ems valid r egard ere Watchin God " se at Hurston wrote under private Whit Patronage. No ting th e ay contrasts the Patr Hemen w 0 nage from 1925 u ntil 1932, . r the brilliance o f Thei Inectiocr? ity of her earli er works with ke Hemenway's po int a ~ 37 (32-33). T o ta 'PUblished in l 9 en heir Eyes had be Step ggest that if T further, r would su 80 Hurston might ha ve been ate patronage, Written under pr iv r xtent as Fauset o forced t mask sexuality t o as great an e o rsen masked it. La has resulted in a increased femini ne sensibility An Leroy. Plum Bun , cont? ola inuum of women's writing -- I God which ' and Their Ey es Were Watching ~ of slavery al release from the strictures reflects a gradu his continuum of T nd ccupation with r acial uplift. a the preo code of morality ct Works m the stri reflects a trend away fro n trend towards im mersion withi set by White cu lture and a . thus promoting a more the Af . rican-American c ulture, female sexuality . d practice of Wholesome outloo k upon an 81 CHAPTER III. Female subjectivity Throug~ Material . consumption: African-American Modernism1 s Resistance to Patriarchy in Plum Bun and The Chinaberry Tree Tonight she was to go out with Roger. She wore her flame-coloured dress again; a pretty green one was also hanging up in her closet, but she wore the flame one because it lighted her up from within -- lighted not only her lovely, fine body but her mind too. --Jessie Fauset Plum Bun Beyond in the next room Laurentine's lovely fingers were flashing in and out of lengths of gorgeous shades of silk, georgette and velvet while she directed Mattie Gathers and Johnasteen Stede, her assistants. --Jessie Fauset The Chinaberry Tree Jessie Fauset created scenes such as the two above throughout her novels, but the trend seems most prevalent in Plum Bun and The Chinaberry Tree. Interwoven in a scene depicting a wardrobe selection is Fauset's suggestion that her character is also making decisions about her life. She is mapping out mental strategies for dealing with shades of difference in human relations as well. And the industriousness called up in the second scene points to the displaced woman's need to survive at her own hand and to display talent and aesthetics while she does. Critics have too frequently looked at descriptions of Fauset's female characters and concluded that the author was only interested in depicting middle-class life and race problems occurring 82 within that group. Making a connection between Fauset and Toomer, who published Cane in 1923, J. Saunders Redding attributes Fauset's decision to portray a different level of society to her being a woman and ''a little shocked" at the kind of people Toomer revealed in Cane (106). Although Walter White wrote Flight in 1926, Redding does not explore the reason White treated the southern bourgeoisie in his novel, nor does Redding contrast White with Toomer. Hugh Gloster sees Fauset's novels illustrating "that bourgeois Negroes are interesting subjects for literary treatment"; however, Gloster does recognize that Fauset goes further to illustrate that women and women's issues deserve attention too. Gloster calls The Chinaberry Tree ''a modern analogue to Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter" (136). Edwin Burgum, a reviewer of The Chinaberry Tree, concentrates on plot weaknesses of the novel and gives no importance to Fauset's description of material possessions. Rather indifferently, Burgum writes, "One puts aside the occasional infelicities of diction in which clothes and table linen are described in the savory cliches of department store advertisements" (88). The tone in which the reviewer dismisses Fauset's treatment of clothes and household decor suggests that he, like Redding, sees any deviation from male forms of discourse as female writers' shortcomings. Rather than being regarded as a writer's shortcoming, such a deviation results in female subjectivity, which is a 83 way to resist patriarchy. Broadly defined, female subjectivity means having the narrative, the characterization, and setting evolve from a woman's perspective. This is especially important in a patriarchal society where standards for canon formation and criticism descend from the "male line." It is even more significant for African-American women writers who labor under the 3dditional constraint of projecting a positive image of the ~frican-American woman. Appropriately, critic Mae Henderson discusses what constitutes African-American female subjectivity as "black women speak(ing] from a multiple and complex social, historical, and cultural positionality" ("Speaking in Tongues" 19). Because of the impact of race and gender, writers such as Fauset, and, to a degree, predecessors such as Frances E.W. Harper, devised a strategy for voicing their own values and their history. The strategy is well-grounded in that Fauset herself was a modern middle-class woman who, according to her biographer Carolyn Wedin Sylvander, delighted in "cultural soirees" and enjoyed repeated trips to Europe and Africa (68, 79). Fauset's personal correspondence attests to her fondness for stylish clothing, quality food and drink, and sophisticated outings. In a letter to Harold Jackman, a nernber of the Harlem Renaissance literati, Fauset wrote from Paris, France in 1924 of spoiling her best hat, "a Parisian one," in the grey rainy weather so typical of the region. 84 tail of her soc ial life In the e letter she w rote in de sam the Montmartre there: eas, drinking aperitifs in attending t ibed it, to a cafes o cabarets, or , as she descr ' going t nto Fauset's "d 20 ses iansant" or bal." Such glimp a " ip of the auth or's Pei:-sona1 1? lationsh ife reveal the close re e expressed i n her novels. dreams and ideals wit h thos work ught empt here to c all Fauset's Tho here is no att that the dram atically autob? is raphical, what is suggested iog hinaberry Tree The C conce? Plum Bun an d ivect character s in author and, th erefore, bear ity to the a strong simil ar constitute a rm of subjecti vity. fo o African-Americ an writers wh t reveals kinsh ip to Fause the role of Precede at she is alwa ys mindful of her in th ization, and in history . ter ematic influen ce, in charac in th f lt 'th any one o f ali'ti'es. Critics who fi?n d au wi forma1 qu to themselves to thes set's craft owe it e aspects of F au mplish. It is o acco examine t e closely what she attempts mor ely, that she t true that cism ra ther delica she handles ra le- ses on the mid d expe . that she foc u riments with p assing, creates parall el Class and that s he almost exclusi vely, rray of charac ters. Though Plots Which contribu te to an a act, terary jugglin g not fl such a li awless in con trolling en from a woma n's perspec- Fauset omemerges with a view of w ld Jackman, 2 1 20 Haro Jessie Faus et, letter to Johnson Colle ction, Oecemb . er 1924, Ja mes Weldon ok and 1'1isce ondence, Bein ecke Rare Bo 11~neous corresplianu University. script Library , Yale 85 tive. She critiques the sexist and racist ideologies of the society i'n which women must live and function and even , though modestly or subversively, how women will Projects orces: roug in imacy with other cope with those negati've f th h ? t' ? Women and through career ambitions in lieu of/along with Couched beneath the concrete, material interests marriage. Whi' ch abound in the two novels is the theme of two abstract but si? gnificant qualities for which Fauset's women grope -- respectability and freedom. The excerpts from Fauset's novels which serve as the epigraph to this chapter of my study disprove the theory of eri? tics such as Redding, Gloster, and Burgum who hold that Fauset?s novels are mere treatises on race with minimal traces of propaganda. As in the case of female sexuality , al wealth Fauset uses the mulatta's preoccupation with m ateri and Physi?cal property to mask her critique of sex.i st ideology and her advocacy of community among women a nd What becomes problematic is car eer ambi 't?i ons for women. Fauset?s tendency to reflect at tim es more of the mainstream modernist trend towards elitism, which undercuts the Because Fauset focuses on the resist ance to patriarchy. middl e- and upper-class woman, class tends to marginalize other a?i spossessed women who grope for respectability and freedom. Neither Fauset nor Harper her predecessor seemed able to completely remove herself from the grip of patriarchy, a 86 residual force from slavery. In Iola Leroy, Dr. Gresham, though taken aback by the knowledge that Iola has mixed blood, presumes that he will marry her and take her away to the North where her heritage will be least likely discovered. Gresham's presumptuousness derives not only from his love for Iola, but also from his status as a white doctor. He would be able to support Iola and more likely suppress any information regarding her heritage. Because Harper's primary concern is with racial uplift, she does not allow Iola to marry Gresham and desert her people by leaving the South. In a subversive manner Harper attempts to resist white patriarchy. Notwithstanding the mild resistance in Iola's refusal, Harper recalls the history of Iola's mother Marie. Eugene Leroy, a dissipated white youth falls in love with Marie, his mulatta nurse. Grateful for her care and wanting to marry her, he first sends her away to the North to be educated. He returns to Marie's graduation, proposes to her, and receives applause from her classmates who are happy that Marie will become "the wife of her guardian" for she "had been deprived of a parent's love and care" (76). Though he incurs disfavor from his friends, Leroy marries Marie, making her "the mistress of his home" and the owner of the family silver and jewelry (76). Harper mentions such material gains as if they were antithetical to the status of a woman, to be sure, a woman of mixed blood. 87 Though the unfolding of the story becomes melodramatic , Harper shows her opposition to the possession of material wealth at the expense of freedom. Marie can experience only momentary happiness as the wife of a white slave-holder. The notion constantly haunts her that she and her children would be remanded to slavery if her husband should die first . She continuously questions Leroy regarding the legitimacy of his will and their marriage certificate. She does not trust Alfred Lorraine, Leroy's only close relative. The unrest undermines her happiness in a marriage where she has servants and an otherwise upper-class life style. The Biblical allusion to "the sins of their fathers" becomes a theme in Iola Leroy and later in The Chinaberry Tree. It disrupts family, reverses freedom and enslavement, and devalues material wealth. Harper's concern for racial uplift is dramatized in the tragedy which befalls Iola's parents and Iola herself. Although Leroy can well afford to send Iola and her brother north to boarding school, he does it primarily because their mixed blood isolates them from community and because he wants to spare them, as children, of that knowledge. Neither Iola nor her brother ever forms an intimate relationship with their father. And their own freedom is so tenuous that Iola is unable to see that her father's owning slaves is wrong. In a discussion with a classmate, Iola represents the race politics of the South and her classmate, the northern view. Iola argues that many 88 m were not elect to be free if freedo th ld of e slaves w ou sts only wanted to take Offe tioni red and that no rthern aboli is manifest the ' property. A c ounter position southerners Iola: "Would you b e in th s es to e question the northerner po autiful home, th e costliest s to have the mo st be sati fied e?" if you were a s lav jewels wardro be ' or the most e legant (97) n Harper's nove l is The resistance to patriarchy i imizes the happi ness which connected with race. She min ? riage with L eroy, a white Ma rie can experience in a mar ust pay an even dearer n m Slave-hold er. And their chi ldre and her children are P:rice. rue to Marie's s uspicions, she T dden death. Io la band's su :remanded . very upon her h us into sla when she is redu ced to :realizes ly the meaning of freedom on r wealth she and her family the status of a slave. Wh ateve er; they were no ite fath Posses from her wh sect had descend ed sequently, long such properties. Iola can, sub er entitled to ome a teacher, :realign her life as a colore d woman, bec er thus emphasiz es Harp l!la:r:ry nd work for rac ial uplift. ' a and the conomically as w ell as socially need to be free e Po1?l tica11 y. ing a teacher an d an rying within her race and becom Mar . at the beginning of Iola actvocat ce empowerment places e of ra d ose in Plum Bun an a Sp uding th ectrum of l cultured women inc Living Is 'l'he Ch? and Dorothy we st's novel The J.n_a_b..c....::e~r~r4._~T~r~e~e requently ~- works by male writer s f Materialism in 89 proves to be negative. Male writers, creative and critical, see the display of material wealth as the aping of European culture . For instance, Rudolph Fisher's The Walls of Jer i cho and Claude McKay's Home to Harlem, both published in 1928, are proletarian novels. Though Fisher himself was a member of the middle-class, his novel is a satire of middle- class values and relationships between the races. John McClus key's critical introduction to Fisher's collected short stories recalls the disillusionment DuBois felt over the br i ef glimpses which The Walls of Jericho gives to the "better class of Negroes" (xxix). Likewise, McKay depicts the working-class Harlem community in their relationships at ~ark on the docks or in their social life in the saloons, ?ool halls, and cabarets. Jake, the protagonist in Home to Harlem, becomes the prototype of the radical "new Negro." Although some critics would contest the yoking of McKay and Pauset, it is possible for Fauset's female protagonists in Plum Bun and The Chinaberry Tree to share with Jake the distinction of being called the radical "new Negro." Commentaries on the cover of the new edition of Home to Harlem from The Northeastern Library of Black Literature and Wayne F. Cooper's foreword contain the following descrip- lions: II this classic novel gives voice to the alienation and frustration of urban blacks during an era when Harlem was in vogue"; " . McKay expressed with great clarity and vigor his race's deepest emotions as an 90 alienated, besieged, and tormented minority within Western civilization." In other words, McKay exercises a male working-class subjectivity and shows resistance to the influences of a white patriarchy. The tributes paid to McKay for his accomplishments could be applicable to Fauset and her novels if critics extended gender and class to include middle-class women. At least one critic sees a historical connection between authors and the importance they give to materialism. In Afro-American Literature of the Twentieth Century Michael Cooke posits the theory that access to political power replaced access to possessions and comfort and luxury. Cooke further theorizes that materialism was prevalent when literary authors practiced self-veiling, but as authors moved toward self-discovery, materialism became less widespread. He cites Fauset as the author most tenacious in holding on to materialism and Hurston as the author moving towards self-discovery (74). However categorical Cooke may seem in his discussion of materialism, he does show awareness of an author's underlying motivation. He writes , II . where the environment threatened annihilation at every turn, to veil the inner self and invest in material facades was at least to be responsible for decision and action" ( 62) . For Fauset, responsibility for decision and action translates into a female subjectivity using material c onsumption to dramatize women's concerns. 91 The mulatta's interest in material possessions in both of Fauset's novels is connected with male ancestry, and the careful reader detects Fauset's subtle and gradual resistance to it. The opening scene of The Chinaberry Tree proclaims the direct influence of white patriarchy, whereas Plum Bun alludes to it through generational differences. The two generations of the Murray family have disparate views of material possessions. Mattie regards her house on Opal Street, her weekly forays into Philadelphia's better department stores, and the ownership of a private automobile as adequate barriers to the racism and poverty which she had experienced earlier in her life. She defers readily to her husband Junius for rescuing her from the racist, sexist ordeals of her single life. Angela, on the other hand, relates a good life with access to "broad thoroughfares, large, bright houses, delicate niceties of existence" (12), which far exceed the minimal accumulations of her parents. Angela observes that substantial wealth is only accessible to white people, and complete freedom, therefore, lies within the white race. Unlike Iola, who refuses to sacrifice freedom for material gain, Angela believes that she must resist the influence of her father and seek freedom and happiness outside her own culture. Clearly Fauset is using material consumption to mask her critique of the sexist and racist ideologies of her time. The parallel plots in Plum Bun explain the difficulty 92 Which women such as Angela have in resisting white patriarchal influence. Angela's belief that "the great rewards of life -- riches, glamour, pleasure, -- are for Whi' te-ski.n ned people only" (16) emanates from her weekend escapades with her mother in Philadelphia to Chestnut street, to Wanamaker's, to the Bellevue Stratford. The description of mother and daughter in these scenes reflects ambi? valence on race and gender ma Ftt ae urs s. e t seems to give the nod to temporary passing in having the third-person omn i? sci? ent narrator explain that Mattie Murray's forays into downtown Philadelphia are a respite from the domestic duties required of her during the week. rhe sexist custom of assigning housewives the drudgery of Monday washdays, followed by special days for ironing, scrubbing and sewing Chl' ldren's clothes could be offset by a day to fantasize in department stores, hotel lobbies, and tea rooms. Repeatedly, however, the narration of Mattie's weekend activities includes terms such as "innocent," "childish," "h armless," and "without malice or envy" (16). Mattie becomes ? n these1 instances the young m?i n dl ess, slavish f'l gure who emulates white customs without understanding the imp ortance yo ef t h Fe ar u sa ec tt i mo an k. e s her responsible as seen in the deceptive reasoning which A ngela derives from her mothe "r' Is t b we ah s av fri oo mr . her mother that Angela learned the possibilities for joy and freedom which seemed to her inherent in mere whiteness" (l 6 ) ? 93 The themes of respectability and freedom develop concurrently in Plum Bun. Fauset shows the two generat i? ons -- mother and daughter -- yoked together in Pursu i? ng, through "passing," a respectable lifestyle. Yet, she points out the irony of the situation and the absence of freedom i. n the fact that skin color splits the family in half m. ust seek respectability through Junius and Virginia anoth The formal divisions of the novel emphasize er means. th ? Fauseis t dp eo vi on tt e. s two lengthy paragraphs to Mattie anct An gela's explorations in the modern, material, white 'vlor1ct wh i? le Junius and Virginia explore the old, historical Phl' ladelphi' a. Fauset notes the divisiveness of the two envi? ronments and subsequent split of the family in a brief 0 ne-sentence paragraph juxtaposing the two longer Paragraphs: "Much of this pleasure, harmless and charming though it was, would have been impossible with a dark skin" ( 16) . the racism which breeds this She points to divis?i veness and Angela's misconceived viewpoint later in the no "v Te hl e: daughter could not guess that if economic status or the racial genius of coloured people had permitted them to run modish hotels or vast and popular department Fauset stare s her mother would have been there" (17) ? Posit s the idea that freedom to enjoy the finer things in life 1. What Matti5 e Murray seeks and not association with 'vlhi t e People. Yet Angela's imperception of her mother's search for 94 freedom and respect leaves the daughter in a confused state. She reJ? ects all aspects of her family tradition except those Wh i' ch suggest luxury and material prosperity. She minimizes the va l ue of going to church, equating it in importance with the s aturday outings in that she "liked the luxuriousness of being' dressed up' on two successive days." She resists the Sunday ri. tuals, "thinking this was a stupid way to spend Sunday and wondering at just what period of one's life existe nee began to shape itself as you wanted it" (22). Throu g h Angela's contrary feelings about family and reli gi. on, Fauset posits misgivings about the patriarchy Undergirdi'ng the Murrays' religious practices. Juni. us, accordi' ng to Angela's perception, imagines that only through divine i. ntervention was he, "a poor boy, homeless, a nobody," able to become "a respectable citizen, house-owner, a good provider" to his family. The status which Junius Views as prosperous is negligible compared with the wealth Angela sees in downtown Philadelphia. The di. spari. ty not 0 nly causes her to be cynical, but also leads her to the conclus?i on that "coloured people were to be consi'd ered fortun ate only in the proportion in which they measured up 8 to th e physical standards of white people'' (1 ) ? Angela the n, unlike her mother, is not content to pass temporarily. lnsteaa, she ponders joining the race she beli.e ves wi. 11 bring her "the greatest happiness, prosperity and respect" ( 8 O) ? 95 There is a recess in Angela's determination to find a greater freedom with another race when she begins to enjoy economic independence in a fledgling career as a teacher. Although both she and her sister are teaching in segregated schools in Philadelphia, Angela's temporary state of contentment lends credence to Fauset's ideological stance that African-Americans want less to be with white society than to enjoy an equal amount of prosperity. The tension between the two generations decreases when Angela's and Jinny's work puts them on a more equal plane with other job- holding adults. The narrator notes, "The Saturday excursions were long since a thing of the past; Henry Ford had changed that" (56). rt is as if Fauset brings the Murrays into modern society with the automobile. No longer do Angela and her mother, using their mulatta status to advantage, go into a dream world of wealth and upper class which Junius and Jinny cannot share. Having a car of their own reunites family and gives them access to more expansive portions of society. "They rode out Jefferson Street and far, far out Ridge Avenue to the Wissahickon and on to Chestnut Hill" (52). Though the Murrays are not affluent enough to live in such areas, the car at least allows the entire family to explore without masking their color. The euphoria which only Mattie and Angela once felt now pervades the entire household: "They came back [from the car rides] laughing and happy and pardonably proud. The dense, tender 96 glow o f late afternoon September sun flooded the little t he Parlor , the dining-room was dusky and the kitch en was redolent scents of g i nger bread and spiced preserves" of (52) . Fauset seems careful, however, to contrast the domestic tranqui111?ty of the Murray family with their failure to Part i? ci?p ate fully in the American dream. She still sees the need t call attention to the business and social 0 establ i' shments which separated the races. She emphasizes Mattie's and Angela's ambivalence about their position in society so that their contentment fluctuates. An intimacy between mother and daughter replaces the tension which existed Ironically they lapse into the same kind earlier. Of activity: Sti' ll there were times when Angela in search of a new frock or intent on the exploration of a Picture gallery asked her mother to accompany her. And at such times the two indulged in their former custom of having tea and a comfortable hour's chat in the luxurious comfort of some exclusive tearoom or hotel. Mattie ... ?..till responded joyously to the call of fashion and grooming, the air of II good living" which pervades these places. Moreover she herself was able to contribute to t thl' s atmosphere. Her daughters insiS ed on Presenting her with the graceful and dainty 97 clothes which she loved ... (56). [emphasis mine] Fauset conveys the impression that in spite of the Murrays' rise in status they remain outside the economic and social In order to enjoy certain mili' eu of the whi'te upper-c 1 ass. comforts outside their home and car, they must re-enter the World of white hotels, restaurants, and art galleries. And these fa ci?1 ?i ties were open to the Murrays only if they appeared to be white. only Mattie Murray and her daughter Clearly Fauset A.ngela can i. ndulge in the temporary passing. is us?i ng both mulatta characters here to criticize a culture Which marginalizes women, African-American women more espec?i ally, to the extent that they seek satisfaction in mater? Deborah McDowell summarizes, from a i al consumption. fem?i nist?s point of view, hoW Fauset makes clear in her nov e1s the antagonism towards African-American women. Mcnowe11 notes that Fauset "criticiz[es] the American soc? has institutionalized prejudice, safeguarded 1ety which it by and public attitude, and in general, denied the law freed om of development, the right to well-being, and the Pursuit happiness to the black woman" ("The Neglected of In essence, Dl' .Inension of Jessie Redmon Fauset" 87)? Men owe11 sees Fauset questioning the politics of the 1920s society pertaining to the treatment of African-American 98 women. 21 Fauset's own race and sex ideology was instrumental in the crafting of her novels to reflect the alienation and frustration of women common in modernist fiction but prim ari? ly to depict the struggles toward freedom and For this reason, respectability for African-American women. in Plum Bun Fauset characterizes Angela as highly ambivalent Initially she intimates from her in her search for freedom. mother's pursuits that "joy and freedom [are) inherent in Later as her fa m me ir le y w mh ovit ee s n ce ls os" s er( 1 t4 o) . the white race in economic status, she becomes less "Life was pretty hum- reS t less, though still ambivalent: . [SJhe was drum, but it was comfortable and pleasant. seeing enough of a larger, freer world to make her chafe less at the restrictions which somehow seemed to bind in her By this time the col o ow rn e dg roup" (57) s. chool district has appointed Angela as a teacher, "a lady-like, respectable position." She is "able to have pretty clothes" and 21 Fauset's work with The crisis and with the . NAACP ove~all suggests that she was aware of the exclusion of African-American women from the women's rig~ts ~o~eme~t. Con~emporary history scholars note that discrimination a~ainst women of color who advocated reform was wid spread. see Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, "Discrimination Aga7inst Afro-American Women in the woman's Movement, 1830-1920" in The Afro-American woman: stru les and Images, 17-27 ed. Sharon Harley and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat P, 1978). Plum Bun becom7s a convenient vehicle for Fauset to mask, through material consumption, her protest of ~he lack. of opportunity for meaningful work for African-American women. 99 49). ''d w[s] y adequate and s teady salary" ( ra an appreciabl t the Philadelph ia Her sa1 study art aary allows her t o white. Academy where most of t he students are of Fine Arts riences results 'I'he tern expe Porary contentm ent that Angela on the ft-om a . lass status whic h situates her middle-c e Periphery of wh it society. e her own belief s about middle- t appears to voi c Fause r of, yet outsid e Class Af . being on the borde rican-Americans which white peop le the circle ty of, freedom and prosperi ing to "pass," enjoy. loser to dec id As she moves An gela c ce for minority F'auset tively makes An gela a mouthpie figura t-/omen . in the arts: yself off from al l the things hy should I shut m "W le who do I Want most clever p eople, peop I elt it with a th ice spings, Art, 11 her vo ich are "travel and a lo t of things wh capital, -- ly r everybody real ly but which on in the world fo get th ei. r h an d s see, Whit n e people, as far as r ca , on. scholarships an d special funds I mean Patronage" ( 7 8) ? uickly and hat eople of means g et ahead more q Aware t p transition in th e With uset justifies th e gi:-eater ease,22 Fa , Fauset wrote f :om 22 Jackman ~aris i In a lett er to Harold ch people's comp arative 1924 of the Fren eals her freedomn Decembe r she rev et fear of p overty. omfort when she apPi:-e . y onomic c write~~a;ion fo r her own ec ess of one doesn't have to dread shortn f for one of funds ? ? ? . i ularlyst heaven. Part ic nd ave to Us,_ b~tc., it i s ju h hate to be genu inely poor a t I should 100 novel where Angela breaks with her heritage and passes for in the arts and live a "freer" White i? n ?rder to participate life. This defensive conversation between Angela and her s?i ster looks back to the loss of patronage, so to speak, Wh' experiences from Mr. Shields, instructor at the ich Angela art and Mrs. Shields when they learn from Esther academy, Bay1 ? Angela is colored. The Shields' had painted an iss that picture for one of their students: possibilities optimistic Of scholarships, becoming director of drawing in one of the loca1 schools or buyer for art in a department store, travel to Eur ope, and exposure to liberal-minded people in the artist? They had seen talent in Angela, who i c world. ,, Possesse d an undeniable air, ... dressed well, even ision to pass, supe In announcing her dec r 1 ati vely" ( 64) . Angela n early mimics Mr . shields who cites the advantages in the art profession for a white woman. Also, the conversat?i on looks ahead to Angela's final disillusionment befo re she announces publicly that she, li?k e An th ony cross ana Rachel Powell, is colored. prompted by Rache 1 's den?i al Of an art scholarship an d a travel grant to France because She i? s obv i? ously colored, Angela's announcement compe 1 sher tog?i ve up the grant as well- rt is as if Fauset were say?i ng ? t hrough Angela's decision, ncertain arti.st.ic talents at-e marketable if packaged in acceptable coverings; and Cet-ta i? n commodities as dear as freedom and respectability live i. n Paris or anywhere in France for that matter." 101 are attainable if one has the proper appearance." At the same time that materialism in Plum Bun masks the author's objection to racist and sexist ideologies, it provides insight into intimacy and community among women as an inroad to freedom. Fauset situates her character so that in her changed role as a young woman passing for white she observes the rapid pace of New York life, the remoteness of people and places, and the independence and assuredness of masses of strangers. She perceives Fifth Avenue as a canyon, which intensifies her feeling of isolation. Such a modern milieu makes Angela less eager for independence and wealth and more aware of her loneliness and the need for friendship. Ironically Angela's desire for intimacy becomes her primary reason for enrolling in a college art class. More than anything else, she anticipates meeting pleasant people with whom she can take lunch or tea. Angela becomes a medium for Fauset to analyze the intimacy between women as contrasted with female/male relationships as well as intimacy between women of different racial backgrounds. Fauset's manipulation of material consumption makes both distinctions obvious. Soon after Angela's arrival in New York she wanders into Harlem, observing the crowds of people of various complexions. one brown woman "dressed as exquisitely as anyone she had seen on Fifth Avenue" and a man with an artist's face convince Angela that not all of the residents of Harlem are servants 102 or p She counters her eople with other men.i al J. obs. observat1? .on with the thought that even though the man may be an art1? st of sorts, their artistic goals are different. Further ' she deduces that people in the arts in Harlem are not as f ree as those in the rest of New York: "In all mater? in practical things these two worlds (are) 1.al, even ? alike ' b ut in the production, the fostering of those Ultimate man. ifestations, this world [is] lacking, for its Peopl without the means or the leisure to support e [a re) ? them [ the arts) and enjoy them" (97). In her search for intimac Y, Angela notes the presence of material prosperity and People with artistic inclinations but rejects Harlem as her because she believes there are not enough people Ill, World , lddle-c1 ass to be sure, to appreciate and support the arts. Angela?s observations and conclusions about Harlem result from a k i' nd of mental re-immersion in her own culture. The effect i s her decision to remain physically in the white World Which she perceives to offer the greater freedom. Fauset shows further resistance to patriarchy by estab1 l? shing intimacy between two women of different races. Angel a seeks a friendship with fellow art student Paulette beca Use p aulette seems generous and capable and because more about these people with Angela wants to "know something Whom ls) spending her life" (102). Although unaware of She [ ? An gela?s passing, paulette needs a closer relationship with other Women, assuring herself that she ?could have a gang of 103 men." The two women establish their friendship over dinner for two. While Paulette prepares the meal Angela gets a sel f -education in her new culture by examining the contents of Paulette's apartment. The anomalous structure and contents of the apartment suggest to Angela the contrasts in Paulette's philosophy of life: The f ront room was ... the bedroom, [containing] a dressing-table and a wide, flat divan about one f oot and a half from the floor, covered with black or purple velvet. The dressing-table was a good piece of mahogany, but the chairs were indifferently of the kitchen variety ... made out of a large packing box. In the living-room, where the table was set ... the china was fine, even dainty, but the glasses were thick and the plating had begun to wear off the silver ware (103-104). As Fauset is prone to do in all of her novels, here in Plum Bun t he third person narrator filters through Angela's perception this view of Paulette's living quarters. This str ategy accomplishes two things: Angela's keen perception of material quality reflects her own middle-class upbringing as part of an "old Philadelphia" family, and Angela derives fr om the scene an impression of Paulette's self-assuredness anc even androgynous qualities. The front room, often called the living-room, is Paulette's bedroom. She 104 integrates bedroom activities with the rest of her life. She suggests through the black or purple velvet valance around the divan a sense of pride or even royalty in her life. The good mahogany and fine china, alongside impro- vised chairs and thick glasses, point to Paulette's Practicality and emerging sense of the modernist woman. This scene, coupled with subsequent conversation between Paulette and Angela, reveals to Angela Paulette's status as "mistress of herself and her fate" (105). Paulette invites intimacy when she sends Angela into the bathroom to wash before the meal, offering to share her favorite hand lotion and obviously more significant knowledge into her sexual activities. Angela is amazed upon discovering in plain view " a man's shaving mug and brush and a case of razors" (104). While Paulette gives ample evidence of her intimacy with men, she herself eats heartily, tosses off two cocktails before her meal, and smokes cigarettes, inhaling while she does. The insight which such scenes provide into the life of single women of the 1920s, and especially into the attitude towards their lifestyles, justifies Fauset's tendency to treat material consumption. As an African-American modernist, Fauset posits the idea that female subjectivity allows women to create space for other women to tell their own stories. In other words ' female subjectivity not only resists patriarchy, but also promotes intimacy. An example is the relationship between 105 Angela and Paulette in Plum Bun. Although Angela is the one Who purportedly seeks intimacy, she never verbalizes her need but rather puts herself in the position to acquire friendship and then proceeds to assess her accomplishments. At the end of the evening at Paulette's apartment, it is Paulette who says wistfully that she does so want a woman friend, that "[w]hen a woman really is your friend she's so dependable and she's not expecting anything in return" (106- 7) ? Paulette expresses her need for intimacy for the sake of intimacy, as contrasted with intimacy for sexual satisfaction. Angela has the same need, having admitted to herself before going to Paulette's house that "she was not quite ready for meeting men" (102}. Angela leaves Paulette's apartment thinking that she is "in a new world with new people" and wondering how she will handle this new- found freedom (107). The friendship between Angela and Paulette does indeed prepare Angela for the ensuing relationship with Roger Fielding. She is able to detect Roger's method as "a bit florid" when he invites her to dinner for the first time. The ornateness of his speech in essence foretells his material extravagance. Angela prepares for the setting by wearing a dress which she had chosen with Paulette's advice -- flame-colored, plain "beautiful glowing silk" with a neckline "high in back and girlishly modest in front." Her accessories are "a string of good artificial pearls and 106 two heavy silver bracelets" (122). She not only impresses Roger, but also finds pleasure in the compatibility of her dress with the elegance and grandeur of the hotel where they dine. For the moment, Angela is convinced that she is handling her new-found freedom well. When Angela's pursuit of freedom, however, becomes yoked with Roger's material wealth, Fauset seems to recall a period of history related to slavery and Reconstruction. Like her predecessor Frances Harper, Fauset invokes the theme of African-American women being denied a legacy from their white husbands /lovers.n While it becomes a dominant theme in The Chinaberry Tree, Fauset treats the idea only on a psychological level in Plum Bun. She shows Angela continuously warring with herself about the permanence of her relationship with Roger. There is a typical racist scene in a restaurant. 24 Dining with Roger in a small cafe on Tenth street, Angela notices the lavish 23 The disinheritance of the woman and her offspring in an interracial affair is a common occurrence in nineteenth-century African-American fiction. In addition to Harper's Iola Leroy, see William Wells Brown, Clotel ( 18 5 3) ; Frank J. Webb, The Gari es and Their Friends (1857); and Charles W. Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition ( 1901). 24 Fauset duplicates the restaurant scene in The Chinaberry Tree, though Carolyn Sylvander sees it as an "intrusive, unincorporated" incident. The primary justification for it could be Fauset's recollection of a similar incident involving her husband and herself. See Marion Starkey, "Jessie Fauset," Southern Workman (May 1932) 219-20, qtd. in Sylvander, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Black American Writer, 209. 107 atmosphere: "[T)he glitter and perfection of crystal and ? ? II silver of marvelous napery and of obsequious service ' (132). The ambience is so suggestive of high-class that Angela cannot use ordinary words to describe routine items. The odor of food becomes aroma, mineral water and wine becorne nectar, the bread and fish are ambrosia, and the food in general she refers to as viands (132). In a matter of moments, however, the entire scene is blighted when Roger observes an African-American group of three about to be seated nearby. He protests to the headwaiter, the trio leave, and Roger returns to Angela, feeling victorious. His assessment of the incident leaves Angela devastated: "Well I put a spoke in the wheel of those 'coons'! They forget themselves so quickly, coming in here spoiling white peoples's appetites. I told the manager if they brought one of their damned suits I'd be responsible. I wasn't going to have them here with you, Angele "(133). This incident makes Angela aware that she would never experience freedom with Roger in spite of all the material comf o rts he could provide, for he could never know her true identity. Roger's willingness to pay if there should be a lawsuit speaks clearly to his belief in the power of money over freedom. To some degree, he resembles Colonel Halloway i n The Chinaberry Tree and other white male figures in i nterracial affairs in the nineteenth century novels. 108 The ambivalence which Fauset's women characters show in their resi. stance to white patriarchy has a direct correlati? on to the intimacy they have with other women. Not w?i thstanding the propensity which Fauset shows for mar ri?a ge of nearly all of her female characters, there is the subtle resistance to acquiring material possessions through men as long as there is strength and unity within a When c to hm am t u cn oit my mo uf n itw yo m bre en. a ks down, the resist ance to white patriarchal influence weakens as well. 'Whether the intimacy is between mother and daughter, between s?l .sters ' or between women who are mere friends, it has a self-s ustaining quality in the woman's quest for freedom and resp In Plum Bun, Angela isolate ec st a hb ei rl si et ly f. from her si. ster J"i nny even after Jinny comes to New Yokr , ow?i ng to An gela s deci? si?o n to pass. she l1 o ses the c 1 oseness w?i th The severing of Paulette when Paulette leaves for Europe. these t i? es makes Angela vulnerable to Roger and the lllate ri.a 1?i sm he offers: the little blue car; the elegant rest aurant meals; gifts of books, flowers, an d can d Y? EnJ? oying these delights clouds Angela's mind to the extent that She cannot imagine enduring hardship for the sake of love. th She construes access to material weal to be happ?l ness and therefore a precursor t o freedom ? She cont rasts h mother's plight with her owe n r p resent s?l tuat?i on: She thought of her mother who had loved her father 109 so dearly, and of the wash-days which she had endured for him, the long years of household routine before she and Jinny had been old enough to help her first with their hands and then with their earnings. She thought of the little, dark, shabby house, of the made-over dresses and turned coats. And then she saw Roger and his wealth and his golden recklessness, his golden keys which could open the doors to beauty and ease and decency! Oh, it wasn't decent for women to have to scrub and work and slave and bear children and sacrifice their looks and their pretty hands, she saw her mother's hands as they had always looked on wash day, they had a white, boiled appearance. . . It was not likely that she, a girl who had left her little sister and her home to go out to seek life and happiness would throw it over for poverty,-- hardship (142). Angela has these contradictory thoughts when she considers her feelings for Anthony, who is poor, and the pleasures Roger can offer her. She recalls her mother's endurance owing to love for Junius. Angela rationalizes that she herself had already rejected love for happiness in giving up her sister and that it would therefore be foolish to retreat now. Yet Angela confuses the love of her sister with her mother's love for her father. Loving Jinny did not exact 110 Angela's misperceptions the p ri?c e of decency from Angela. Of 1 ove ' ha ppi. ness, and decency cause her to see Roger's Wealth keys which could open the doors" to as "golden freedom and respectability. In Angela's relationship with Roger, Fauset shows the ability of a modern woman to choose, to err in her choices, but to grow as a result of the negative and positive e:x:pe . Stopping short of an actual epiphany, Angela rience s. move s closer to self-discovery, self-confidence, and self- SUff, , "She would not accept money, she would not iciency. lllove t e apartment on seventy-second street," but after 0 th her ex: perience of free love with Roger, "she paused to take sto c k of that other life, those other lives wh?i ch once she haa Angela is now able to evaluate the worth known" ( 2 04) . Of intimacies and of new friendships with women. Previous With some difficulty, she tries to re-establish a closeness she also takes 1unch occasionally W. ith h er sister Jinny. W1th Rachel Powell, and she becomes friendly with Rachel rt is as if the Salt?l ng, the Jewish girl living above her. riding in View of life from her position alongsi. de Roger enables Angela ht is car ' d i.n.1n g in expensive restaurants 0 re -i?m merse herself not onlY in an ethnic culture, but cl.ls0 i. n a female culture for which she now has a fuller apPl:'eci? ation. Just th vel exercises a f as Fauset in her crafting of e no einaie subjectivity, she also is inclined to engage her 111 female characters in friendships, intimacies, and similar Ain t erests wh .i ch const.i tute a bondi. ng aga.i nst patriarchy. ngela d i' scovers that Jinny has sought and found her own " si. ster" with whom she can share an apartment on "Striver's Rown i. n a "beautiful block with its tree-bordered pavements, its spacious houses' 1. t s graci.o us nei. gh b or1 1. ness. " '' A doct or and his wife occupied the first two floors .. The 'I'hey had practically adopted Virginia and Sara doctor's wife occasionally pressed a dress for them; on stormy d ays the doctor drove them in his car around to Angela "PU blic School 89" where they both taught" (242). sens es h er own exclusion when she visits Jinny; she and Sara without any real vindictiveness, make Angela feel like ' the What becomes apparent are Fauset's tendency outsider. not to condone race passing and her attempt to show the Possibi' 1?i ty for comfort and prosperity within the African- Altle:rl? .can m?i ddle-class community. use Angela rejects her heritage and seeks freedom Beca oChu tside her native community, Fauset cannot allow her aract er to re-enter painlesslY? she must explore other :tout est intimacy within the female culture- It is ironic 0 nth at a closer relationship develops between Angela and Sah.ec he1 Salting. The material side of Angela is dormant as begins "in her loneliness to approach Rachel for nothi?n g other than those almost sisterly intimacies which spring up betW een solitary women cut off in big cities from their 112 gestures and feelings hontes II (244). Angela's olated in a ep ? ze hero who find s herself is l.tonti the modernist lso where phy sical a Inetropolis d but Where people aboun of friendshi ps. on Clos ss ? to the formati ene l.s antithetic al modern ng unmarried women in Both Angela and Rachel ar e you ves while the y li Nev1 York ity, rying to live i ndependent C t of penitence for having Pursue n ai r careers in a rt. With a rks ial gain, Ang ela rema Previo t er Usly pursued Roge r for ma this If anything c omes out of Of th uing relations hip, "' e ens will happen fr? endsh' ce me in any way ... it l. . 1.p to advan this with cl ean JUst b ppens but I s hall go into ecause it ha l'" use I like Ra che hands and a eart -- mer ely beca pure h arlier 5)_ ch Angela fee ls for her e (24 hi The remorse w uture sses for the f behavior ness she expre and the hopeful ical story of l suggest ty with the Bib Fauset?s fam iliari for his wife , achel J"ac b ed R nd Rachel. Thoug h Jacob want o a her seems to ma k e the the ? he pursued J.nnocence with which 25 ory in Genes is. in ? CJ.dent Bun an analog ue to the st in Elum racter the 'l'he set g ives her cha connect? Fau l. on seems va lid as he elationship w .i th Angela t llante r rRachel and suggests in he rnist nove l s. In andr cal in mod e ogynous i friendship ty p is a wife and return to h 25 ursue hter of father, Jacob 's vow to p el,. the daug discovery of Rach to work ~or n, ~?ouse; h is r; his promi se taba brothe and all point fo/s mother, s l's h t aban en years to s ecure Rache ev tion, and f~re thought. So an att? s nce, dedica itude seems tee Gene ~tud e of innoce tt - , : 1 - 22 . A similar a 0 re effort to 0 c sis 28:2 22 29 g in her sin ce 010 in t>Ursue ar Ai:i gela 's think achel. friendship w ith R 113 fact 'Angela b ecomes the third person in a triangular relationshi' p, for Rachel's fiance accepts Angela as well . When he i. s away, the two women busy themselves with "d 0 mest i? c, homely affairs," advising each other on dress and new reci. pes. Angela indeed becomes the older sister to Rachel ' li.s tening to budgetary plans for operating a hou sehold on John's meager salary, saving "house-wifely c1?i ppings" from newspapers, and proposing decorations for Rachel's and J ohn's modest house (246-47). In ~Plcu.=m.!.~ B~u~n, interest in material consumption, mainly related to domestic settings, continues to mask intimacies only when a am o cn og m munity of women an d career pursuits. Women with com mon i? nterest in careers uni' te d oes Ange 1 a find the Wherewithal to admit her heritage and legitimately Pursue h er interest i n art simultaneously, To this end, the Unlikely relationship of Angela and Rachel Powell takes on greater si. gnificance than the closeness with Rachel Salting. First it po.i nts to Angela's re-emergence into her nati. ve ' culture she first arrived in New York and enrolled in When the she and Rachel Powell were the two stua dr et nc tsl ass ' Now both find themselves farth est removed from each other. work?i ng z ealously at their art in an attempt to w.i n fellowsh'l ps to the Fontainebleau school of Fi. ne Arts. When the commi'ttee makes the awards, both women w.i n pri. zes o f equa1 Angela receives an award for her "Fourteenth Value: Street Types" and Rachel powell for "A street in Harlem." 114 'I'he Pai:-adox idents which follow is that although of the inc Rachel and n, notwithstanding their choice of Angela had wo evoked Africa is r rican subject matte r, Rachel's award n-Arne ela because unfairness, A ng she is colored. Sensing the as the rejects her lore d blood award and reveals her own co reason. s point, thou gh for hi Angela's conversio n at t of reasons onversion i n terms of l:'ace, is not un like the c 26 sexua1. rane undergoes in O uicksand. Each ity Which Helga C e a has e ning which prompts her to assum Xpei:-ienced an awak e drastically ent lifestyle perta ining to material differ wealth anct class. ader at the end of Plum asual re Fauset deceives th e c 1mn charact er's by g? . male iving an unusual tw ist to her fe quest istance to white pa triarchy. fi:-eedom and her re s foi:- Yet regarding race and sex Fauset i:-etains her integr ity an culture, ideology_ er ic Angela returns to the African-Am and . e intimacy with Jin ny gain th is, thei:-efore, free to re gains her Which k deprived them both of. Her art wor Passing the ort her goin g to pect of several ar t friends who supp res Paris . Once te of having given up the fellowship. in Spi arisian art world. she immerses herse lf in the P copes with the abs ence of home until foi:- letters she' . h k a rning. Te pac age o strange hristmas m Package arrives on C 6 den wave of relief and 2 onte Angela exper iences a " sud C . The act t" upon admitting th at she is colore_d seeins ntrnen quixotic behavio7 _at the Pentecocornpai:-able t o Helga, s spiritually sta1 church service , confessing to be last (113-14). 115 turns out to be Anthony, sent with the mutual consent of The reader assumes Jinny a nd her old beau Matthew Henson. that he and Jinny will marry and th at now Angela is free to marr While that is an option, it is worthwhile Y Anthony. also at Fauset has her character well on the way to note th to ar for art's sake, to starting a career, to pursuing t Choosing to return to the African-Americ an community or Chaosi? ng expatriate status. The reader might also observe that Anthony arrives as a "gift" to Angela . Fauset has red male figure to a possession which Angela can Uced the accept or reject. Whl' le Fauset ends plum Bun with th e displacement of Inale gesture tow ards resisting patriarchy, she f'i gures as a be ? Chinaberry Tree with the patriarchal figure's gins The absenc e, though his influence is present. The opening scene Of th e novel alerts the reader to the material legacy which th e Wealthy white planter bestows on Aunt sa 1 an d h er The quiet pastoral setting of daughter Laurentine strange. New Jersey, which Laurentine and her the house in Red Brook, lvn oth occupy, acquires its beauty mainly from nature -- the er elvety grass, the flowers in full bloom, the g rape arbor, The tree, however, becomes the and the Chinaberry Tree. colonel dolt\? beauty and a material object. inant symbol of l-Ia11 away, Aunt Sal's 1over and Laurentine's father, had bought it and had it sent from Alabama to grace the lawn of the house he had arranged for his mistress and their child. 116 The chi' naberry tree, commonly known for its yellow orname n t al fruit, stands as a living symbol of Halloway's love f or the Negro girl, servant to his mother. Though Halloway 1?i kened Sarah (Aunt Sal) to a white birch tree, ta11 and slender, perhaps the chinaberry tree with its Yellow f rui. t was a more appropriate symbol for the woman he could not marry because he was white and she, of mixed blood. In spite of the economic security Aunt Sal derives from the she anr de l ha et r? daughter remain isolated from 1onship, both the wh i? te and Black community. As a small child Laurent?i ne plays under the chinaberrY Tree "with two exqu , 1? ws oi nte d ed rio ngll s r ather wistfully why the few Ch1' ldren i. n the neighborhood didn't play with her" (2). The t'wo dolls ' apparently expensive ones, are i. nadequate :tep1 acernents for playmates which Laurentine wants but does not h ave b ecause of her "bad blood." such scenes in The ~Cha? b sP ugr gr e, s, t a'T l'- i~ e~ n ation. Laurentine remembers ''th e ta11 ' seri.o us white man who came to see her mother [emph daily -- he used sometia ms ei s t o place his hand mine] on h and his eyeser head , she knew later, mutely implored her for gi? veness" ( _ ). Laurentine regards the d3 aily 2 "isl? tor not as a parent but as her mother's lover. Thus she form s n po a rent/child bond with Halloway, nor does she as an a.ctu1 t 1. n1. t i? ate any association with the wh?i te race. R a th er, 5 he att empts to immerse herself in the African-Ameri? can 117 own livelihood through becoming a community and to make her seam In a limited fashion her action suggests a stress. res?1 .stance t o white patriarchy. which exists between mulatta mother and The tens 1?. on ? st between Aunt Sal and daughter in Plum Bun does n ot exi Laurent? The Chinaberry Tree Aunt Sal wants 1.ne . In inde Pendence , prosper?i ty, and respectabi? 1 1? ty f or h er daught Using the legacy from colonel Hal loway, she works er. to help Laurentine achieve decency within the race. After herd aughter's high school graduation Aunt Sal explains the Property rights and the will which stipulated that they of Halloway's factory income in shou1a get a percentage order to ma.i ntain the estate. Halloway's widow, however, de11? .berately keeps the factories from producing income in order to deny support to her husband's mulatta mis tress and Child. mother and daughter unite to offset the Thus ' the disinheritance of offspring from an t. ypical occurrence: l.nterrac? Fauset develops a plot to show 1.al affair. solidar?i ty among the oppressed. Aunt Sal, ?with a mind tota11 Y unfitted for business," perceives that "Mrs. l-Ia11oway at the risk of losing her own fortune was runn? a OUbtedly allowing her estate to be mishandled so as to of this woman who had so grossly usurped l.nimize the share her Place" (lO). Fau set's theme of freedom and respectabili? ty i? n Plum and The Chinaberry Tr~ would likelY falter if she had 118 n. ot employed the genealogical trope mentioned earlier. The imag e of family as seen between Mattie and Angela Murray and between Aunt Sal and Laurentine strange evinces the need for freedom and the desire for respectability. In both novels, Fauset uses women of two generations to effect the mood of cont ? and change, of cynicism and optimism regarding inuity mater? The Halloway daughters transform the lal wealth. tension between races depicted in Mrs. Halloway's treatment of Aunt Sal into intimacy with Laurentine. Fauset displays s. everal rategies for resisting patriarchy while creating st lntimac Y among women: When the Halloway girls visit Laurent i? ne to offer financial assistance, they allow Aunt Sal to supply Laurentine's surname, they refrain from ment?i on?i ng the Colonel's name, they acknowledge their father's connection with Laurentine's mother but question Wheth er Laurentine has been included in the will, and one states h er interest in running the factories some day (11- From 12) . rator later refers to them as sisters. The n ar the Fauset gives to the novel, it seems less likely twist that is interested in calling attention to the blood she r" elat?i onship of the women than she is in regarding them as of thre e Well-bred women facing a problem for which not one them responsible" (l ). for they and Laurentine are Was 2 Youn g Women in search of their own place in society, free to e car ct Because the l)ursu eers with dignity and respe ? lia11 away women are white, have the advantage of travel 119 own and " education an d a name kn abroad ' some wea lth, r position t o , in a bette respected" th are, theref ore ey their offer , nse to help r most imme diate respo Laurentine. He acts, give m e give me cont near1 b comes, "'Gi ve me life, Y e ung girl's d ue. Don't e good ry yo th times which are eve e into o wither.'" Her gaz leave ry, t here to pe rish, to d me of t he possess "a melancholy their es tells he r that they fac her own" d, perhaps, quality as sanie stuff d substance an an o between the tw 2) ? ives of a co mmon bond ( 1 erce Laurentine p ree her ent irely to f \./onien d herself. an They are unable ect. Here in froni n and disresp an environm ent of isolatio dermines he r k rry Tree sym bolizes un Rect Ban the Chinab e What reas Aunt Sa l e lent , and her fr eedom. Wh ta ity ' her socia bil mories of he r gets h t from the p leasant me n er nourishm e d ways ine must fin happ?l nt ness . lloway , Laure Wlth Colone l Ha in She finds i t to tate. avert h ng s er perishin g, witheri ing the cos t of bear dressniak? esigning, h er sisters lng and d tne training. t ova l'1d a t?1 ng gh Fauset i? s well on h er way Thou image in eed for a re spectable Laur of the n entine?s cla im rapid exit early as the nd n the sudden arrival a community, . It is no t unt y thwarts th e struggle Of A r Jud Sal's siste osed to her o iametrically opp S much that J udy has values d acter which d mean chars .?l .ster , n ther e shallow a s; ra , it is th " blames her r d and tactless,auset creates. Judy, "bol ine endure: d Laurent Sist which she an olation er for the is 120 "G od, Sarah , you don't have to shut yourself up like this Fauset makes just b ecause you had a white man do you" (3) ! Just her strongest class distinctions involving Judy. arrivi?n g from Alabama, she speaks with a "thick southern accent" ays only long enough to become friendly with and st Mrs and determine that Aunt Sal is prosperous enough ? Forten to take care of Melissa, the daughter from an affair with Mr. Forten. two- generation plot in Plum Bun is effective, While the Fauset seems to overwork it in The Chinaberrv Tree. Judy seems exist solely for the purpose of producing Melissa, to ? \.Jhose to prove that her mother was legally own struggle lllarr? therefore decent, subverts Laurentine's ied and sh e i. s When Melissa returns as a struggle for respect and decency. tee nager ' sent there by her mother, Aunt Sal slowly opens the d oor ' i? ndicating, "Corne in. you c'n have the room aero Laurentine's" (17). Their living arrangements ss from suggest the opposition between the two women in the ach ? ievement of their goals -- acceptance and regard. f Laurent?i ne does not provide the famili? a 1 re 1 a t i? ons h i? p b0ela:' Which Melissa yearns- While Melissa stands in her p l:'oom and imagines that she haS found a home, her cousin auses at her sewing to contemplate the disruption Melissa's cll:'l:' . w? countering Laurentine's negative th l.va1 ill cause. girl becomes entranced ~ith the idyllic oughts , the young 121 The wall s were tinted a delicate orchid, there was a fresh 1 avender and white cotton coverlet on the old-fa s hi' oned broad bed, two oval rag rugs in tones of purple and lavender l ay at the side of the bed ' before a plain vanity-table, with its long reveali An g c om u'i pr lr eo r o. f fantastic creations by Maxfield Parrish adorned one wall. On another h ung a chastely mounted print of the head ofa a yound sle n n g d ge ir r ls ,h o hu el rd ers ? eyes full f dreams and beneath, 0 the line -- "She dwelt among th' untrodden ways" (17-18). 'al'n~ lt:'?o ugh the th'i rd person narrator Fauset gives both a visual sc l.st?s and a i. terary 1 artist's impression of the bedroom enei:-y. It is unlikely that Melissa's cultural experiences and age W toou l ad p pal rl eo cw ia th ee r f ullY the details of . Pc:oalioni:t- coora i? nation, to identify the earlY twentieth century ?o~d er?st. , work ? or to recognize the line from one of sworth? But the ambience of the room makes l. t. s L ucy poems. aun1t .nv1ti? ng t the young girl, and shO e imagines that her While this ana cou si. n designed it intuitively for her. Posit ? nd Laurentine l.Ve scene implants itself in Melissa's mi ' lllen disatap1 1 y cou nters it with thoughts of Judy's sudden ?~PhaPs e? aran ee and how Melissa's presence can now re- ntche 1.ze "the apartness of her familY" just when "a special Clos Was bei' ng created for her in the little quiet, eiY-knit Jersey town" (l9). Laurentine fears that 122 Mresepli ssa will unde rm.i ne progress towards acceptance and ectabil'1 ty. er hw eo rr k c, o nstantly in"H cr easing C1l' . lsetn? te1 e, her dignity , her remarkable beauty, her dhalt lnguished clothes were bringing her a half-begrudged, -admiring recognition" (19). sy The mental warring between Laurentine and Melissa Chltalrbao 1l? Zes th e struggle Fauset has in bringing her cons cters i. nto moderni'ty. La urent1? ne, th e more comm ervat l?V e f the two, expO e cts her diligence at work, the ap Unity?s acceptance of her diligence and her physical a Peara nee __ remarkabl1 e1 beauty" and clothes -- to make her Part of th Invitations to bridge parties, attena e community. ance at church socials, and d,, ates with Phil Hackett, insodn? Of th e wealthiest colored man in the town,? all ace lcat e to La urentine that she is gradually winning eptance Such activities, coupled with her pleasure d?lrsiove s l. n Ha ckett?s car and occasional trips to the movies, l. nt Point to Laurentine's gradual and respectable emergence 0 o. ltlode She does no rn t ws ant M. elissa's presence t ociety. mothJ eoparal? ze her progress. Melissa, however, like her She er, r epresents the more radical shift towards modernism. ?ec 'Wona erst ? herself why Aunt sal and r,aurentine 11. ve such 1 Udect "'MY goodness me, "' she thinks, ? ?what if ltunt lives tau Sal a nd that old Colonel weren't married! What's Sh,,~., rent?l ne got to do with that? she needn't act as th oug h 'Were Under t a fc fu r 1? s s e a- l- l oth ua t t sort of s u 123 . thi.n king ' " ( 21) . F ause t ' sive ays uses Me 1 i. ssa s progres nowad ern 27 speed the progr ess towards mod th e1 to roughout the nov spectability, ehavior whi' ch Laurentine, in h er quest for re b end, Melissa se rves a st handle conserva tively. To this mu erson's scorn for she has "the modern young p Useful purpose, for ecessary formula e" (22). unn in unmasking th e African- Fauset exercises caution ral conventions, mo Amer? woman's desire f or freedom from ican ssa flouts class espe ? ly among the upp er-class. Meli CJ.al ntine and her mo ther have been dist? inctions which L aure ored doctors or to break dow n. The two col Unable to dismis s ? ? part o f th e exc l usive in Red Brook and their fam ?ilies are a tine remains unex posed. Meliss Lauren society to Which d has hearsal at Dr. B rown's house an e attends a church play r up: chauffeur- the observe Mrs. Br own's bridge gro chance to sed" in "colorfu l driven es ladies, "well-to -do, well-dr ws to become a p art gowns eliss a vo , flashing jewel s" (34). M back to Angela's throw Of th ' roup, her promis e becoming a ls g of white society deter . n to enjoy the m aterial wealth minatio k wn Philadelphia and in New Yor which she observes in downto th~nking of 27 sa represents th e progre_ss_i ve her Mel i_s wn nearly mimics Melissa when ation. Kitty Br o r who has to liv e Mr gene expresses sympa thy for Melissa ed as "those tw o wi~h Brown d unt Sal and Lau rentine, regar earing fun A itty responds, " 'I'm sick of h n." K What's it all abo~i Wome Stranges and Co lonel Halloway. looked at a abo those 'd think a white man had never u " (97). c 01 Ut? Yo efore in these United States' characters F'au orea woman b e dly allows only her young, naiv to ~et shrew o modernity. ake that leap in t 124 she City. in difference is that in Melissa's case, The ma t th l ss b l er c a ut to stay intends to make alat e ra move o ano w? i th in her race. aurentine's and Continuing to show th e opposition in L Me1? ursuit of acceptance, Fauset shifts to issa?s p self-portraiture of finding Laurentine?s narciss istic her r prosperous dressmak ing business permits acceptance. He to d for an outing in Ph il Hackett's car. ress appropriately She irror: assesses her looks in the m ed figure showed to e very Her slender, well-mo ld silk antage in a dress of g reen developed in adv aces wool, its uneven hem -line reaching in pl and ainty r ankle. Her stockin gs of tan and her d to he rown and tan Yet sturdy, slender shoes of b t. eskin afforded just t he necessary contras snak trim dress rose her slender, proud neck Above the on her small, perfect h ead .... [P]ulling and at, she got hastily her tiny, smart, gree n felt h green cloth coat wit h its high mink into her , so snugly (35). Collar that fitted so beautifully ln Fauset seems to such detailed descrip tions of clothing ant? decades today's fashion trend towards icipate by five lors color ly shows her characte rs in co analysis. She not o n Which exions, but also complement their mul atta compl exer . m in quality materia ls of silk, s care to depict thecise trary to the commonly held wool, fur, and snake skin. con 125 certain erely trying t o show that a be1? m lef that Faus et is le, . . e on a par wit h white peop Class f ar0 African-Americ ans erican woman an image of t he African-Am she Projects ng alls a "redeem i emp1 ylvand er c 0 . yn SYing what Car ol e om and respec t. Laurentin redef. . inition" (195) of freed at she looks th appearance. B elieving Shows Pride in her wives of Dr. " uited to do ba ttle with the Perfect," she is s Brown and Dr . Ismay. "win the battl e" s Laurentine t o Ironically wh at help r r attire but h e t-.rith M ay and Mrs. Br own is not he rs. Ism . The intimac y en Ski11 ? eating attire for other wom in cr h st ut o f nd ts a e ra nges grows o milie between the doctors' fa ly placid air A general thew her skil l. omen's respec t for e Stranges' ho use. surr articularly th ounds Red Bro ok, p comes a thorou ghly modern Laure ? entine?s dressm aking b n ts to work eve n o bus? her two assis tan iness, requiri ng nd Matilda Sat ator describes Johnasteen a urdays. The narr osing down the re cl Pickin craps of mate rial befo g Up s ached factory has re Se,;.;? entine's w ork lng-machines, as if Laur nd designing s eems to be an ProPort? a lons. Her dre ssmaking b th wh i' c h now oas t s e d Brook's econ omy, integ~a1 Part of Re~ g -- and loungin lu)(ury tomobiles and tennis games of au ritical comme nts that c Pajamas. Shallow perce ption prompts about the fir st colored l'he Ch. novel1 naberr Tree is "a The g pajamas" (Bo ne, \o/ornan wear loungi n in New Jersey to y does in 102). What Fa uset actuall 126 having Laurentine and Millie Ismay d i scuss loungewear is not only stress the intimacy which has sprung up between the two women, but also validate Laurentine's skillfulness in tailoring. Mrs. Brown, the other doctor's wife, is even interested in having Laurentine duplicate the pattern for her daughter Kitty, prompting Mrs. Ismay to repeat the idea of the garment's originality in design and to praise the seamstress for her craft. While Laurentine's work flourishes, her social life does as well. Although lapses occur i n Laurentine's quest for respectability, Fauset conveys the notion that security which accompanies meaningful work also carries over into social life. Her friendship with Mrs. Ismay consists of weekly bridge games, occasional trips to New York City, and Laurentine's learning to drive, practicing in the doctor's Ford. At other times they find pleasure in discussing Laurentine's work: . [S)he and Millie Ismay would talk with the complete intimacy and interest which women absolutely en rapport with each other employ. Millie, who was comparatively indifferent to her appearance outside, was amazingly given over to a consideration of her indoor apparel, her house dresses and negligees. Often Laurentine brought with her one of her latest books of modes, and scraps of material used in fashioning apparel for 127 rs and her lovely an d exclusive, Mrs. Judge Manne d daughter, Mrs. de l Pilar. newly-marrie rs. ne would hold the c loth up against M Laurenti with her magic fin gers the ape Ismay?s skin and dr an st o marvelous fold an d line, employing uff int ch as she husiasm and livelin ess of interest su ent anifested to her cu stomers (146). rarely m t. . mise to herself tha t when Lauren e s fulfilling he r pro in i she [Laurentine] co uld She nd nds " a Mrs. Ismay beca me frie hat best ken o f t w a favor on her [M rs. Ismay] as a to o fl:'. her mother had been so lendship" ( 56) . Laurentine and rentine ated before Melissa arrived that Lau Pitifully isol pardizing her hact no Colored custome rs. lso, she feared jeoA s for livelihood esign by duplicating d her white customers ' that she nd Milli? f ? w a e are rie nd s she dares non-wh No~ ;tes. which were exclusi vely tot Millie ry designs and colo rs on daughter. hite customers, Mrs . Manners and her fol:' her W her work Laul:'ent? obviously derives more pleasure from ine 28 when has a closeness wi th her customers. she ucrative ng established her key character in l Once havi llow Laurentine to anct a respectable work F auset does not I endence "eel:' -f" This small degree o f indep 4 rom that course. 28 lay of craft on th e part of disp us t This detailed of Fauset' s F'a s character seems s trongly suggestive need et ' fluences up on O comment on her own craft and the in it differentiates betw een Laurentine 's cu~t Just as she t - it appears that F ause hact ~~ers -- white and colored - en she wrote. e race of her audie nce in mind wh 128 . . . h r seems root d 1. .n er resistance to wh ite patriarchy. Rathe e th ing her independence , ho wever, Fauset shows it an solidify b . ich re l ate to e1.ng buffeted by two co unterplots, both of wh , Aunt Sal wants marriag e to Phil Hackett marriage. First ? ? rriage to for Laurent1'.ne because, in the mother's op1.n1.on, ma . d be the the son of Red Brook's wealthiest famil y woul espectability. In this regard, Aunt Sal looks Ultimate in r Janie married to Logan ahead to Nanny and her w ish to see ~ Killicks ? Their Eyes Were watching God. Both Aunt Sal in enera t'1 .on wh 1' .c h h e ld nd a Nanny represent th e pos t -s 1 avery g th lates into security for the at material wealth, whic h trans ly, \\Toman nd 'must naturally emanate from marriage. Seco e1? Forten M ssa?s trysts with Asshur and later with Malory l. beco subplot which nearly thw arts Laurentine's me a e striv? Melissa brings t o th 1.ngs. Although the tensi on which hous h 0 does not disappear total ly, it abates while e 1d and Laurent? f Hackett, Mrs. Ismay 1.ne enjoys the friendshi p o later Dr. Denleigh. ips are continuously pos ed in Melissa's relationsh to Laurentine's. Faus et appears to situate opposition . nt Sal 29 Wh en Phil Hackett stops s eeing Laurentine, Au g e aurentine 0 to see him to inquire ab out his intentions. L te1f it was unnecessary, that she didn't love him any sher mother n life that t~ay. Aunt Sal respond s, "There are things i ~a s to e than love" (68). Obv iously the mother refer sec e: mor as just as Nanny refers to Killicks' sixty acres sec ur~ty ion in each instance poi nts to tenu:1.ty for Janie. The situat g een generations, the old er generation advocatin ~ars~on betw ecurity whereas the daur1.age for the sake of s discovery. ghters;granddaughters se ek independence and self- 129 uthful Me1? rogressive and yo s a more p J.ssa so that a tine to be less Persona1i? ty aure n she will motiv ate L ains. Laurentine conservative. Yet the imbalan ce rem kett, thinking e~" ci.t ect1 . l Hac Y imagines to Phi herself engaged curity, its Of th ent ring, "its s afety, its se e engagem sses that Pro-...? exp re ?11l.se11 (58). But on the very night she ast, Melissa ha s hope, Hackett contr fails to appea r. By whom give her Asshur anct M ry to choose be tween, both of alo two watches ictent ? e hristmas gifts. Th l.ca1 watches as C d t the which Melissa has, contraste sugges abundance of ti me four with littl e \.Ji th ntine at twenty - society?s view of Laure Because both ti1ne 1 a wife. ft to secure he r position as e use of time is \./01n society for ap proval, their en rely upon crucial. tes to achievin g vo twithstanding t he time she de No respect- Propriety r entine knows th at he in her work L aur ' . ed is somehow entw in ability i'n the eyes of the com munity f errors in with Fauset construc ts a tragedy o Melissa. Yet munity and, lea st letting before the com so much time e lapse cover the truth of the Of all the couple them selves, dis ' ? . Melissa real ly relat. orylonsh1.'p nd Mal between Melissa a out her own doe choices absnot h ve an abundanc e of time nor a returns freed 01n. ving no notion of his power," Asshur, "ha r her ta ional destruction and to offe om emot save Melissa fr s at ab ? he completes h is studie lg house in the south while s his 'l'usk securit y a egee nt ine Dr. Denleigh o ffers Laure 130 e Chinaberry Wife. ends in a picnic scene under th The novel Aunt Sal: "The y piled a table Tree wi'th t dhe two couples a n ? f e down cake, a b owl o high wi'th strawberries, sa lad, upsid f iced cantaloup es and deep dish o Punch, sandwich es, a a t in little balls " (339). Such atermelon scooped ou W ng to n, and the parti cipants bri repast suggests celebratio hts run to safet y mind a uptial party. A unt Sal's thoug Pre-n niece with "such her nd and a security for her daughter splendid men." riptions of inaberry Tree, re plete with desc 1...he Ch ng the problematic ending disturbi rial consumption , has mate . Does Fauset to cri?t ? both in Fauset's time and today ics, ? t ' t h ages o f L auren i ne an d S ep en marri intimate i'n th e assumed titution of Asshur that the ins Denleigh and Me lissa and ability ultimate in freed om and respect the marriage provide d h ? er a 11usions to ose do for Women?. l purp If so, what usef u endent careers s erve? p lifestyles and a ttempts at inde modern e t seems aware o f th e s In the fi'rst i? nstance, F au -class values and dle rest ? rican m id rictions on Afri can-Ame e ty in the mulatt a characters sh cts that sensib ili refle he se of the rising modernity of t creates. Yet her own sen racist and sexi st 1920 ue thes Prompts her to critiq period and to ex periment with ideologies of th at same ndence as means ng women and wit h career indepe community amo exism. Deborah and s Of U fects of racis m ndercutting the ef um Bun, says tha t the we11, in her int roduction to Pl Mcno ... 131 novel -- and by extension, i ts author -- "ba i t s the r eader with a range of familiar expectations about women a nd blacks ? but then refuses tofu lf l? 11 th em? ? . " (xxi? x) . The novel does fulfill one of the most familiar expectations for women, and that is marriage . But more importantly, Fauset at the same time surprises her reading audience by exercising a female subjectivity, by giving a woman's perspective on familiar and unexpected issues. The astonishing attention which Fauset gives to material consumption paved the way for later African- American women writers to exercise a greater degree of female subjectivity in their novels. Dorothy West, for instance, began writing on the cusp of the Harlem Renaissance. Her novel, The Living Is Easy (1948), abounds in material consumption as a means of expressing female individuality. West published her only completed novel fifteen years after Fauset's The Chinaberry Tree and seventeen years following Fauset's final work Comedy American Style, the novel which critics most closely link with the West nove1. 30 Despite the wide variance in the two authors' careers, their own middle-class background and the concern for depicting women in pursuit of self- _ 30 Deborah McDowell noted close similarity between Comedy American Style and The Living Is Easy. In her interview with Dorothy West in June 1984, 1985, West said that she "didn't know the novel" and further intimated that Fauset' s and Larsen's age and class difference set them apart from her literarily. 132 g of both common factors in the writin definition eme rge as essays in Black Feminist et and West. I n one of her Faus ong most ristian observes a tendency am ~' Bar bara Ch il the 194Os to direct At ? s u nt rican-American women writer ward a refutati on of the "th ? ir conscious in tention to e which resulted ack women" negat ? sed upon al l bl ive images impo emininity' of t he e 'f in" . sion between th an incredible t en ristian r actual behavi or" (173). Ch heroines and th ei e novels in thi s g Is Easy as on e of th specifies The L ivin s in including West's e y; however, she overgeneraliz categor depicts a eats African-Am erican women, Although it tr avior, and portr ays a beh fast 1? d? speech and iousness about umption, West's mimicry her ? s ne obsessed wit h material con oi on the sati ? ri?c al borders of class on , morality, and religi At the same enth century En glish writers. manner of eight e eating an image n cr t ? ctivity i e, West exerts a female subje im h problems turn of the cen tury beset wit th Of e woman at the cold, urn her into a Of r , These problem s t acism and sexis m. either ing, status-seek ing shrew. N y-grabb calculating, m one y en in The Living Is Eas Cle ther w om 0 Judson nor any of the o are admirable types. and ymmetry exists between Fauset f s The same kind o en Larsen West ale subjectivity as lies betwe regarding fem ier in male sexuality discussed earl nd a Hurston reg arding fe frican-American th? reflects A ls study. Wes t, like Fauset, uest for freedom her q moder ? ism involving t he mulatta and n 133 and respectability. west, however, does not mask the intimacy among women nor the woman's desire to be other than a Wife/mother. Her technique suggests deformation of mastery in that she unequivocally directs her reading audience to the devastating psychological and sociological effects of classism, sexism, and racism. Cleo Judson spends her entire life struggling to free herself and her sisters from these biases and to ensure that her daughter Judy and her nieces do not experience the same humiliation. She fails miserably and ruins the lives of her husband Bart and her three sisters. West shows the debacle of Cleo's family at the end, after having permitted them economic prosperity and elevation in social standing earlier. In The Living Is Easy West's narrative strategy resembles Fauset's in Comedy American Style wherein Olivia Cary's preoccupation with color leads to the disintegration of her family. Both novels utilize settings and themes which stress materialism, superseded in Comedy American Style only by Olivia's delusion with light skin, and epitomized in The Living Is Easy by Cleo's obsession with money. In fact, the novel opens with the pocketbook as the symbol of materialism. Cleo securely grips her purse in one hand and Judy by the other hand as she sets out to rent a large house in Brookline, a better section of Boston. The purse connects Cleo with a higher class of Bosto- 134 er to r sisters, whom s he needs in ord e nians and with h inst male society . The es t a female commu nity aga ablish e dollars for "1 eather pouch" co ntains forty-fiv arge patent-l clothing sent to and th use rental and re cords of money e ho d eventually move i nto her house an o's sisters who w ill Cle the n her and Bart. Afraid that become totally d ependent o ow Mr. Van Ryper that she is purse will sh contents of the rent his house, C leo carefully financially able to not e s and pawnshop ti ckets when sh conceals her cre dit book t. The purse 0 rse to pay her fi rst month's ren Pens the pu material gain or ository for continues to be the rep e Cleo, using Jud y hom ption. On the tr olley ride back dece s her fraudulent schemes of ettor, continue as an innocent a b ; she changes the rent r here and there raking off a dol la five, anticipatin g ty- from twenty-five dollars to for receipt money Mr. profit each month from the rent a twenty dollar er. Judson will allo t h band as Mr. Judso n, Cleo has referring to he r hus Always m the beginning. rsarial relations hip with him fro an adve qual distrust etween them deriv es from their e The tension b distrusted women until of the n opposite gender. Bart Judso ? was h "i s they saw in a m an he met Cl leo, thinking, "a l e for Cleo blinds him to her ok" (32). Bart' s lov Pocketbo for Boston decept? ics for obtaining money from him ive tact for the ten-room , for furnishings cultural lessons for Judy moting her siste rs' house in Brookl ine, and for pro rented 135 -class. Additionally Bart's tran ? t?i on to the mid dle s1 n with d sterns from his preoccupatio blindness to C leo's gree he " filled. The l arge warehouse keeping his "po cketbook ways be filled to bananas must al rents for ripen ing his ete with Cleo's comp His skills as a businessman capacity. urnishings, g her house fill ed with good f Skills for keep in s male her female rela tives. Bart' nd food, clothing, a mineering figure st o's feminine though do ature opposes C le with his story of how holds the sist ers spellbound When he ramatically with "I trade . He end s d he rose in the banana life, and I'll llar all my been after the Almighty Do fore I die" (232 ). Money its tail be sprinkle salt o n nd her sisters ed for Bart, an d for Cleo a becomes personi fi ng between the Barth' elf symbolizes m oney. The warri ims lose their batt le. Cleo s ongoing while both Bart and sexes i t ain the Banana K ing -- the mos Bart struggles to rem Cleo fights to businessman in Boston. respectable col ored spectable -female family dynasty in a re set up her all m. community. lddle-class nor thern rom different v antage tics view Cleo's failure f Cri iewpoint, ng the novel fro m a feminist v Points. Approa chi redits West with on in Invented Lives c Mary Helen Was hingt ugh Washington sees o be? ry, th ng sensitive to a woman's sto i "the attempts to na rrate sex? est's origina l ism as thwartin g w 1 3 6 to t 1 s rtist." 3 The r esult i s, acco rding ory of a woman a n monster." "Punis hed for gton , "? .. Cleo t he woma Washin she is, at ss , for her a t temp ts to cla i m power, her Willful ne c, uncomprehending -- the novel's end , frightened , patheti port " (350). This seems an accurate nd in need of male su p a , r. In such a depic tion West assessment of Cleo 's characte Comedy ending of Fauset's Perhaps unknowingl y, parodies the Cleo and Olivia em erge as pathetic Aln_g_rican Style. B oth ically misuse their power that they rast Characters who so d h Of greater signific ance is that bot e nd up powerless. e female gh their novels' e ndings point to th authors throu and the subsequen t ce to patriarchy Character's resista n futility of it all . d to The Living Is Easy Afterwor Adelaide Cromwell' s , control, and s the dialectics o f the novel: "love emphasize espair, ] together in a web of dependency, d Weakness [woven f these nd Cleo herself seem s to embody all o a Power" (358). the end West depi cts various times. A t contrary forces at state of dependency , despair, and her Protagonist in a ter Charity, "'When I moved Weakness as she sa ys to her sis sed n top of the world . I u in this house, I th ought I was o bile by now. And I haven't even k I'd have an auto mo to thin tist grows out of a 31 's concept of Cleo as ar Cl Washington on chapters two a nd three _of _a~alysis of and e mphasis narrative Th~se Easy. She purs ues the theme of ~L ing Is her essay " I Sign My sti v ice in Mi ancing and de nial of vo West's Novel The 's Name: Maternal Power in Dorothy L~t~er ? II 137 got a decent clock, let alone a gas stove"' (289) . All of the receptacles for material possessions are empty: the cold-box outside the kitchen window, the battered icebox in the hallway, and most of all, Cleo's pocketbook and Bart's warehouse. In the strongest defense of her character, West tells Deborah McDowell that "Cleo uses all these traits that make us hate her for a very positive end: to make conditions better for future generations. She wanted the children to have good manners, to speak well, etc. which, she believed ' would get them far in life" (277). If we are to accept West the author as critic, then Fauset's and West's belief in literary perspective becomes closely intertwined, for they both use their artistic skills as African-American modern- ists to empower their race. Just as West sees her character Cleo using her perceived-to-be-negative traits for a positive end, the use of material consumption in Plum Bun and The Chinaberry Tree transfigures female subjectivity into a modernist strategy for Fauset's literary successors. Fauset leaves to later African-American women writers a legacy sometimes barely discernible in her own works. Her need to mask the woman's desire for autonomy and self-affirmation frequently caused critics to fail to see her expression of female individual- ity and her resistance to patriarchal ties. The right of the artist to express individual taste was the point of 138 Our Literary Audi ence'' by ssay entitled " discussion in an e 0, Brown asserted g in 193 oet/critic Sterlin g Brown. Writin P that to which he can th "deal wi th e right of an art ist to ncing embodiment a nd significant best give convi ition Brown takes ation" (44). If the critical pos interpret neither Jessie nded to include th e female gender, is expa should have feare d for their Fauset nor Doroth y west y because they cho se to exercise a erary lives simpllit n. sizing material co nsumptio female subjectivi ty empha 139 on in African-Amer ican Modernism: i CHAPTER IV. Progr ess e Spaces in -Quicksa nd and Deforming Femal Passing into the apture almost, she let herself drop With r sation of visualizi ng herself in blissful sen and nt, strange places , among approving differe d, eople, where she w ould be appreciate admiring p and understood. Nella Larsen Quicksand at had brought her Stepping out of th e elevator th nt f, she was led to a table just in fro to the roo dow whose gently m oving curtains of a long win cool breeze. It was, she thought, suggested a on a magic carpet to like being wafted upward leasant, quiet, and strangely another world, p ft ne that she had le remote from the si zzling o below. Nella Larsen Passing unconventional fem ale places in f Larsen's treatment o btle than the maske d female so . ty is somewhat les s su cie zes. Both hich Chapter Two o f this study analy sexuality w ment of the and Passing experiment w ith displace ~ interracial situati ons, in career female protagonist in in familial Po si't? gs, and ions, in social se ttin African-American w oman's c? lrcumstances. We ll aware that the rutiny and equally aware that the are always under sc morals en confines them to domestic conventional role for wom transforming en exercises care and discretion in duties, Lars aditional figures which her le characters from the tr her fema critics have come to expect. reacting audience a nd literary 140 n than some of her contemporaries i daring Yet she shows mo re spaces on chological effect s of constricted exploring the psy Helga Crane, Iren e r women character s. Larsen moves he various geographi cal areas eld, and Clare Ke ndry within Redfi ds the quest for ar est their moderni st tendencies tow to sugg n that, as the ty and fulfillmen t. But more tha self-identi e ning of this chap ter indicates, sh epigraph at the b egin amped spaces, the ir ters' discontent w ith cr shows her charac paces, and their nsive public s inclination to mo ve into expa the suffocating to avoid need to move to e levated heights The uneasiness wh ich s. ir of more conges ted lower region a habit traditional picts in her char acters as they in Larsen de changes, physical and female spaces inf orms the ndergo. al, which all thre e protagonists u Psychologic al nition of the shi ft from tradition A general defi l spaces, critic Susan unconventiona female spaces to more c space." Though f domesti illis calls "the t ransformation o W a more contempor ary group shedi' rects her litera ry theory to : Black Women erican women write rs in Specifying of African-Am eory, in erience, 32 Willis's th !it.i.ting the Amer ican Exp Passing. seems applicable to Quicksand and retrospect, roles for her ch aracters, but n retains traditi onal Larse domestic space" 32 is explains "the t ransformation of where the :s Will African-American women's writing ssive a subtlety in ithin the confines of the oppree w mproved p Uture takes sha p future as expand ed and i , w~~sent. Women e nvision the mestic environmen t. "In so doing n the do formed image thlle_ remaining i its trans tion lays the bas is for expanding e fic iety at large" ( 160). out of the househ old and into soc 141 allows them to move in and out of those positions to experiment with innovative lifestyles. The anomaly of relationships between women and between men and women in both novels points to Larsen's inclination toward an androgynous view. Assuming the stance that constant transition blurs gender (and even racial) boundaries would place Larsen in the mainstream of modernism. Ever mindful, however, of the effects of slavery and the restrictions which African-American women underwent during the post- slavery era, Larsen cannot wholeheartedly assume a modernist stance regarding female spaces. Instead, she assumes the role of an African-American modernist and experiments with "deforming" traditional female positions. Neither the characterizations of her women protagonists nor the endings of her novels suggest that she has solved the problem of women's place in society. Though the transformation of domestic space as a phenomenon of African-American women's writing seems amplified in Larsen's novels, Harper's Iola Leroy foreshadows the idea. Harper, herself a lecturer, a poet, short story writer, and ultimately a novelist, exemplified the image of woman intent on enlightenment, reform and racial uplift, which Iola advocates in the novel. Yet Harper and her fictional character were compelled to maintain such an unrealistically high level of respectability that that in itself limited them to female 142 han half arsen and her ch aracters more t L spaces/places w hich st as Harper's a udiences cade later coul d expand. Ju a de sophisticated th ures during Rec onstruction too ought her lect er in woman, so does Harp ome from the li ps of a colored to c ch a proficient nurse that she ct Iola as su ?a Leroy depi e been es that she "mu st hav st ser v a ounds Dr. Gr esham, who ob siasm into her w ork" (56). ut such enthu a born nurse to p Dr. Gresham has some difficulty is white, Believing Iola serve humanity w ith her nciling Iola's w illingness to reco urported superi or status: P g without being tin "She is self-res pec I uiet without bei ng dull .... supercilious; q e uthern lady, who s cannot understan d how a So as a woman of f ine stamp her education and m anners to occupy good breeding, could consent culture and ully holds" (57 ). thf the position sh e so fai g Iola c twist to the n ovel by endowin ironi Barper gives an re both owing Gresham t o admi With skills and beauty and all her ree that he fall s in love with eg qualities to th e d has mixed blood. at she before discover ing th la's marriage to Gresham averts Io Even though Har per - nal spaces for a mulatta who - e of the most traditioon iscerns Iola's w? areful reader d lshes to pass - - the c ectability. Ha rper p ion with racial uplift and res Preoccupat by having her r efuse ces Iola's resp ectability enhan s a nurse and continue to serve a Gresham's marri age proposal 143 to the rebel forces in the Civil War battles. Simultaneously Harper seems to undercut Iola's position as a leader by having Iola work patiently at her nursing duties, absolving herself of the need to find her family. Only coincidentally in tending Robert, one of the wounded colored officers, does she discover that he is her mother's brother. Iola then promises her uncle that she will search for her mother by "advertis[ing] for her in the papers, hunt[ing] for her in churches" while primarily offering herself "as a teacher in one of the schools which are being opened in different parts of the country" (142-43). These are all channels for promoting literacy and morality. Harper does not allow Iola to pursue an independent, direct search for her other relatives. In other words, service as a nurse and teacher takes precedence over the search for family. Harper's predilection for assigning male characters to leadership roles and female characters to humbler positions leaves the women without any real power. While she shows the women to be competent, they must, out of a sense of propriety, confine their activities to acting as helpmates to the men. The novel depicts Iola's mother Marie, Miss Delaney, and Iola herself as well-trained, socially and politically aware women. Yet not one of them is asked to participate in an interracial forum to which Dr. Gresham invites Iola's brother Robert: "Corne down to the Concordia [Hotel] ... tomorrow night. If you know any [other] 144 ights, bring trong champio n of equal r Colored man w ho is a s s that he is to bring obert explain m along" (22 0). When R hi "to discuss the colored man," ostensibly "some wide-aw ake he e who can do justice to t "someon negro [sic] p roblem," f suggests Rev. Carmicle, o h complicity, 11 , wit SUbject, Iol a her own earl y feminist es (220). W ith Whom Robert a pprov is ridiculin g ises speculat ion that she lean? ings, Harper ra h so sharply delineate litics whicth e Post-recon struction po xpected et she must m aintain an e Y Women's and m en's roles. female charac ters; she her el of respec tability for lev tion nor any assume a po litical posi them to cannot allow ng urch, the sch ool, or cari ch 0th e er public spa ce beyond th the si? ck and injured. fol:' ola Leroy is with ncern in I hile Harper's primary co W position the y assume, tever tability for w omen in wha 1:'espec . . . ictional work s or women in ff advoc t role s a es of stron ger ? ? tions to that cause bu ust arper with gr eater contri m credit H Harlem ters of Larse n's own era. th e wri an most of th short storie s, as writers o f .Ren ? ists, as w ell aissance nov el des, he next two t o three deca Harper durin g t Who succeed assign their female st part, pron e to al:'e, for the mo d reflects an tren aces. Such a aracters to tr aditional sp Ch of ther than to a depiction chauvinism r a adherence to the at the Great Migration to cts th History refle e traditional I, disrupted th Nol:'th ar , consonant w ith World W -American wo men. African 1? of all women, especially lfestyles 145 The need for women to replace men called into proscription resulted in the transformed domestic life of women of all classes. That was especially applicable to women in industrial and metropolitan areas which Rudolph Fisher, Claude McKay, and Wallace Thurman portray in their novels The Walls of Jericho, Home to Harlem, Banjo, The Blacker the Berry, and Infants of the Spring respectively. Yet, the latter two novels by Thurman are the only ones in the group which take women out of traditional roles and attempt some parity between the sexes. More concerned in The Walls of Jericho with the merger of class, Fisher uses Linda Young, a middle-class woman working as a maid, to prod her boyfriend ''Shine" Jones to seek more respectable work than that of a furniture mover. Fisher seems less interested in Linda's job mobility than in her ability to remove class barriers. McKay's two novels provide even less space for women than Fisher's The Walls of Jericho. Jake in Home to Harlem frequents cabarets, night clubs, and dives in search of sensual pleasures which female singers, waitresses, and whores can provide. Most of the women remain faceless and nameless except for the stereotypical features associated with such positions. Two positive features of McKay's novels, as related to this study, pertain to the potential of his character Ray in Home to Harlem and the setting of that novel, as well as Banjo. First, Ray's philosophy of life is antithetical to Jake's. Depicted as the 146 which uestions the prim itive instincts intellectual, Ray q ightlife spots mo re for ake manifests, fr equents the n J res. And n for sensual and physical pleasu conversation tha nown, he displays a th mains essen tially unk ough Ray's girl r e bsent from Jake's which is a degree of respect for her omen Jake meets. w feeling for Felic e and the other s prevalent in Mc Kay's novels, econdly, some of the setting S lubs, are refined and used in cabarets and nig htc namely the ination lity and the dete rm Q_uicksand and Pa ssing. The vita ems to restrict t o men such as enjoy life, whic h McKay se to en ter as spaces Lar s e and Banjo, will be discussed la Jak nhabit. ermits her female characters to i P characters seems less apparent in The deference to male Thurman employs a satirical both of Thurman's novels. udice in The Blac ker the Berry. intraracial prejapproach to r her dergoes a quest f o B' t Emma Lou un is female protago nis xtremely dark tity, emanating la rgely from her e true iden with Larsen's mu latta which keeps pace complexion, a sea rch cupied with race y preoc characters. Thur man is obviousl ore particularly. He mplexion m generally and wit h co e moves Emma Lou, a lor biases as h satirizes society 's co paces to social b . m caree r s ight, college-edu cated woman, fro r at ntinuously rejecte d. The fact th aces where she is co sp lexions as on women, citing their dark comp Thurman focuses mulatta h n, while Larsen uses the t e cause for their rejectio eeper malady than he displaced ent ity, suggests a d as t 147 ts at the politics of gender xion. Amritjit Sin gh hin comple by his observation that "it would in The Blacker the Berry acceptance within her e been easier for Emma Lou to find hav been a boy" (The amily and among bl ack people had she f aissance 108). N.__ovels of the Harl em Ren stronger of the Spring Thurm an shows an even In Infants itions which women marginalized pos sensibility to the he began his In the satirical fa shion with which inhabit. rican-American vel, he continues t o lampoon the Af earlier no of e Harlem Renaissan ce for their lack artists of th ture. ccupation with whi te cul direction and thei r preo the project as a fa ilure, owing to Although Thurman d epicts ale Euphoria Blake, a fem th t is e faults already m entioned, i p skills, who orga nizes nd leadershi character with bus iness a eratti Manor for th e Renaissance center called Ni gg a to tivities at the man or begin artists. When the artistic ac ormitory for , Blake converts th e center into a d dissipate her name suggests, omen. As Young African-Amer ican w the center to have horia discerns her initial idea for Eup for an equally wor thy abandons it been too idealisti c and Blake the woman of action . Thurman makes E uphoria one egro artists," mer ely ereas Dr. Parkes, " guardian to the N wh advice. Thus, Thu rman, even as he Provides philosoph ical aissance, udges the success of the Harlem Ren too harshly j es for le-prescribed femal e spac Veers away from th e white-ma cksand and Passing . ich Larsen also sho ws disdain in Qui Wh 148 g her characters from what appe ars to be a Uprootin onment becomes one of Larsen's most obvious secure envir examples of displacement and "d eforming" of conventional ter in a female space. She begins by si tuating the charac n in terms of social standing o r typical middle-class positio a career. Onlookers may admire or even envy the protagonist ironment in her role. But the stifling effect of the env of contentment and satisfaction . leaves the character devoid In Quicksand Helga is engaged i n a mental conflict with her environment. Her apartment ser ves as a haven from the intolerable air of conformity w hich pervades Naxos. The ry isolates Helga, and the high-backed chair with rich tap est r a toilsome day at the rigid ca mpus bathtub relaxes her afte Where she had expected to parti cipate in racial uplift. ited for a teaching career Helga's discovery that she is u nsu en's most pronounced experiments with at Naxos is one of Lars displacement. The mental monol ogues which the reader overhears in Helga's private roo m reveal that the real dissatisfaction sterns from the patronizing ideology of the at Naxos. He is White minister who addresses th e assembly representative of "the white ma n's magnanimity" and has Naxos's conformity to "the come, Helga believes, to ensure n's pattern" (4). The patriarch al influence White ma ervades the campus, extinguishin g all hopes for innovation P e air of a and individualism. The auditori um takes on th hers [are] Slave ship as "hundreds of stud ents and teac 149 ds the sun-baked chapel" (2). Helga fin herded into the leave. Her col league ides to environment suff ocating and dec They won't give nds her of the in herent risks: " Margaret remi e this now .?. jump up and leav e lik You a reference if you list. And you' ll find it hard u'll be put on th e black Yo Margaret's warni ng ching-job" (14). to get another t ea emove a ariousness of La rsen's dare to r informs the prec nventional space of co African-America n woman from the Young a southern schoo l teacher. er ttern of relation ships between h pa Larsen initiates a she more nearly ale characters in Quicksand which fem Margaret and Helg a do not share rfects in Passing . While Pe lga considers Ma rgaret "the most e the closeness of friends, H Naxos and believ es that faculty at congenial" of al l the Margaret makes her plea for argaret "apprecia tes" her. M ms, g "the good sala ries, decent roo n Helga to remain, noti sition, t fearing the los s of her own po Bu Plenty of men." Well, I've really got and remarks, " She looks at her watch staying -- 11 since I'm un, or I'll be l ate myself. And to r ional t chooses not to disrupt convent are (l4 ) ? Because M arg the crowd at Nax os. More s lost among space, she becom e the masses after among xactly, she is l eft to suffocate e ole as exhorter to Helga. fulfilling her r is tes, Larsen shows the risk that ca Even as Helga re lo h of ntional spaces in searc inuninent in wome n fleeing conve ess of themselve s. ter freedom and a fuller awaren grea 150 gnificantly as the character conveyances figure si Mechanical It is as if the vi ctim in another. moves from one sp ace to to become acclimat ed to the ansit can use tha t time tr s follows Helga as Naxo ange. The stiflin g atmosphere of ch to Chicago: she travels by tra in e of white clouds . streaked the blu Long, soft e ning sky. Over th e flying landscap the early eve and then by a very faint mis t, disturbed now hung the d breeze. But no coolness invaded a langui dows train rushing nort h. The open win heat of the Helga sat with the oach, where of the stuffy day c ace, seemed only t o intensify her others of her r ing ed with a steady p ound discomfort. Her h ead ach ounds of the spiri t, her w Pain. This, added to ort of a made traveling som ething little sh . medieval torture (22) s a passenger on t he segre- a occupies a The space which H elg landscape she is in direct cont rast to the open gated train ugh she is leaving window. Tho observes from the train's he train match the t s, the constricted surroundings on Naxo in Naxos. The white st? auditorium 1 fling atmosphere o f the ay impassable and oorw Who strides thro ugh , making the d man e counterpart of t he ptacle, is th Polluting the wat er rece mbly. Both men's t the Naxos asse Patriarchal figure a hich they ymbolize the suffo cating space to w gestures s erican woman. confine the Africa n-Am 151 tion to The Gender of Modernism, Bonnie In her introduc to Larsen's use of "r estless travel . Kime Scott refers g possibilities explore the bewilder ing array of shiftin to Perhaps the travel su ggests ). for modern women" (1 3 er time, is lessness because Sco tt, like Larsen in h rest staid lives which wom en of the 1920s were aware of the cially ad. Larsen depicts t rain travel as espe expected to le art to racism 33 aracters, owing in p constricting for her ch respectable movement limited, a nd in a greater sen se to the experiences while for women. The disco mfort which Helga ts her mobility in bo th the North traveling by train th war and the South. n such as Helga not o nly The constraints place d on wome also restless, as Scott so aptly puts it, but leave them home space. Nowhere iguous concept of result in a highly am b cal than in the scene in equivo is the concept of hom e more e's house in ~ involving Helga's trip to her uncl d money. She discovers the uncle remarrie Chicago to obtain r husband any connect ion with to a woman who discla ims for he sends Helga back into a niece of mixed bloo d. The rejection of people, "the movin g th e masses e streets to observe th hom she forms a temp orary with w multi-colored crowd, " journey" used in 33 . Robert Stepto dis cusses the "seminal A as the journey nort h. We can 1can-American litera ture s to the fr. to I s definition, wh ich obviously refer . extend Step ainude the segregated tr ~nderground railroad , to later incl llinois UP, 1979), e Stepto, From Behind the Veil (Urbana: I 6e7. 152 ad come home. She , Helga nce, a feeling ''t hat she h allia oes not ). Helga's feelin g here d Crane, who had no home" (30 acy er mixed blood or even the illegitim stem entirely from h ates. The attitud e harkens hich Peter Nilssen 's wife intim W she warns Helga of w hen ack to the risk M argaret Creighton b r job at Naxos. L arsen uses the pulsively quits heim the hicago with the Ni lssens to critique incident in C outside ally when they ven ture dependency of wom en, especi nventional spaces . co tioned spaces leav es The exploration o utside sanc cters isolated, di sillusioned, and rsen's female cha ra La pting to sustain depleted. Attem oftentimes emotio nally ne spaces h ome instances, the y return to routi t emselves, in s lity of Larsen emphasizes the conventiona temporarily. rd k places which wom en can rega female career spa ces wor o Helga's being c ast out "home?? -- in a sce ne subsequent t as f finding work as a opeful o of her uncle's fa mily. H e lacks the librarian, Helga discovers that sh rk llows is a catalog ue of women's wo hat fo qualifications. W Wh' 's mind: lch runs through Helga less even substitute te aching, was hope Teaching, and rch. She had no b usiness training, now, in Ma lored clerks or sa les- the shops didn't employ co n't even the smaller ones. She could people, not he could do sew, she couldn't cook. Well, s short time at ousework, or wait on tables, for a h 153 least (32). erself results in a cquiescence to elga's debate with h H d the transformatio n k tends towar service work . suc h wor has not conventional domes tic space. Helga back to the most reached a stalemat e in her en up her struggle but she has giv at conditional phras e quest for self, as indicated by the hort time at least ." Larsen erie, "for a s the end of her rev ate says African-Am erican audia T Posits the idea wh ich Cl "[T]heir fictional writers project in their writing: Women their in perplexing stru ggles to maintain characters engage rsonal, nd emotional sensi tivity in an impe human dignity a to tening world" (Intr oduction alien, and frequen tly threa filack Women Writer s at Work xvi) . om the alienation and struggle for A reprieve fr in sustenance from ters sometimes come s Larsen's women cha rac Although we see women who need rec iprocal support. other port between th tential for that ki nd of mutual sup e po ize. Nor ton and Helga, it does not material Margaret Creigh lga and the women a t the is t between H e 1.? realized in Chicag o ssociation or at th e Negro A Young Women's Chri stian . The sense of com munity E . copal church on Mi chigan Avenue PJ.s tion, accepts a job igna egins only when He lga, with some res b way nion for a lecturin g female on her a as a "traveling-com p cago to to a n" (35). Helga's tr ain trip from Chi conventio . t to her previous o ne from the N tras ew York bears mark ed con edium to greater uth. Mrs. Hayes-R are becomes the m So 154 . She is busy edit ing the lecturer's freedom for Helga k as an ed i tor beco mes the hes, and the produ ctive wor speec the train . ity, not being a m ere passenger on Primary activ nt ves as a crucial m ome hough the job is s hort-lived, it ser T to st, unable to expla in her background Fir in Helga's life. es a rapport with her stablish Robert Anderson, H elga e ul the story of her d readf Present employer w hich forces elings entirely dif ferent from the tage. Helga has f e heri "The other woman n ride from Naxos: ones she had on th e trai sted in st t of the window, ap parently so intere ill looked ou rsey spect of the drab sections of the Je the outer a re passing . " ough which they we manufacturing city thr er long held-in 39 Helga is so engr ossed in sharing h ( ) ? f heritage that she loses the sense o feeling of lack of ct, Mrs. Hayes-Ror e sed in. In fa suffocation, of be ing clo urroundings, st out the train windo w at the dismal s ares lga inhabit the mo re that she and He giving the impress ion the train . Secondly, Pleasant environme nt there on the porary sanctum: fri endship and in carries Helga t o a tem tra rs. Hayes-Rore's ni ece Anne Grey living arrangement s with M e ce company. Unlik a nd n employment with a Negro insura Harlem gives Helga a "transforming Chicago or Naxos, ing come ," and a less fleet ing sense of "hav experience home." en gives her chara cters The viability whic h Lars and boredom, serv es mittently, between the restlessness inter 155 ion e. She creates an air of anticipat as a glimmer of h op ily," that she has finally nd "fam that Helga has fou em. That, self in the cultur al milieu of Harl Positioned her e y feeling. In cre ating th however, is only a transitor ulatta figure and analyzes the m wavering personal ity, Larsen ces which enhance ose spa allows the reader to reflect on th he character's dev elopment. She and those which re tard t age in self-evalua tion, Helga eng also pauses to hav e . The excerpt fro m ny ugh she remains f ar from an epipha altho h to this chapter is an !ticksand which ser ves as an epigrap .Q It is the end of . e of self-analysis on Helga's part instanc for periods of four-page chapte r which accounts a ed by "frayed nerv es," "hot and introspection mar k one "in intimacy with people dispirited'' days of living d one been given a choice" (53). ld not have chosen ha Wou s tired of the rac e point that she i Belga realizes at this been so ith which her frien d Anne Grey has Problem w is bored with colo red d. Moreover, Helg a completely engros se check s . The letter and arlem and resents her own blacknes B cle brings feeling s "of rs from her un for five thousand dolla 4). The array of feelings relief, of liberat ion" (5 nse of being "shu t e inues: "a smolder ing hatred," a s cont f her race," and e ven a feeling boxed up, with hu ndreds o up, d herself that Of 11 1 loathi ,n g" (54-55). Havi ng convince se f- or her and having the ot the place f Barlem, after all, is n tertains thoughts of rces to change loc ations, Helga en resou 156 le, mong approving an d admiring peop g "a a European settin 57). be appreciated, a nd understood" ( Where she would brief chapter of appropriate tha t Larsen in one It is ~ psychological ter ms. This is a nu and uses so man y ~cks ity. She has in Helga's searc h for her ident Pivotal point her rs, except to ask teraction with an y other characte no in thin the ermission to go o ut for air. Wi employer's p ospect of er mind, she batt les with the pr confines of h . The dilemma es, ethnically an d geographically changing plac ith Harlem go intensifies as Helga mingles w of Where to ll manner of t a dinner party and later with a Professionals a on a onically, she is Harlem? ati . et. Ir s popul on at a cabar tlantic h' nmark in neutral waters of the A S ip headed for De and decides, "No, n her life in Har lem before she refle cts o he thus imagines that re" (63). S she hadn't belong ed the pe is her rightfu l place. Euro in Chapter iscussed the imp act of sexuality As I have d ? th a t He l ga' g s ge nder rs repeatin Two of thi's study, it b ea mong eam: she finds h erself a affects the real ity of her dr ey have e more admiration for her than th Europeans who ha v rically the peacoc k on un d 34 is metaphoerstanding. Sh e 1 r a i. n James Baldwi ?! 1 , s nove . A_nothe 34 I her analysis of Id n s Ida's ~lusive qualities to Co ier Harris ~iken notes that once Id a ~' Trud arris ga Crane in Larse n's Quicksand. H ift from the blac k community" l es Harlem "she is cut adr , te characters' a eavnct "b ' peacock paraded before the whi t ? ecomes a See Trudier Harri s, Black Women n hood." ee UP, io ions of black woman ess James Baldwin (K noxville: Tenn ~e Fiction of ), p. 126. 157 ased with the luxu ry, the Initially she is p le Parade. " ersal of her "sad forlorn past attention, the co mplete rev en, was where she belonged" t "this, th and concludes tha ( 67) ? her female arsen accounts for the contrast in L their private thou ghts in life and characters? public look for public ap proval hey ambiguous terms. Even while t ey explore the rec esses of their nd obtain admiration , th a ed ir behavior. Havi ng enjoy minds for justific ation for the essment of African -American opeans' ass for a time the Eu r ections with lga returns to Har lem to renew conn Womanhood, He e duality of her er thoughts reflec t th her native culture . H existence: of dge, this certaint y of the division This knowle ds, into her life into two parts in two lan Europe and spirit ual freedom Physical freedom in venient, in America, was unf ortunate, incon tably It was, too, as sh e was uncomfor expensive. lly she ven a trifle ridic ulous, and menta aware, e g shuttle-like fro m lf movin caricatured herse iced ent to continent. From the prejud contin s of the New World to the easy restriction f y of the Old, from the pale calm o formalit lure of Harlem (9 6). Copenhagen to the colorful frustration as we ll as a?s ruminations in dicate her Belg e to rid of her life. How is sh anger with the co mplexities 158 ng nvenience and expens e of a life shuttli herself of the inco tinent to another, fr om the North forth from one conback and r, from one th, from one group o f friends to anothe to the Sou e hrough Helga Crane, poses thos job to another? La rsen, t de ican-American women, but fails to provi questions about Afr e epigraph to this c hapter As th definitive answers. alization uicksand remains prim arily Helga's visu suggests, Q laces. of herself in strang e and different p ry ending which Lars en gives to Quick- The unsatisfacto ental less so when the rea der examines the "m ~ proves e throughout. A strug gl quagmire" in which H elga remains phase of her life to situate herself in Persists in each ze self-worth. One reali society replete with space to d of rsen's career perceiv e highly respected cr itic during La ois reviewed Quicksan d for The Crisis Plan. w. E. B. DuBher on of Larsen's "subtle com prehensi in June 1928 and wr ote of lack Ameri- s cross currents tha t swirl about the b the curiou ss currents coincide s gery of cro can" (202). DuBois 's ima vel. Noting in his ith Larsen's quicksan d imagery in the no W s a "happy ending,'' DuBois adds that the novel lackreview defeatist. A close reading th the theme, however , is not at tement and Larsen's f the novel justifie s both DuBois's sta o t ding. The space whi ch Helga occupies a handling of the en ult birth lying in bed recover ing from the diffic the end -- iving a w months later, con ce of her fourth child or, a fe ose for herself. ifth time -- is not what she would cho f 159 Nevertheless, the environment does not entirely destroy Helga's spirit of resistance, for "she was determined to get herself out of this bog into which she had strayed" (134). The dislodgement, to be exact, is more cerebral than physical. Helga transforms herself in this environment into a one-woman think tank. First, she contrasts her moments of fantasy -- her religious conversion with this longer period of reality. Obviously focusing on her husband and his poor parishioners, she expands the idea of religion and its meaning for people generally: "Religion had, after all, its uses. It blunted the perceptions. Robbed life of its crudest truths. Especially it had its uses for the poor and the blacks" (133). Helga shows a level of cynicism about religion that is comparable to the French emperor Napoleon who said that religion is the opium of the masses, keeping the poor from becoming murderers. Secondly, Helga begins to search within herself for contentment, recalling that the present feeling of asphyxiation had been with her in Naxos, New York, and Copenhagen (134). And finally, she envisions the future for her children, a mental exercise which Susan Willis calls seeing "the future born out of the context of oppression" (159). The recollection of Helga's own childhood heightens her sensibility to the dilemma of motherhood. She can only anticipate that her endurance of this oppressive space will somehow transform into greater freedom for her children. 160 g eace which Larsen depicts in leavin The tentative p conclusion of Qu icksand lga in a conventio nal space at the He opening scene o Irene Redfield's position in the correlates t t is rene's contentmen Passing, Larsen's second novel. I of he wife of a medi cal doctor who highly superficia l. As t merica, Manhattan to South A wants to take his practice from to keep her husba nd happy nergy trying Irene dissipates h er e class two sons in typic al upper-middle- ir in Harlem, rear th e run by servants, a nd lead house fashion, manage a separating harity functions. The main quality innumerable c uicksqnd and Irene tion in Q Helga in her fina l situa not forgo security , hout Passing is c lass. Irene will throug t family, friends, and the less though she pretend s tha existence. fortunate are her reason for an apparently stai d personality in Having created suc h vibrant n offsets her with Clare Kendry, a Irene, Larse t from humble beginn ings. Par attractive middle -class woman e poverty and dep rivation she knew lare's defiance of th of C marry a wealthy an adult and to as a child is to p ass as acquire material White man with who m she can travel, m society. Such become a part of m ainstrea Possessions, and disillusioned and cold a lifestyle, howe ver, leaves Clare ing her husband an d daughter. te society, includtowards whi r past. The nters Irene Redfie ld, who knows he She re-encou are uses Irene to ndship whereby Cl two form a tenuou s frie Because Clare is re-connect with th e colored world. 161 ist up her space as the partner of the rac unwilling to give the colored world is highly in Bellew, her position ptiness has no real loyalty to anyone; her em ambiguous. She accompanied by her seen in her slinking feline movements, is nnouncing her prowls through the Harlem bell-like laughter, a ipice s to be stepping on the prec culture. Clare seem s alway own life or someone of destruction I whe ther it is of her else's. a series of flashba cks through Irene Larsen uses nsformation of dome stic convey the tra Redfield's memory to in Clare's life. H er displacement space and racial spa ce elationship between of traditional r begins with the defi ance rse as an d daughter and exten ds to Clare's trave father an hint of Clare's see ming ces. The first adult between two ra lien" comes in the t hird line of the "out of place and a mysterious envelope, l (143). The opening scene of the nove illegibly e from exquisite Ita lian paper, rather mad st of Irene's mail a nd dressed, stands out from the re ad the isolated, becomes an objective correlative for h Clare Kendry led a s a child and marginalized life w hic letter, ntinues as the adult Clare Bellew. The Which she co flect on how Clare w as ses Irene to re though unopened, cau (143). It began " [ tepping always on the ed ge of danger" S) resistance to pater nal domination: With her as unsafe to Clare had known wel l enough that it w as her weekly take a portion of th e dollar that w 162 wage for the doing of many errands for the dressmaker who lived on the top floor of the building of which Bob Kendry was janitor. But that knowledge had not deterred her. She wanted to go to her Sunday school's picnic, and she had made up her mind to wear a new dress. So, in spite of certain unpleasantness and possible danger, she had taken the money to buy the material for that pathetic little red frock (144). In showing Clare's defiance of her father's rules, Larsen deforms the conventional space of a daughter's subservience to her father. Theoretically, Clare assumes the space of dressmaker much like the dressmaker on the top floor who pays Clare to run errands. She is willing to risk punishment from her father in order to acquire the little red dress she wants for the picnic. Irene's reflections on the risks Clare was prone to take are similar to Margaret's warning to Helga not to resign from her teaching position at Naxos. Discernible in the parallel situations is Larsen's tendency to use one character as a foil for the other. The two women occupy similar spaces while assuming ostensibly different views. Irene remains as dominant as Clare throughout the novel, not only because the image of Clare filters through Irene's memory, but also because Irene emotionally seeks to abandon her conventional spaces and often finds hersel f 163 ose roles prescribed for her. perfunctorily filling th ivalence in her intera ctions Especially does Irene show amb edly Irene vows not t o ''assist Clare to with Clare. Repeat return for a moment to that ize her foolish desi re to real ce, she had left life which long ago, and of her own choi ). At times it appea rs that Irene shows behind her" (145 lare leads than Clare life that C more excitement for the aret in shows. The reader te nds to believe Marg herself r position at uicksand when she runs off to safeguard he Q_ retreats from Clare's mounts as Irene Naxos, but skepticism letters, but telephone calls, refu ses to answer her efit o her pleas for invi tations to teas, ben acquiesces t dances, etc. characters although the two Tension exists betwee n he nature is very much the same. Some of t their inward re emanate from her o wn misgivings which Iren e has about Cla ies which Irene ascri bes to ecurities. The felin e qualit ins em applicable to Iren e Clare in the followin g passage se herself: ainly that was the wo rd which best Catlike. Cert lare Kendry, if any s ingle word could described C nd describe her. Somet imes she was hard a tly without feeling a t all; sometimes she apparen ere ffectionate and rashl y impulsive. And th was a malice, hidden well was about her an ama zing soft as capable of away until provoked. Then she w 164 scratching, and very effectively too . Or , driven to anger, she would fight with a ferocity and impetuousness that disregarded or forgot any dan- ger; superior strength, numbers, or other unfavourable circumstances (144-45). Ironically, Irene describes Clare in much the same way that critics see Irene herself. In her essay "Larsen's Passing: A Reflection of the American Dream," Joyce Ann Joyce sees Irene as "confused, hypocritical, and far too superficial to sustain an allegiance to anything outside the security of her marriage and social standing" (72) . .? Joyce believes that Irene's bourgeois attitude isolates her from her race and that her chief pursuit is the American dream -- material assets, personal security. If this theory is accurate, the survivalist qualities apply equally to Irene. While she remains within traditional domestic space and reflects less than admirable qualities, Irene is fighting for her life just as vigorously as is Clare. In spite of the impressive status Irene holds as society matron and wife of a doctor, she seems unfulfilled or insecure. She knows that Clare needs to associate with Blacks while remaining married to the white racist John Bellew. Yet Irene remains confused, as Joyce notes, when it comes to allegiance to her race or to Clare. Repulsed by Bellew's racist remarks, Irene threatens to reveal Clare's true identity but does not. After arranging for Clare to fraternize with Harlemites, she 165 to timacy with Brian an d threatens again suspects Clare's in blood but refrains from doing so. disclose Clare's mi xed elands' llew finally discove rs Clare at the Fre When Be tal fall, only Irene Clare's fa apartment, resulting in might have pushed C lare. Irene's believes that she metastasize into a nd inadequacies distrust, suspicion s, a leaves her nearly a s lifeless as her Paranoia which ndow. counterpart who fal ls from the wi y of having Irene an d Clare coexist Larsen's strateg expected ne's confusion abou t the spaces she is reveals Ire he finds comfort and to occupy and those in which s far easier for her t o discern Clare's satisfaction. It is out ms more content whe n she is needs than her own. She see hat is, wife and he social milieu pr escribed for her, t of t in Chicago, she becomes totally exhausted mother. While in ome to one of her so ns and o take h shopping for a gift t ayton Hotel. e rooftop tearoom o f the exclusive Dr flees to th is chapter, in the t ea raph to th As indicated in the epig world below, as if om she finds relief from the stifling ro ward on a magic carp et to another she were "being waf ted up is another world, f or Irene can World" (147). Indeed, it is temporarily enjoy this setting only because she "passing" on a regu lar basis does "p assi. ng." The idea of lly secure in al to Irene because she feels financia not appe e's ion. On the surfac e, Iren her middle-class Ne gro stat of Mattie Murray in atus appears to be comparable to that st 166 ne and Mattie seem co ntent with t?s Plum Bun. Both Ir e Fause n ir own race and have o nly a their marriage to men within the e- arning to step into th e spaces which middl occasional ye cupy for social gratif ication. pper-class white women oc and u itself in her Irene's ambivalence, h owever, manifests she and Clare discuss possible vacillating behavior when justifications for pa ssing: could only shrug her shoulders . . . . and Irene ay, ough conscious that i f she didn't hurry aw th s going to be late to dinner, she still she wa he ered. It was as if th e woman sitting on t ling ther side of the table , a girl that she had o to n, who had done this r ather dangerous and, know edfield, abhorrent thin g successfully and Irene R r her ad announced herself w ell satisfied, had fo h ination, strange and c ompelling (161). a fasc ainty Irene shows is a nother instance of The uncert The risks and arsen's experimenting with displacement. L ages inherent in Irene 's making more than Psychological dam more hite world would disru pt an occasional visit in to the w pending devastations o f her e the im than her life. There ar and the personal lives of her two sons. husband's career ould space in Irene's case w The transformation of domestic ecision to alter e more far-reaching th an Clare's earlier d b I tend to distinguish between her racial situation. While ment on family ties w hich Clare's "passing" and the encroach 167 n to "pass" would cre ate, Mary Helen Irene's decisio sentially as the deni al of spaces Washington views the act es of ly. She calls "passi ng" "an obscene form entire passes is required salvation," adding th at "[t]he woman who ily, g about her past: her girlhood, her fam to deny everythin customs, folk rhymes, her lk Places with memories , fo one of people who have g language, the entire long line nvented Lives 164). Ind eed, Clare risks before her" (I rriage e acquired through he r ma losing the security w hich sh r native because of the nosta lgia she has for he to Bellew Washington's view an d my . Although customs and localitie s ace to another, own pertain to movin g from one racial sp . Irene is situated in ue of class there is an addition al iss ere she receives more than wh a middle-class locati on e downgraded in ate financial securit y. If she should b adequ of congenial customs in tus, she would also be deprived sta n to marry the much the way that He lga is in her decisio n ral southern minister . Obviously, Larse Poor, ru in class and racial for ms of displacement experiments with , and Helga, Anne Grey, Ire ne both novels. She su ggests that tions as schoolteache r, nto posi Clare cannot be pigeo nholed i ut experiencing society matron, wife and mother witho boredom, and suffocat ion. feelings of restlessn ess, he distinct personal ities which the four In spite of t s rs her women characte r women have, Larsen n ever quite empowe mination to enjoy in Quicksand with the vitality and deter 168 men in Passing display . Anne Grey fades life which the wo fter she is married to Dr. Anderson. The into nothingness a while living and pefulness and enduran ce which Helga shows ho bsides into passivity in Denmark . By Working in New York s u and alien rast, the struggle ag ainst an impersonal cont re's life. ich Claudia Tate disc usses, consumes Cla World, wh f Jake Clare becomes the mid dle-class likeness o To be sure, o Harlem in cKay's Home to Harlem . Clare "thrills" t from M d the white e same way that Jake does. Having entere much th ity, she has a compul sion to re-enter the World for secur letter to Harlem for its energ y and spirit. In a culture of writes, "'You can't Irene after moving to New York, Clare le life of mine I am all the time seeing know how in this pa I once thought I was the bright pictures o f that other that glad to be free of. '" (1 45). s her 's pursuit of vitality and excitement pit Clare n middle- the conventional imag e of African-America against r, 35 women. She minimizes her role as a mothe class dfields, and on the family and so cial life of the Re intrudes 5 Barbara Christian th at African-American 3 I agree with ning of the d was a concern of lit erature in the begin otherhoo motherhood m th century, but tha t the treatment of t~entie at of the nineteen th century novels.e differed from th yond this point. S h Christian's view and my own digress be at African- that the image of "the black mammy" was wh believes ught to avoid and t hat they therefore American writers so Angle of beauty and refinement . See Christian, "An ned to tur minist Criticism. I take the S?eing" (211-252) i n Black Fe as Quicksand and P assing assume a V~ew that novels su ch g to the author's int erest ~ifferent stance on m otherhood owin le spaces. in disrupting conven tional fema 169 ivalent image of the p arty crasher/honored Projects the amb social functions. In several instances guest at Harlem be measured by are's failure to adhe re to a standard can Cl rfect adherence to it . Such is the Irene's more nearly p e he space of in their parenting. While Irene fills t case he manner dutifully, Clare neg ates the image in t mother so says, is opin's Mrs. Pontellie r who, the narrator of Kate Ch 't arks, "'Children aren not a mother-woman.~ Clare rem hough I . There are other th ings in the world, t everything only ple don't suspect it" ' (210). Clare not admit some peo lso r own minimal interes t in children, but a admits he Notwithstanding Clar e's cessiveness. intimates Irene's ex e of the good mother s the imag observation, Irene p erpetuate ter's sake, not to as she warns Clare, for her young daugh led by spending so mu ch time in having her race revearisk a startled look, as though Harlem. "Clare's face took on eapon with which e were totally unpre pared for this new w sh hink,' she said at la st, ne had assailed her. . 'I t Ire world'" g a mother is the cru ellest thing in the 'that bein earest example -97). Clare at this moment offers the cl (196 ale spaces. oman breaking away fr om conventional fem of the w lances in ethnicity, 36 resembEven though they bea r no novels raise 's The Awakening (189 9) and Larsen's two opin uses C~ regarding a feminine sensibility. Chopin similar issues upp er and Adele Ratignolle in a French Creole Edna Pontellier attitudes at the t urn middle-class environm ent to critique the ay ards feminist issues in much the same wlga of the century tow well as He arsen uses Clare and Irene in Passing, as ~hat L 99 (New Yor k: icksand. see Chopin , The Awakening 18 in Qu Norton, 1976). 170 ion in Larsen's female characters' The tens ence regarding the spac es relationships shows the ambival hich iety assigns to women a nd the positions for w Which soc ring to Irene and Clare they show ability and d esire. Refer gical doubles, Thadious Davis, in her as psycholo m, sees a contrast of f Modernis contribution to The Ge nder o ing'' in Irene and Clar e self-seek the "self-denying" and the " e Irene denies herself space for respectively (211). B ecaus ontinuously autonomy and personal realization, she is c tentimes suspicion and guilt, and of filled with frustration , while away . Her eagerness to be the consummate mother rage results er children, visiting h er father in Chicago, from h in behavior. On a swelte ring day she searches in misguided a drawing-book which h er son Ted more than five shops f or insistently given her precise directions'' had "gravely and nse search leaves Irene so an inte to bring back (146). such cern for a ble and hot that she f ails to show human con irrita ustion on the street in ha man who collapses from heat ex becomes an nt of her. In this sce ne Ted's drawing-book fro tive for the irrational precision of objective correla ism she shows for carry ing fanatic Irene's life. The nea r y draws the out Ted's wish indicat es how her son actuall havior. Having denied herself almost Parameters for her be and the irely, Irene cannot see that her own comfort ent eat victim are more inquiry into the welfa re of the h f drawing-book Ted important than finding the specific type o 171 us, the question whi ch Davis accurately has requested. Th o Larsen's other nov el appears to be describes as basic t man's place in on to both of Larsen 's works -- "the wo comm and society" (211). relation to self, fa mily, question of the wom an's place without Larsen raises the ders of both novels can s. Rea giving definitive an swer ugh Larsen's e at some conclusion s of their own thro arriv e repeatedly weighs Irene's outward techniques. Sh 's inclination to fin d ving with Clare appearance of total gi he "self-seeking" be havior of Clare her own happiness. T Irene's determination to enj oy life which even exceeds the fishness leaves litt le ct. Clare's sel opponents would exp e the two groups bring room for family or s ociety except when 's perception of her ion. Irene her closer to self-g ratificat Two of the novel, friend's egotism is disclosed in Part r bels "Re-Encounter." Irene recalls he Which Larsen la ws, upon receiving a in Chicago and vo encounter with Clare ew York, that letter two years la ter from Clare in N second the color not get involved in Clare's traversing she will line. Irene reasons : ime of choosing [to pass], Clare hadn't If at the t had, precisely reckoned t he cost, she ess, no right to exp ect others to help neverthel e p the reckoning. Th e trouble with Clar make u have her cake and was, not only that s he wanted to nibble at the eat it too, but tha t she wanted to 172 s of other folks as well (182). cake ulfillment at the expens e of eed Clare does seek her own f Ind trying ly and society. She goe s to that extreme while fami e perceives to free herself from the restraints which sh places on her by virtue of her race and gender . society f her, as well as throug h Through Irene's assessm ent o erving type er own confession, Clare emerges as the self-s h upon the lives of other s. Becoming bolder in who intrudes nt Clare spends an inordina te amou her exploits into Harlem , ith time with the Redfields, ingratiating herself w of domestic help. She not Irene's sons, her husban d, and the with Irene 0 nly goes to dances, hou se parties and cabarets for Irene with Brian at bridge nd Brian, but also stand s in a 08). One might conclude ormances (2 Parties and benefit perf hile her rene shares her domestic space with Clare. W that I -immersion White racist husband rem ains unaware of her re ociety, Clare in fact ha s the proverbial cake into colored s ng the usual ambivalent hile, reflecti and eats it too. Meanw t be sure whether this n ew intimacy is feelings, Irene canno chooses to have Clare h erself II ? a Joy or a vexation." Larsen ed to Irene's: define her position as one diametrically oppos alize that I'm not like you a bit? Why, to "'Can't you re rt things I want badly enou gh, I'd do anything, hu get the 'Rene, I'm not safe'" anybody, throw anything away. Really, (210). that Irene pushes Critics who conclude wi th certainty 173 ing th would likely se e Clare's preced Clare to her dea r Irene's action. Because tion fo statement as just ifica iety, she sees on the edge of Bla ck and white soc Clare lives cruples. Clare is lf as a daring ind ividual without s herse self uctive a force as she presumes her tr not, however, as des critics dly a silent weapo n as to be. Nor is Ire ne as dea crafted the nove l as skillfully Purport her to be . Larsen h ecome an almost co mposite picture that Clare and I rene b so are's -class woman of th e 1920s. Cl of the displaced middle e is willing f her desperate st ate shows that sh declaration o spaces allotted t o women. isk moving out of conventional to r er ers associated wit h h She is willing to face the dang elf but for her ch ild. Irene's , not only for he rs action usehold becomes a hip sustains Clar e, and Irene's ho friends a home. hen Clare needs th e nurturance of haven w ance to break out of conventional ecause of her relu ct B slates all of her ustrated and tran spaces, Irene rem ains fr occurrences into real ones. She suspicions and im agined quiet ior beyond remaini ng cannot understand Clare's behav et Clare announces f passing. Y and safe in her c hosen life o ion tones. In sev en different xplorations in cla r her e are's laughter as el Larsen describe s Cl instances in the nov an objective corre lative for The bell becomes bell-like. t with the y which Clare pos sesses in contras the hilarit heir rsonality. Irene recalls t somberness of Ire ne's pe e Drayton Hotel. st encounter in t he tea room at th fir 174 r has temporarily s tepped out of he Because Irene ion -- she does n ot -- to avoid suff ocat conventional spac e s laugh that g anyone she know s. It is Clare' dream of meetin h, a small ughed, a lovely l aug identifies her: " The woman la like a trill and also like the nce of notes that was seque recious metal, a ate bell fashione d of a p ringing of a deli c ts Clare's mirth in contrast ling" (151). Ire ne interpre tink tainer or even a er rumored past o f being an enter with h ncile that rumor for white men. I rene cannot reco Prostitute e. sent apparently m iddle-class stat with Clare's pre to the mood whic h h changes accordi ng The bell-like lau g e. Because the tw o women's lives perceives of for Clar Irene ll-like Irene interprets the be are so closely in tertwined, wo of them discus s the hter. The t sounds of Clare's laug ixed signals she teen-age years an d the m calamity of Clar e's n she recalls tha t received about wh o she was. Whe g bells ere, "[s]he laughe d and the ringin h forbidding atmosp nd" (159). Thoug h Clare sou in her laugh had a hard metallic s are ition, the recolle ction has moved into a more secure pos ughter indicates. Her metallic" la unpleasant as her ''hard of a prolonged r inging of a eals in the fashi on laughter p t rsation with news abou ell while she dom inates the conve b s ere. What Irene finds incongruou urope and her tra vels th E party. The cussion of world affairs at a tea is Clare's dis allow e and Gertrude le ad do not Provincial lives which Iren r France and Germ any, o join in Clare's talk of post-wa them t 175 the industrial strike in England, or Parisian dress designs. Clare, to be sure, recedes from the conventional space which African-American society women occupy. Yet Larsen cannot sustain Clare's position outside the commonplace. For whatever she experiences is at the expense of her race and gender. The next instance of her bell-like laughter proves her alienation from her native culture. When Bellew explains why he gave Clare the nickname "Nig," Clare, Gertrude, and Irene join him in hysterical laughter at the intended joke. Clare's "ringing bell-like laugh" has the same empty sound as the others in this case because they are all cohorts in deception . The humiliation which all three women conceal through their hysterical laughter is a reminder of Booker T. Washington's masking in Up From Slavery when he recalls his mother's involvement in the chicken-stealing incident. Clare's tinkling laugh (195) and Irene's recollection after Clare's death of "the ringing bells of her laughter" (239) are the final symbols of Clare's ubiquity in Irene's life. While Clare moves economically from poverty to affluence, racially and geographically back and forth, the psychological hold she has on Irene remains steadfast. Irene marvels at the jovial, care-free personality of a woman who would risk her husband's discovery of her mixed blood, would chance her daughter's emotional ruin, and would even risk being mistaken for a woman "of easy virtue" in 176 m . In of the renaissance society in Harle order to be a par t vior, Irene assess es her own: are's dauntless be ha light of Cl woman before of her determined selfishness the "[I]n spite s of feeling that eights and depth her was yet capab le of h field, had never kn own" (195). she, Irene Red so closely entwin ed The two women are so different yet hile er space with Clar e w emotionally that I rene shares h attempting to usur p that space. A ieving that Clare is bel to spend the morni ng ood causes Irene Weary and depresse d m m after dering through the streets of Harle aimlessly wan While dressing for ea. rdering flowers fo r an afternoon t o ssness to Brian an d e e tea, she transpo ses her own restl th rring f his moodiness re lates to the recu again wonders i ce medicine. Iren e th America to prac ti desire to go to so u reatened by her not want her conv entional space th does lare, Irene sire to leave the country. Like C husband's de e experiences disc ontent wants to retain h er place while sh inhabiting it. s the at the tea which I rene hosts inform The incident l ish and the extent of her sublimina depth of her angu at Brian appreciat es her only happiness. She im agines th Un ge intensifies, sh e as his sons' moth er. As the ra . "There was a sl ight crash. sentmindedly drops her teacup ab . Dark stains r at her feet lay the shattered cup On the floo ed guest, a white (221). The honor dotted the bright rug" ide. He apologize s r named Hugh Went worth, is at her s Write 177 siness, thinking he ha s pushed her. profusely for his clu m p's origin: Irene concocts a stor y of the cu ur ancestors, the "It was the ugliest th ing that yo onfederates ever owned . I've forgotten charming C it was that how many thousands of years ago t great-great-grand-unc le owned it .... I Brian's orth by way of ... t he underground. was brought N m coming to is the fa ct that I've never What I' d of it until about figured out a way of getting ri inutes ago. I had an inspiration. I had five m was rid of it for eve r" only to break it, and I (222-23). e rrelations exist betwe en this scene and th Strong co e novel, the scene in final one which marks the end of th lacement occurs. Ire ne's breaking the Which the final disp ion; it is a dramatic brat cup is Larsen's use o f adum om the window of the foretelling of Clare' s fall fr the ixth floor apartment. More importantly, Freelands' s n objective correlativ e for Irene's broken cup becomes a down. 37 The conversa tion Irene has with emotional break her confused state Wentworth following t he incident confirms plains in a highly soph isticated 37 Hortense Spillers ex orrelative or "metonyr nic manner Larsen I s use of the objective c view, however, makes Clare Close-up" in Passing. Spillers's an, an opinion which I still hold in the undisputed other wom illers, "Irene Redfield never says some doubt. According to Sp g her at she knows that Cl are Kendry is stealin to anyone th when she drops a piec e of now she knows husband Brian, but we k ("Afterword" in ystal (sic] that sha tters on the carpet" cr .Qonjuring 255). 178 d. She does itics have al ready allude of mind, to which cr elieves the s ecurity of th that she b tell Wentwor ses not want to nsequently, s he lap o is being thre atened. C her marriage rsation -- an d a party conv e ce matters - - typical te into ra h om the Conf ederate sout ving come fr dentifies th e cup as ha of property of i t pieces e of the ugl ies anct as havin g been on of consciou sness, stream h's ancestors . Through a ntwort om Irene has We inion of Clar e, wh erses her op wever, Irene rev ymbolism of ho h the s and now, thro ug lways though t beautiful a tie s" of the ugli est "proper to Clare as one the cup, refer s f of Irene's cestry. Add itional proo of southern white an ce to Brian' s n the anachron istic refere s confused sta te i ian's uncle, five r . ound ra ilroad. B f mily and to the Undergr a thousands of d " oved, would n ot have live generations rem term for the ative ubway an alte rn Years ago." Nor was s . Yet Irene 's th away slaves to the Nor transport of run ion curbs he r but incoher ent explanat spontaneous lieves to be a y what she b e conscious ur ge to destro sub unctorily to her job pace. She r eturns perf threat to he r s of Pouring t ea. which Larsen makes ith displacem ent The experime nt w is ghly inconcl usive. One nd Irene is hi a involving Cl are middle-clas s ban ating environ ment of ur left in the suffoc the boredom of s while the other fights retentiousne s ves are too P s li ath. The two women' Passing unti l her de s tly to portra y Irene a dent for Lar sen explici mutually dep en 179 's ead she posits the notion of Irene Inst Clare's murderer. nt and use Irene is so em otionally depende guilt solely beca ubconscious guilt eliable. Irene's instability and s unr that she pushed C lare. e cause her to belie v of female of Larsen's nove ls the expansion In both cal chological and tem poral than physi e psy spaces appears mo r e for t. The characters envision a futur and permanen e oppressive setti ngs her women out of t h themselves or for ot momentary relief. An ironic twist from which they se e only ess for six weeks d in that Helga's illn occurs in Quicksan her fourth child r equires her to following the birt h of her has the same te doctor who visi ts remain in bed. T he whi the train fect as the minis ter at Naxos and negative ef en the nurse arriv es, ng takes place wh conductor. Some h eali lga's need for res t. Though no r she understands He fo of of Passing, the i nevitability healing emerges a t the end Irene's ction seems inextr icably bound with Clare's destru at the beginning. Larsen orary escape from suffocation temp hip f spatial relation s nds the novel with the same kind o e vertical move by e levator from which she begins . The With ds to the expanse of the the crow the staggering he at of re together for th e top restaurant bri ngs Irene and Cla roof eling ny years. Likewis e, the trapped fe first time in ma rtment des the Freelands ' sixth floor apa Which perva descent in this c ase Precipitates Clar e's fall. The ween the two wome n. es the precarious relationship bet breach 180 n so as to pos it the notio are ons Irene an d Cl s . Larsen posit i logical oppr ession refined stat e of psycho that "a high ly l destructio n.- irect physic a no less a d eath than d ? is 1138 main 's female ch aracters re ral of Larse n Although sev e are suffers agmire, and although Cl lodged in a mental qu psychologic al ene endures al destructi on while Ir Physic repare the w ay for does, in fac t, p en ppression, L ars terature of o es in the lic expansion of female spa greater n's tempora ry an women wri ters. Larse ric Other Africa n-Ame r Ann er reading a udiences fo nts prepare lat aceme The Street. displ er novel n of female spaces in h Petry?s disr uptio e exist barrie rs which th racist and s the an Petry expose s eriences. In er class exp merican wom an of a low ican-A son channels Afr John e barriers L utie ttempt to ov ercome thos e. a ating an auto nomous lif ts toward cr e and talen s her energies ect of wome n' domestic asp adicate the Petry does n ot er nsibilities as a the woman's feminine se lives, but u ses e. Lutie's love for achieve inde pendenc to tivating fac tor the forces in mo battle what drives her to son is prim arily wn. The str eet her ion and her o estruct e street to avoid his d th sexual e economic, racial, and taphor for th becomes a m e n sses the pa rity betwee pre on of 38 ances Cress Welsing ex ruction in h er discussi Fr ture l and physic al dest to fu ologica frican-Americ an adults Psych ty of A oving Toward s the 21st the respon sibili lack Women M 1991 Annual, rations in h er essay "B ne oks Bulletin , volume 8, ge Bo Century." see Black Pp. 1-5 . 181 f characters 's survival. An array o opposition to Lutie o Lutie's su rvival . stile t prise an env ironment ho com epicting the ill ingenious ap proach to d Petry takes an n-American woman n an Africa of poverty a nd racism o effects t er eam. Lutie, like Ches can dr to the Ame ri s Who aspires et Him Go, b attle If He Holle rs, L Himes?s Bob Jones in ent. More l ike Himes?s m ressures of her environ against the p Lutie expec ts her rs might exp ect, le character than reade ma lents, not h er ard and her ta Willingness to work h ng for earn a respe ctable livi as a woman, to e attractivene ss space sh ledging the t raditional cknow b and herse lf. A es that the re Bu iz o her son, s he rational mother t should occupies as he ositions to which s e no other p rescribed p ould b airs with th e Sh she ascends the st d. As being relega te she debates fear th Street, rtment on 11 6 uper to insp ect the apa S has of the Super: she herself the misgivings With uperintenden t is gentleman w ho is the s "The tall ire the furn ace, f ed to rent a partments, suppos is nd that's as far as he sweep the h alls, a nclude makin g es to i osed to go. If he tri supp York City e tenants, t his is New al love to the fem . " ( 19) . in the year 1944 . . as Larsen's s as telling rence to tim e i inds The ironic refe when Irene r em Passing modernity in character's grasp at the city of New York" 27 in t "this was the year 19 Clare tha , however, t hat men ohnson disco vers J (l98). Luti e 182 d as ate space which women regar de the priv frequently inv a their own. as a pragmatic , willful depiction of L utie Petry's ct contrast autonomy, may seem in dire woman, strivin g for latta character s. 39 Yet, the mu with Larsen's middle-class real. Larsen' s experiment erence is more apparent than diff etry to of domestic sp ace enables P With the trans formation ociety places upon nly the restric tions which s Protest ope er class. The an of the low the African-Am erican wom es that Larsen 's in the spac tional debilita tion inherent emo ton calls "Mu ltiple hat Calvin Hernefigures w women occupy p r xual is book The Se f women in The Street. In h Oppression" o discusses the men Writers, H ernton Mountain and B lack Wo orld. More of sexism in the literary w pervasiveness eminal treatme nt of dits Petry with a s specifically, he cre st ual violence le t loose again onomic, racial and sex the "ec ronment" (61). an ghetto envi lack women in their new urb b Petry as writ ers engaged in ther than seein g Larsen and Ra separated by or sition, as Spil lers affirms, literary oppo implies, I see as Hernton istinct intere sts in class, d tinuum. This ry's novels as part of a con Larsen's and P et st of believes tha t the contra pillers set and Larsen 's 39 Hortense S t" and Fau "ideology of th e environmen two ry's ism" would no t allow the Pet determin iverse." enetic belief in "g habit the same "literary un ting to in . 254. In ter ms of eriods of wri pP , rd to Conjurin g environment See Spillers' Afterwo view that forc es in the e the le qualities t o female space, I tak of fema with distorted perceptions en can occupy. conspire ch wom restrict the p ositions whi 183 prescribed e stifling effe ct of gender- continuum infor ms th African-Americ an women to lessness of roles and the power change courses . g because of h er interestin Petry's Lutie J ohnson is es that Lutie ering. The read er never sens unusual maneuv to Bub. She her domestic s pace as mother wants to aband on me, not in the ho mined to rear him in her/his is deter does not want h im white family's house. She anteroom of a e or fear that he will always b as a boy f to shine shoes works for a a "boy." Cons equently, Lutie regarded as aving him in th eir le white family to support Bub, Wealthy er. Petry ent with his un employed fath New York apartm her subtly roles of husban d and wife rat nal reverses tradi tio takes ally undone whe n Jim xcept to show Lutie emotion e the nce. 40 This incident i s abse another woman in Lutie's erability as a uln ng series in w hich Lutie's v first in a lo tion to remain rcuts her determ ina Woman and moth er unde he e -- to borrow a trait from t respectabl independent and Fauset and Lars en. of aissance mulatt a characters Harlem Ren asis in Lutie ' s e emph Petesch mispla ces th summarizes in the 40 Donald from home when he oes home to taking the jo b away ve money she g ing manner: "I n order to sa onths, and thei r f~llow usband, only on ce every two m pp. isit Jim, her h Spy in the En emy's Country, v eaks up." See A ge br 's adopting the materialistic marria ut Lutie s Petesch's 3 oints o infer7-38 . Petesch p rs, but the read er also le sband's carnal hand the hu belief of the C s the greatest d eprivation i e from Chapter 7 of the belief that cal view may em erg Lutie's soul- ds. Such a cri ti hbacks involvin g nee mploys flas in her life, novel where Pe try e lures tempts to unde rstand the faiand her father. ~earching at r husband cluding the al ienation of he in 184 The strength of Petry's character Lutie lies in her persistence to move boldly against the metaphorical street to claim her own, her son, her values, and her autonomy. Lutie becomes a giant in her perception of the white world which she views through the Chandlers. From her vantage point as maid, she sees their world as strange, as if she were "looking through a hole in a wall at some enchanted garden" where "the people on the other side of the wall knew less about her than she knew about them" (41). The vision which Lutie acquires in working at the Chandlers' suburban estate helps her to see the wall which exists between her values, her status as a woman and the urban world to which she returns. Yet her perception never materializes into changed behavior, owing to economic conditions. When she mounts the narrow suffocating stairway to the apartment she will rent for Bub and herself, she senses the Super's consuming stare but cannot afford to refuse the apartment. The "cold November wind" turns garbage can tops, discarded newspaper, and even chicken bones into enemy forces comprising a naturalistic setting wherein Lutie feels compelled to take shelter. The woman's vulnerability remains apparent even as Petry shows her character progressing in self-reliance. Lutie's rescue from the Super's attempt to rape her comes at the hands of Mrs. Hedges, who wants to save Lutie for the white pimp Junto. The Super avenges Lutie's rejection of 185 es not ub in mail theft. Though Lutie do him by involving B inal activity for some time Bub's juvenile, cr im ' discover singer in a s the need to earn more money as a she sense artment than the er ap ightclub in order to afford a bett n and her. Her fru stration returns th Street one for Bub 116 e must entertain for experienc when she discover s that she lessons or receiv e them in ford voice unless she can af ol rs to the owner of the Crosse Scho al favo exchange for sexu Lutie in the fore going uating of for Singers. Petry 's sit air foreshadow aments and Lutie' s subsequent desp predic lower-class Africa n- ion of the Gloria Naylor's d epict ster Place. Lutie merican woman in T he Women of Brew A rn, she had been h emmed time she was bo thinks, "From the ery nearly rrowing space, un til now she was v into an ever-na p brick by brick by all had been built u walled in and the w ace hatred which consumes ager white hands" (323-24). The r e te social protest ion to confla Lutie shows Petry 's inclinat erty, racism, and of pov and naturalism in her denouncing rompt Lutie to see herself All of these nega tives p sexism. savagery" of the ed self-loathing wit h the "uncontroll as he zoo. animals she and B ub had seen at t , distorted image of self prepares Lutie's frustrated onsidered unique t o the reader for th e final scene, c ally, en's writing at th at time. Ironic om African-American w n from the most utie?s final effo rt to save her so L her powerlessness . s icable segment of the street expose desp 186 The lawyer, the nightclub manager, and his boss take advantage of Lutie's desperation as the mother of a young child in trouble to try to sate their appetites for money and sex. Lutie murders Boots. In doing so, she steps out of her role as mother, discards her aspiring image of respectability, and becomes a sexless, raceless entity. Hernton credits Petry with having made "the boldest stroke that a black woman author ever dared." He assigns her the dubious distinction of authoring "the first writing in which a black man is killed by a black woman for being an unmitigated villain in the oppression of that woman" (59). Though Hernton in this instance seems to put too much emphasis on sheer plot, he is more nearly accurate in assessing the boldness reflected in Petry's novel. There is little masking in Petry's writing. Unlike Larsen who had to be concerned about publishers' rejection and who mirrored her own class image because she knew hardly any other, Petry steps outside the range of her own upper-middle-class upbringing. 41 She draws the material for her fiction from the proletarian class which she discovered in large northern cities, especially the Harlem ghetto. More importantly, Petry's novel bridges the gap between Harlem Renaissance women's writing and contemporary African-American women's 41 See Arthur P. Davis, From the Dark Tower (Washington: H~ward UP, 1974), p. 193, and Mary Helen Washington Invented Live~ (New York: Doubleday, 1987), p. 304. Both Davis and Washington refer to Petry's heritage of New England professional parents. 187 novels. Following the expansion of female space seen in The Street, Gwendolyn Brooks's Maud Martha (1953), Kristin Hunter's God Bless the Child (1964), and Toni Morrison's Sula (1974) portray women who suffer from the constricted spaces they must occupy. Like Lutie Johnson, the women in novels succeeding The Street Maud Martha, Rosie Fleming, and Sula Peace -- are heroes of the female subculture. They struggle against a society which denies them meaningful work and satisfying lifestyles. Nearly all search for spaces that are nontraditional but ultimately find themselves in positions which leave their lives blighted, resulting in muted voices and aberrant behavior. To paraphrase Cheryl Wall in her assessment of Helga Crane, although these characters' quests end in defeat, their struggles are nonetheless desirable ("Passing for What?" BALF). "." 188 CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION Even though present day scholars show an intense interest in the Harlem Renaissance, for the nearly half century since its inception, the interest has been sporadic. Fauset's four novels, written between 1924 and 1933, and Larsen's two novels, written in 1928 and 1929, comprise a large and significant part of the literary works of the early twentieth century which contribute to the African- American literary canon. Yet, when many of today's octogenarians recall their participation in the Harlem Renaissance, they reminisce mainly about the cabarets, rent parties, and other social functions which they witnessed. Or they mentally pick up one of Fauset's or Larsen's novels, speak proudly of the display of the DuBoisian theory of the "talented tenth" and gently lay the works aside. Although there is no intent to criticize the level of involvement of our elders, it is obvious that the masses considered the economic, social, and political aspects of the renaissance to the exclusion of the literary works. Even the more scholarly members of the population of that era have evaluated Fauset's and Larsen's writing by the standards of male writing. These critics, such as Eda Lou Walton in an Opportunity review, express disappointment in failing to find in Larsen's novels the "zestful interest in life in 189 Harlem" which "other novelists of Negro life" have depicted (213). Or, as two reviews in the Times Literary Supplement suggest, Fauset's contemporaries found Plum Bun preoccupied with the commonplace and The Chinaberry Tree boring because of the author's tendency to make one of her women characters too distinct (29 Nov. 1928; 23 June 1932). Because Fauset and Larsen were being held to the standards of male writing, critics not only found the novelists' subject matter boring and irrelevant, but also failed to see the female sensibility which both writers were espousing. Such reactions and oversights result in a superficiality towards the renaissance itself. While undertaking this study of Fauset and Larsen, I paused momentarily to try to decide whether superficial interest in or sporadic excitement for the Harlem Renaissance is the lesser of the two evils. Ultimately I decided in favor of the lull in interest, for I have been encouraged by the renewed energy resulting in scholarship which began in the 1970s. The presence of a feminine sensibility in novels by Fauset and Larsen has become the issue of current study by scholars such as Thadious Davis, Gloria Hull, Deborah McDowell, and Mary Helen Washington. Neither these critics nor others have come to a consensus on what Fauset and Larsen are doing with the issue of women or how successful either writer is in positing a feminist view. What has been enriching is that we all, to varying degrees, 190 pe ng gone beyond the ster eoty Larsen as havi see Fauset and and lamenting ntally about th e upper-class of writing sen time cter. ragedy of the mulatta chara the t shown that bot h se analysis th is study has Through clo y to latta as a narr ative strateg sen use the m u Fauset and Lar eading audienc es would s to which the ir r mask feminist issue their writing into ing ensitive. The se authors br be overly s ical g the aforemen tioned histor a by conjoininthe modern er the modernist to matic strands which adhere e strategy and t h Crane; the ro-cosmic think ing of Helga ideology: the mic rentine lga, Angela Mu rray, and Lau f He social isolati on o gela, Helga, an d sive self-iden tity of An Strange; the e lu minor charact ers e of y; and the gen derless stanc Clare Kendr digm Both authors p rovide a para n Plum Bun and Quicksand. i ss , as they rais e the awarene n modernism of African-Am erica emale presence in f eir audiences regarding the of th for oppressed race empowerm ent literature and point to people. nd Larsen's wo rk has set's a An examination of Fau ernism to inclu de greater efining of mod required a re- d ss emphasis on form. d gender and l e attention to r ace an g-standing one has been a lon the content/fo rm struggle While e, the f African-Amer ican literatur on o in the evaluat i s and minority in light of fe minist critic ishes tension dimin amining minori ty new ways of ex theorists who offer taken place si nce s e. Substantia l progress ha literatur 191 Fauset's biographer Sylvander was forced to defend her position against critics' views that African-American artists lacked skills in the "manipulation of foreshadowing(,] ... flashback ... and characterization. 1142 Subsequent to Sylvander's somewhat isolated stance in praise of Fauset's craft, theories such as Houston Baker's have emerged that critics, and by inference creative artists as well, are free "to hypothesi ze and represent (new] meanings" (Blues, Ideology, and Afro- American Literature 138). Some of the most enlightening contexts of modernism are found in Bonnie Kime Scott's introduction to her anthology as she attempts to wrest from modernism its sexist and racist meanings. Critics continually observe the influence of Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, and Kate Chopin on Nella Larsen especially. 43 In all instances the similarity between Larsen's novels and the aforementioned authors' works pertains to gender. The characterization of women and themes related to their treatment and their positions in 42 Syl vander believes that Fauset was "quite successful in reconciling the form-content difficulty" ( 10) . In h er discussion of the ongoing battle, Sylvander quotes opposi ng views of Edward Bland in an essay in Negro Quarterly (1942) . 43 See Robert E. Fleming, "The Influence of Main Street on Nella Larsen's Quicksand," Modern Fiction Studies 31 (Autumn 1985): 547-553; Mary M. Lay, "Parallels: Henry James 's The Portrait of a Lady and Nella Larsen's Quicksand," Colle ge Language Association Journal 20 (1977): 474-486. In Chap ter IV of this study I allude to Kate Chopin's The Awakening a nd its similarity to Passing. 192 society are what would bring these writers into a common circle. Yet there appears to be a missing entity in the circle which these women could form. With all of the pathos which the women in Main Street and The Awakening evoke, none of the empathy for the plight of women is spent on minority women. As Robert Fleming discusses Lewis's work as one which "startled middle America out of its complacency" (553), he brings in a factor which Lewis and other white writers seem less aware of. The feminine sensibility which their writings might have called attention to continued to exclude African-American women. While the limitations of white America and those within her race stifle Helga Crane, Chopin's character has no such dual barriers. Edna Pontellier's access to a quadroon nurse who looks after the Pontellier children bolsters her search for self-awareness and autonomy. While Chopin transforms the real mother's domestic role into one of practicing artist, the nurse assumes the unnatural role of mother by virtue of race and class. It seems incumbent, therefore, upon African-American women writers to delve into issues of sexuality, careers, and social choices for women of color. Fauset and Larsen have done exactly that in their novels. The politics of the two novelists' race and era moti- vated them to acknowledge the importance of racial heritage in African-American letters and at the same time treat a class of women about which they had knowledge and 193 experience. This strange blend of political sa vvy results in the use of the mulatta - - an acceptable st rategy to both white and African-American audiences -- to mask the woman's need for self-expression. Notwithstand ing economic geographical differences, the conventions of so ciety and militate against the female character's realiza tion of a true identity. The metaphorical quagmire allud ed to in Larsen's Quicksand is the sexism and racism wh ich stifle not , Plum only Helga, but also the lives of the women in Passing Bun, and The Chinaberry Tree. Class becomes m uch less problematic than race and gender if one consid ers the plight of the characters in all of the novels under st udy. While asserting in the introduction that Harlem Renaissance writers operated under a common rub ric of ting urban pluralism, rejecting white patronage , and advoca encouraging cultural autonomy, in subsequent ch apters I have shown that women writers such as Fauset and La rsen have taken solo flights into a higher atmosphere to advocate ted greater space for women. Much of what they hav e attemp has been experimental and subversive, but the close analysis of their works suggests the presence of a fema le sensibility less pronounced in the writings of their prede cessor Frances . W. Harper, who was compelled to put race befo re gender. E Harper, nevertheless, joins with Fauset and La rsen to form a trajectory which Hurston, West, and Petry have continued. This trajectory constitutes what I have called at other 194 this study a continuum in the exa mination of times in rican modernism. The amassing of female concepts African-Ame and characterizations by women wr iters of color is closely essay 11 ?? akin to what Henry Louis Gates de scribes in his rature?" in the January 1990 edition ? What Is 'Black' Lite of Publications of the Modern Lan guage Association (PMLA). ed from Gates asserts that a Black litera ry tradition emerg [ing] and revis[ingJ one another, "many black authors read ddress[ing] similar themes, and r epeat[ing] the cultural a and linguistic codes of a common symbolic geography" (20). Fauset and Larsen have been the v anguard of African-American repeat gender codes to women writers who read and revise and ibute to a woman's literary tradit ion which must be contr included as part of African-Ameri can modernism. Fauset and Larsen show in their nov els that gender is a barrier to complete freedom and m obility for their female ovel, There Is characters. Though Fauset's firs t n ngular focus and control of Plum Bun Confusion, lacks the si and The Chinaberry Tree, it shows Fauset's attempt to connect the historical events of the Civil War era to the life-style and thought of her 192 0s characters Joanna et's ideology at this Marshall and Maggie Ellersley. F aus eer seems closely linked with Har per's in point in her car that both subordinate the rights of women to the struggle clined in for the realization of race equa lity. Fauset is in rtitude who her first novel to create women o f talent and fo 195 ength to help men, foregoing life-long career use their str and pursuing upward mobility through ambitions matrimony. Fauset progresses in Plum Bun and The Chinaberry Tree ality and female to the point of focusing on f emale sexu trike at the heart of a femin ine subjectivity, issues which s s of sensibility. Here I detect a confluence of ideologie use of the the two writers. Both Fauset and Larsen make quest for true identity and female subculture in the onomy. Daughters rely upon m others to show the way to aut ual autonomy in Plum Bun. Th e generational ties break sex cessive loyalty to the past -- down when the mothers show ex o tradition and respectabilit y. The break between mother t women peers, and daughter results in stron ger ties between contemporaries in search of creating a community of women eir sexual independence. Whe n the relationships among th s interracial couples fail and racism overwhelms friendship t ethnic backgrounds, the sear ch between women of differen for the cause ensues. Does F auset send a message of proval of passing, of disdain for interracial disap cohabitation, of her belief i n the futility of female superiority of men? bonding, of the inherent sexu al gy is much less significant t han her Fauset's own ideolo ability to craft a novel rega rding women's sexuality, expression. suggesting society's resistan ce to its free an-American Furthermore, her approach is decidedly Afric 196 modernist, owing to her attempt to empower her women characters at the same time that she has them maintain a respectable stance. Very much like Fauset, Larsen takes a modern writer's approach to female sexuality through the ambivalence her characters show. They feel guilty because of their desire to break away from the sexual roles, mainly as wives and mothers, which society has prescribed for them. At other times the guilt derives from failure to carry out the roles to which they ascribe. In the novels of both writers a kind of sterility sets in almost immediately after the onset of sexual awareness. Mothers and mother figures, such as Hettie Daniels in Plum Bun, teach respectability rather than a healthy sexuality to Angela and Virginia Murray. Mattie Murray exposes her daughters to proper etiquette, material wealth, and Christian ethics. But when Angela inquires about her mother and father's sexuality, Mattie lapses into abstractions about love. The dialogue between mother and daughter remains stilted and polite. The two sisters themselves have an even greater physical barrier -- the walls of their bedrooms and the headboards of their bed between them as they raise issues of sexual awareness. Their future seems relegated to chance as Virginia finds delight in a domestic life while Angela searches for material wealth and security, expecting to sacrifice sex in return. 197 imilar degree of reticence in having Larsen shows a s ature in their sexual awarene ss . her female characters m Helga lacks the stable fa mily background which Although r and daughter, would have permitted intim acy between mothe s to create that kind of r elationship between Larsen fail hl's greatest concern is fo r Helga and her aunt. Frau Da uality. She assumes Helga to be exploiting Helga's sex lly and emotionally prepare d for marriage; the main sexua is to find the right part ner . Helga possibly objective her awareness at the point where growth is least increases covering from the birth of a expected. Even as she lie s re ild, she considers her wor th and, albeit, her fourth ch n . If she gets out of responsibility to her othe r childre same time consign her own the this quagmire, will she at one equally stifling? He lga's ambivalence daughter to r's perception of the need increases, but so does the reade r lessons in sexual growth and development. fo flirt with the idea of fre e love, Fauset Both writers , perhaps offering it as in Plum Bun and Larsen in Quicksand prescribed roles as wives experiment with freedom fr om an y from it almost as quickl y k awa and mothers. Yet, they ba c s they propose the idea, l ikely because, as Deborah a introduction to Larsen's n ovels, they McDowell says in her r the ... ethics of sexu al conduct" required of must "hono e 1920s (xiv). The African-American middle-c lass women of th ation of inclusion of free love as part of the explor 198 sexuality in these literary works takes an interesting twist, which seems to confirm McDowell's theory that both writers felt compelled to honor a particular code of ethics. The proposition to engage in free love takes place in a culture alien to African-American women. Angela Murray is passing for white at the time that Roger asks her to live as his mistress. The affront which Angela feels at his suggestiveness stems from her cultural background which forbids such behavior, though Roger is unaware that she is Black. Even after he discovers her true racial heritage and returns to repeat the proposal that she become his mistress, Angela surmises that it is lack of respect for her race that prompts Roger to make his offer. Likewise, Helga experiences an insult to her race when her Danish admirer Axel Olsen proposes to her directly rather than going first to her uncle. She cannot be sure of his sincerity because he violates her cultural code of obtaining the parent/guardian's permission. Thus Fauset and Larsen evince in their treatment of free love their inclination to maintain the African-American woman's virtue or to suggest a different set of principles for two different cultures. Repression of sexual desire represents an appreciable portion of the treatment of women's sexuality in Fauset's and Larsen's novels; the other negative representation is in the form of commodification. At the same time, African- American history becomes ingrained in the literature of 199 these two authors. The exploration of sexual freedom shows the residual effects of slavery. Historically, the mulatto has symbolized the product of the white man's ability to sate his sexual appetite with slave women whom he also used as property. The image perpetuates itself in the minds of both the victim and her violator, resulting in what Angela Davis calls "a collective consciousness" for African- American women of their "sexual victimization'' (Women, Race and Class 183). This does not mean that women have continued to acquiesce to such victimization in a physical sense; rather, it manifests its grip on the psyche of African-American women. It, therefore, becomes realistic to portray them in fiction as regarding themselves as objects. Owing to their shortsightedness, some critics see writers who represent women as objects as being novelists of the "old guard," an accusation without merit. Once the female character is regarded as an object, both Fauset and Larsen, to varying degrees, set in motion a struggle on the female character's part to destroy the idea. Helga says firmly to Axel Olsen, "I'm not for sale. Not to you. Not to any white man" (87). Recalling her racial heritage, Helga feels compelled to inform Olsen that she is no longer property to be transferred from owner to owner. Larsen displays the cultural gap which exists between this African-American and European pair. Olsen cannot understand why their marriage to each other would signify ownership to Helga. 200 The strategy Fauset uses in Plum Bun to disrupt the notion that the female protagonist is a commodity, for sale to or for mere use by her male counterpart, is to use a variation of the dramatic technique of the aside. At the same time that the protagonist maintains a sanguine attitude in her conversation with her suitor, she engages in a mental monologue about the outcome, which counters her side of the conversation. Such underlying conversations are indicative of the alienation which Angela Murray symbolizes. As mulattas, whose racial heritage, middle-class, and gender marginalize them from both races, Angela and Helga Crane mask the ambivalence, anger, and frustration which African- American women experience in the passive role of being pursued as sex objects. The conversation they have with their subjects is diametrically opposite of the intense battle going on within themselves. Though Fauset in Plum Bun advocates a decline in the treatment of women as commodities, she seems less than optimistic about its ending. Just as the women in Plum Bun fail to pass on to their daughters the legacy of sexual autonomy, so do the men neglect to free their sons of the conventional thought that women are part of the wealth which men acquire like money and land. Race nor class frees Roger from the tendency to treat women as objects. He admits to Angela that he is "not entirely [his) own master" in suggesting that she serve as his mistress. Roger's father, 201 wealthy and white, monitors his son's social l ife, as if it were his own, in order to control their econom ic future. In ce, Fauset looks back to the era of slavery an d this instan intimates the minimal progress which women hav e made towards sexual freedom. in Contemporary critics refer to Fauset's market m otif s sex-oriented. 44 Combining her artistic craft Plum Bun a with her knowledge of the times, Fauset affect s a kind of innocence in using the nursery rhyme" To Mark et, To Market." McDowell and Sylvander support such a view in the insightful analyses they offer of Fauset's use of the y rhyme to promote sexual imagery. Because, a s an nurser African-American writer, Fauset continuously i nterjects history into her literary plots, she attempts a multi- faceted function with the nursery rhyme. From the domestic a's scene involving Angela's mother, the author tra ces Angel journey into the public arena (the Market) whe re she discovers that her sexuality limits and theref ore diminishes her worth. Angela bargains in the marketplace and loses in Roger. Because of the heavy collateral which her deal with she must post in the deal with the white world generally and with Roger particularly, she also loses much o f what she naturally had with her sister Jinny. Yet Ange la acquires rgaining some knowledge of the marketplace through the ba 44 See McDowell's introduction to the 1990 edition of Plum Bun (xix) and Sylvander's Jessie Redmon Fauset, Bla ck American Writer (186). 202 tips which her art friends give her. Fauset imbues some of her white female characters, cerebrally at least, with genderless traits so that they can anticipate the bargaining strategies of Roger and his gender. Returning home more experienced, Angela has a clearer understanding of her mother's role, though she herself could never assume that role. Fauset includes Angela's brief visit to Philadelphia as part of the plot to re-establish her cultural connections before she departs for Europe, a much more culturally- diverse marketplace. The plum bun which Angela initially thought she would exchange for the security and respectability of marriage becomes less significant in Angela's life than it was in Mattie Murray's entire life. In Chapter III of this study, I alluded to Anthony's arriving in Europe as a "gift" for Angela. Though Fauset ends the novel with the suggestion that Angela and Anthony will likely be married, perhaps she reverses the commodification to hint at a more equalized partnership. The marketing is complete because Angela has both her career as an artist and emotional satisfaction. In a subtle, but artful fashion Fauset shows the gradual empowerment of the African-American woman. Part of women's authorization to act and speak for themselves emerges in Fauset's use of material consumption in her novels, which I have analyzed in Chapter III of this study. Fauset alerts the reader to the masking, subtleties, 203 and ironic twists present in several of her novels. The Foreword to The Chinaberry Tree asserts Fauset's preferenc e for sheer aesthetics over propaganda and didactics. She admits at the end of her two-page commentary that "in spit e of other intentions" she does moralize on Fate and Chance and the dramatic impact both have had on the life of the colored middle-class American. While she refers to this representative American in the generic sense, she subtly notes that the story is Aunt Sal's, Laurentine's, and Melissa's -- all about women. The only reference to the patriarch Colonel Halloway is in the symbolic chinaberry tree. With so many subversive tactics Fauset indeed prepares her reading audience for the female subjectivity which I see her exercising in the novel. The success apparent in having the characterization and setting develop from a female perspective dwindles as the plot unfolds in The Chinaberry Tree. The manner in which one female character undercuts the progress and well-being of another nearly overshadows the rich descriptions of clothing which Laurentine creates out of her own sheer talent and with the financial assistance of her two half- sisters, both white. Optimism pervades the scenes in whic h Laurentine, with the support of customers such as the two doctors' wives, creates a flourishing business. She becom es the quintessential designer of women's wear and sheds the specter of Colonel Halloway, symbolized by her lonely day s 204 with her mother under the chinaberry tree. Patriarchy me e ts with less resistance in scenes where Judy and, later, Melissa, to the detriment of other women, rely so heavily upon men for happiness and security . The novel takes on a subplot which undercuts Laurentine's pursuit of self- autonomy and respectability. The novel seems to come full circle; Melissa replaces Aunt Sal under the chinaberry tre e, rescued by Asshur who will make his fortune in the South, though at Tuskegee rather than on a plantation. Laurentin e, in spite of the sabotage from the subplot involving Judy a nd Melissa, seems to have grown in much the same way that Angela Murray grows in Plum Bun . At the end Laurentine's coexisting plan includes not only Dr. Denleigh, but also h er sewing business. one gets the idea that she derives too much satisfaction from her artistic creations to abandon t he work entirely. The "solid ground beneath [her] feet" is truly different from Melissa's. Fauset appears to falter in her inclination to practice a female subjectivity in The Chinaberry Tree. As an African-American modernist she practices what Baker in contemporary terms refers to as mastery of form. Her use of the subplot involving Judy and Melissa becomes a mask for the freedom, respectability, and autonomy which Laurentine acquires. Fauset more closely approximates deformation of mastery, or removal of the mask, in Plum Bun in that the female subjectivity she exercises in that novel empowers h er 205 women characters. The generational trope which she uses in her Plum Bun more effectively depicts progress. If Fauset had remained consistent in her characterization in The Chinaberry Tree, in creating community among women in their acquisition and consumption of material possessions, she would necessarily have shown Melissa in as positive a light as Laurentine. Thus, Fauset meets with criticism for failing to maintain, as consistently as she might, a strategy that is, nevertheless, unique in African-American women's literature: the use of material consumption to assert the right of the female to judge what is proper for her gender. While this study has shown that both Fauset and Larsen veil female sexuality and that Fauset to a lesser degree conceals her propensity for female subjectivity, it has also evinced Larsen's rejection of the androcentric approach to confining women to a domestic sphere. The journey motif is her most common way of showing the female character's discontent with the status quo. Using divergent settings and drawing from her own experiences and culture in the creation of a fictional piece, Larsen orchestrates the search for spaces which complement her characters' individual identity. And while she permits them to plan, imagine, anticipate, and visualize places of permanent satisfaction, they never quite realize such a place. They can only experiment with innovative lifestyles as they move 206 from one position to another. The change in geographical location is not always indicative of the transformation of domestic space, as seen in the forever haunting conclusion to Quicksand. Larsen's strongest evidence of the search for adequate female spaces i s in the imagery of suffocation. Sometimes physical enclosures produce the stifling effect, not necessarily by their size alone but by the activities taking place or by the presence of offenders -- patriarchal figures, male suitors who commodify women, women themselves who accept traditional roles, and children whose birth and rearing subvert energy in Quicksand. Though some of these offenses occur in Larsen's second novel, she tends in Passing to hold her women characters themselves less blameless. Their own preoccupation with security puts them in the predicament of struggling for their emotional lives and/or destroying their physical lives. Because Larsen's women often analyze themselves, seeking an answer to their problem of space, they often engage in self- flagellation. Whether they recede into the isolation of their homes, take to their beds in illness, engage in monologue or in conversation with another victim, the search is often an introspective examination of self. Helga's uniqueness in Naxos leads her to conclude, regarding herself, that there was "[a) lack somewhere" and that ''there were parts of her she couldn't be proud of'' (7). Even as 207 Clare Kendry divorces herself from the role of doting mother, she contrasts herself with Irene, whose consuming interests include her children. In a self-deprecating tone, Clare admits to Irene, "'I haven't any proper morals or sense of duty, as you have, that makes me act as I do'" (210). Larsen suggests that the restricted roles in which women find themselves have metamorphosed into self-hatred. The transformation of domestic space is costly even when it is only temporary. Yet Fauset's and Larsen's novels do not end on such a dismal note, for they bring African-American women's writing into the modernist era in several ways. They explore a female sensibility and experiment with changed behavior and attitudes on the part of women of color. And they offer empowerment to African-American women writers who succeed them. This study concedes that the explorations of and experimentation with women's issues have remained dormant for the most part in Fauset's and Larsen's writing because race and gender were, as Scott states it, "not adequately decoded." To go a step farther, when French writer Marcel Proust defined the purpose of the modernist novel as the scovery of "a different self, 11 45 di he likely did not have in mind the novels of women nor minorities. Yet the discovery of self is a seminal issue in Fauset's and 45 Marcel Proust, qtd. in Cantor, 4 3 . 208 rsen's novels. From the backdrop of a burgeonin g African- La American urban society, these Harlem Renaissanc e writers use the mulatta to mirror what Cantor aptly refers to as "the confusion, hesitancies, and partial perception" of the modernist individual. A re-configuration of mo dernism allows for their inclusion. cknowledging that Fauset and Larsen were involve d in A odernist movement allows for the removal of thei r work the m from a sub-literary plane. The discussion of f emale sexuality, female subjectivity, and female spac es, based on close reading, illuminates Fauset's and Larsen' s novels to show them in an evolving tradition of feminism. This study establishes a legitimacy for their craft and sh ows Fauset 46 and Larsen "writing beyond the ending" of their novels. Their depiction of the marginalized woman recur s in the writing of African-American women such as Zora Neale Hurston, Dorothy West, and Ann Petry. Although Calvin Hernton says that feminism was a hidden and dis guised tendency in African-American women's writing be fore Ann ve, of Petry, he implies that the advocacy, however su bversi hts and opportunities for women was Petry's leg acy equal rig 46 The expression is the idea and title of a bo ok by el Blau DuPlessis. She discusses "writing be yond the Rach ending" in terms of twentieth century novelis ts who devise multiple narrative strategies with psychosocial meanings as an alternative to their nineteenth century prede cessors whose novels ended in marriage or death. See DuPl essis, Writing Beyond the Ending (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1 985). I have and adapted the expression to suggest the impact wh ich Fauset er. Larsen have on later writers of their race and gend 209 from her foremothers. Instead of making the leap from Frances E. W. Harper, whom I credit with a seminal treatment of feminist issues in the African-American novel, and Fauset and Larsen to Petry, I have shown that greater constancy exists in the canon of women's literature. Hurston dovetails on Fauset's and Larsen's treatment of the African- American female's expression of her sexuality beyond the confines of a tradition. And West expands Fauset's assertion of the woman novelist's right to express individuality, as both do through the recourse to material consumption. As novelists, Jessie Fauset and Nella Larsen had marginal positions among the coterie of writers of the Harlem Renaissance. As African-American writers and as women writers, they have remained outside the canon of modernist literature. A re-defining of modernism to include empowerment of race and gender insures both women a more centralized position in the literary world. 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