Nella Larsen
Encyclopedia
Nellallitea 'Nella' Larsen (born Nellie Walker (April 13, 1891 – March 30, 1964), was an American novelist of the Harlem Renaissance
. She published two novels and a few short stories. Though her literary output was scant, what she wrote earned her recognition by her contemporaries and by present-day critics.
, Illinois, on April 13, 1891 as Nellie Walker. She was the daughter of Marie Hanson, a Danish
immigrant, and Peter Walker, a West Indian
man of color from Saint Croix, who soon disappeared from her life. Her mother was a domestic case worker in social services.
After her mother married Peter Larsen, a Scandinavian, Nellie took his surname, also sometimes using Nellye Larson, Nellie Larsen and, finally, Nella Larsen. After Larsen married, she sometimes used her married name Nella Larsen Imes.
As a child, Larsen lived several years with her mother's relations in Denmark. In 1907-08, she briefly attended Fisk University
, in Nashville, Tennessee
, a historically black university
. The biographer George Hutchinson speculates that she was expelled for some violation of Fisk's strict dress or conduct codes; she then spent four years in Denmark, before returning to the U.S.
In 1914, Larsen enrolled in the all-black nursing school at New York City
's Lincoln Hospital.
, where she became head nurse at its hospital and training school. While in Tuskegee, she came in contact with Booker T. Washington
's model of education and became disillusioned with it. (Washington died shortly after Larsen arrived at Tuskegee.) Working conditions for nurses at Tuskegee were poor; their duties included doing hospital laundry. Larsen lasted only until 1916, when she returned to New York to work again as a nurse.
, a prominent physicist who was the second African American
to receive a Ph.D in physics. A year after her marriage, she published her first pieces. After working as a nurse through the Spanish flu
pandemic of 1918, Larsen left nursing and became a librarian
.
, where she was in charge of the children section of the Countee Cullen Branch of the New York Public Library
(NYPL). after passing her certification exam in 1923. Later, in October 1925, she took a sabbatical from of job for health reasons and began to write her first novel. In 1926, having made friends with important figures in the Negro Awakening that became the Harlem Renaissance
, Larsen gave up her work as a librarian.
She began to work as a writer active in the literary community. In 1928, Larsen published Quicksand (ISBN 0-14-118127-3), a largely autobiographical novel, which received significant critical acclaim, if not great financial success.
In 1929, she published Passing (ISBN 0-14-243727-1), her second novel, which was also critically successful. Her books dealt with issues related to experiences of mixed-race women.
In 1930, Larsen published "Sanctuary", a short story for which she was accused of plagiarism. Her marriage was in trouble during this period.
"Sanctuary" resembled Sheila Kaye-Smith
’s short story "Mrs. Adis", first published in the United Kingdom in 1919. Kaye-Smith wrote on rural themes, and was very popular in the US. Critics thought the basic plot of "Sanctuary,"’ and some of the descriptions and dialogue were virtually identical to her work. Compared to Kaye-Smith’s tale, "Sanctuary" is '... longer, better written and more explicitly political, specifically around issues of race - rather than class as in "Mrs Adis" [Pearce 2003]. Larsen reworked and updated the tale into a modern American black context. Pearce also mentions that much later, Sheila Kaye-Smith
admitted in All the Books of My Life (Cassell, London, 1956) that she based "Mrs Adis" on an old story by St Francis de Sales. It is unknown whether she knew of the Larsen controversy.
No plagiarism charges were proved, and Larsen received a Guggenheim Fellowship
. She used it to travel to Europe for several years, spending time in Mallorca
and Paris
, where she worked on a novel about a love triangle. The three protagonists were all white; the book was never published.
Larsen returned to New York in 1933 after her divorce was complete. She lived on alimony
until her ex-husband's death in 1942.
She was not writing (and never would again), appeared to be depressed. After her ex-husband's death, Larsen returned to nursing. She disappeared from literary circles. She lived on the Lower East Side
, and did not venture to Harlem.
Many of her old acquaintances speculated incorrectly that she, like some of the characters in her fiction, had crossed the color line to "pass
" into the white community. George Hutchinson's recent biography of Larsen demonstrated that she remained in New York, working as a nurse, and avoiding contact with her earlier friends and world.
Larsen died in her Brooklyn
apartment in 1964, at the age of 72.
Her travels bring her in contact with many of the communities which Larsen knew. The reader meets Helga, a first-year teacher in "Naxos," a Southern Negro boarding school based on Tuskegee University
, where she finds herself dissatisfied with the philosophy of those around her. She criticizes a sermon by a white preacher, who advocates the segregation
of blacks into separate schools, and says their striving for social equality would lead blacks to become avaricious. Crane quits her teaching and moves to Chicago
. Her white uncle, now married to a bigoted woman, shuns her. She then goes to Harlem
, New York, where she finds a refined but often hypocritical black middle class obsessed with the "race problem."
Taking her uncle's legacy, Crane visits her maternal aunt in Copenhagen
, where she is treated as a highly desirable racial exotic. Missing black people, she returns to New York City. Experiencing a near mental breakdown, Crane happens onto a store-front revival and a charismatic religious experience. After seducing and marrying the preacher who converts her, she moves with him to the poor Deep South
. There she is disillusioned by the people's adherence to religion. In each of her moves, Crane fails to find fulfillment. She is looking for more than how to integrate her mixed ancestry; she expresses complex feelings about what she and her friends consider genetic differences between races.
The novel also tells the tale of Crane's search for a marriage partner: as it opens, she has become engaged to marry a prestigious Southern Negro man whom she does not really love, but with whom she can gain social benefits. In Denmark she turns down the proposal of a famous white Danish artist for similar reasons. By the final chapters, Crane has seduced and married a stereotypical black Southern preacher. The novel's close is deeply pessimistic. Crane had hoped to find sexual fulfillment in marriage and some success in helping the poor southern blacks she lives among. She has an endless chain of pregnancies and suffering. Disillusioned with religion, her husband, and her life, Crane fantasizes about leaving her husband, but never does.
Irene lives in Harlem, where she commits herself to racial uplift, and marries a black doctor. The novel centers on the meeting of the two childhood friends later in life, and the unfolding of events as each woman is fascinated and seduced by the other's lifestyle. The novel traces a tragic path as Irene becomes paranoid that her husband is having an affair with Clare. (the reader is never told whether her fears are justified or not, and numerous cues point in both directions). Clare's mixed race is revealed to her husband John Bellew. The novel ends with Clare's sudden death by "falling" out of a window.
The end of the novel is famous for its ambiguity, which leaves open the possibility that Irene has pushed Clare out the window, or that Clare has killed herself.
Many see this novel as an example of the plot of the tragic mulatto
, a common figure in early African-American literature after the American Civil War
. Others suggest that the novel complicates the plot by introducing the dual figures of Irene and Clare, who in many ways mirror each other. The novel also suggests erotic undertones in the two women's relationship. Some read the novel as one of repression, while others argue that through its attention to the way "passing" unhinges ideas of race, class, and gender, the novel opens spaces for the creation of new, self-generated identities.
Passing has received renewed attention because of its close examination of racial and sexual ambiguities and liminal spaces. It has achieved canonical status in many American universities.
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
. She published two novels and a few short stories. Though her literary output was scant, what she wrote earned her recognition by her contemporaries and by present-day critics.
Biography
Nella Larsen went by various names throughout her life. She was born in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois, on April 13, 1891 as Nellie Walker. She was the daughter of Marie Hanson, a Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
immigrant, and Peter Walker, a West Indian
Danish West Indies
The Danish West Indies or "Danish Antilles", were a colony of Denmark-Norway and later Denmark in the Caribbean. They were sold to the United States in 1916 in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies and became the United States Virgin Islands in 1917...
man of color from Saint Croix, who soon disappeared from her life. Her mother was a domestic case worker in social services.
After her mother married Peter Larsen, a Scandinavian, Nellie took his surname, also sometimes using Nellye Larson, Nellie Larsen and, finally, Nella Larsen. After Larsen married, she sometimes used her married name Nella Larsen Imes.
As a child, Larsen lived several years with her mother's relations in Denmark. In 1907-08, she briefly attended Fisk University
Fisk University
Fisk University is an historically black university founded in 1866 in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. The world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers started as a group of students who performed to earn enough money to save the school at a critical time of financial shortages. They toured to raise funds to...
, in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, a historically black university
Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Historically black colleges and universities are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before 1964 with the intention of serving the black community....
. The biographer George Hutchinson speculates that she was expelled for some violation of Fisk's strict dress or conduct codes; she then spent four years in Denmark, before returning to the U.S.
In 1914, Larsen enrolled in the all-black nursing school at New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Lincoln Hospital.
Nursing career
Upon graduating in 1915, Larsen went South to work at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, AlabamaTuskegee, Alabama
Tuskegee is a city in Macon County, Alabama, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 11,846 and is designated a Micropolitan Statistical Area. Tuskegee has been an important site in various stages of African American history....
, where she became head nurse at its hospital and training school. While in Tuskegee, she came in contact with Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...
's model of education and became disillusioned with it. (Washington died shortly after Larsen arrived at Tuskegee.) Working conditions for nurses at Tuskegee were poor; their duties included doing hospital laundry. Larsen lasted only until 1916, when she returned to New York to work again as a nurse.
Marriage and family
In 1919, Larsen married Elmer ImesElmer Imes
Elmer Samuel Imes born in Memphis, Tennessee, was the second African-American to earn a Ph. D. in Physics and among the first African American scientists to make important contributions to Modern physics.-Early life:...
, a prominent physicist who was the second African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
to receive a Ph.D in physics. A year after her marriage, she published her first pieces. After working as a nurse through the Spanish flu
Spanish flu
The 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic, and the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus . It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin...
pandemic of 1918, Larsen left nursing and became a librarian
Librarian
A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs...
.
Librarian and literary career
Larsen and her family moved to HarlemHarlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, where she was in charge of the children section of the Countee Cullen Branch of the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
(NYPL). after passing her certification exam in 1923. Later, in October 1925, she took a sabbatical from of job for health reasons and began to write her first novel. In 1926, having made friends with important figures in the Negro Awakening that became the Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
, Larsen gave up her work as a librarian.
She began to work as a writer active in the literary community. In 1928, Larsen published Quicksand (ISBN 0-14-118127-3), a largely autobiographical novel, which received significant critical acclaim, if not great financial success.
In 1929, she published Passing (ISBN 0-14-243727-1), her second novel, which was also critically successful. Her books dealt with issues related to experiences of mixed-race women.
In 1930, Larsen published "Sanctuary", a short story for which she was accused of plagiarism. Her marriage was in trouble during this period.
"Sanctuary" resembled Sheila Kaye-Smith
Sheila Kaye-Smith
Sheila Kaye-Smith was an English writer, known for her many novels set in the borderlands of Sussex and Kent in the English regional tradition...
’s short story "Mrs. Adis", first published in the United Kingdom in 1919. Kaye-Smith wrote on rural themes, and was very popular in the US. Critics thought the basic plot of "Sanctuary,"’ and some of the descriptions and dialogue were virtually identical to her work. Compared to Kaye-Smith’s tale, "Sanctuary" is '... longer, better written and more explicitly political, specifically around issues of race - rather than class as in "Mrs Adis" [Pearce 2003]. Larsen reworked and updated the tale into a modern American black context. Pearce also mentions that much later, Sheila Kaye-Smith
Sheila Kaye-Smith
Sheila Kaye-Smith was an English writer, known for her many novels set in the borderlands of Sussex and Kent in the English regional tradition...
admitted in All the Books of My Life (Cassell, London, 1956) that she based "Mrs Adis" on an old story by St Francis de Sales. It is unknown whether she knew of the Larsen controversy.
No plagiarism charges were proved, and Larsen received a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
. She used it to travel to Europe for several years, spending time in Mallorca
Mallorca
Majorca or Mallorca is an island located in the Mediterranean Sea, one of the Balearic Islands.The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Cabrera Archipelago is administratively grouped with Majorca...
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where she worked on a novel about a love triangle. The three protagonists were all white; the book was never published.
Larsen returned to New York in 1933 after her divorce was complete. She lived on alimony
Alimony
Alimony is a U.S. term denoting a legal obligation to provide financial support to one's spouse from the other spouse after marital separation or from the ex-spouse upon divorce...
until her ex-husband's death in 1942.
She was not writing (and never would again), appeared to be depressed. After her ex-husband's death, Larsen returned to nursing. She disappeared from literary circles. She lived on the Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
, and did not venture to Harlem.
Many of her old acquaintances speculated incorrectly that she, like some of the characters in her fiction, had crossed the color line to "pass
Passing (racial identity)
Racial passing refers to a person classified as a member of one racial group attempting to be accepted as a member of a different racial group...
" into the white community. George Hutchinson's recent biography of Larsen demonstrated that she remained in New York, working as a nurse, and avoiding contact with her earlier friends and world.
Larsen died in her Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
apartment in 1964, at the age of 72.
Quicksand
Nella Larsen's first novel tells the story of Helga Crane, a fictional character loosely based on Larsen's own early life. Crane is the lovely and refined daughter of a Danish mother and a West Indian black father. He abandoned Helga and her mother soon after the girl was born. Unable to feel comfortable with any of her European-American relatives, Crane lives in various places in the United States and visits Denmark, searching for people among whom she feels at home.Her travels bring her in contact with many of the communities which Larsen knew. The reader meets Helga, a first-year teacher in "Naxos," a Southern Negro boarding school based on Tuskegee University
Tuskegee University
Tuskegee University is a private, historically black university located in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund...
, where she finds herself dissatisfied with the philosophy of those around her. She criticizes a sermon by a white preacher, who advocates the segregation
Racial segregation in the United States
Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
of blacks into separate schools, and says their striving for social equality would lead blacks to become avaricious. Crane quits her teaching and moves to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. Her white uncle, now married to a bigoted woman, shuns her. She then goes to Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
, New York, where she finds a refined but often hypocritical black middle class obsessed with the "race problem."
Taking her uncle's legacy, Crane visits her maternal aunt in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, where she is treated as a highly desirable racial exotic. Missing black people, she returns to New York City. Experiencing a near mental breakdown, Crane happens onto a store-front revival and a charismatic religious experience. After seducing and marrying the preacher who converts her, she moves with him to the poor Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
. There she is disillusioned by the people's adherence to religion. In each of her moves, Crane fails to find fulfillment. She is looking for more than how to integrate her mixed ancestry; she expresses complex feelings about what she and her friends consider genetic differences between races.
The novel also tells the tale of Crane's search for a marriage partner: as it opens, she has become engaged to marry a prestigious Southern Negro man whom she does not really love, but with whom she can gain social benefits. In Denmark she turns down the proposal of a famous white Danish artist for similar reasons. By the final chapters, Crane has seduced and married a stereotypical black Southern preacher. The novel's close is deeply pessimistic. Crane had hoped to find sexual fulfillment in marriage and some success in helping the poor southern blacks she lives among. She has an endless chain of pregnancies and suffering. Disillusioned with religion, her husband, and her life, Crane fantasizes about leaving her husband, but never does.
Passing
Clare and Irene were two childhood friends, both of African and European ancestry. They lost touch when Clare's father died, and she moved in with two white aunts. By hiding that Clare was part-black, they allowed her to 'pass' as a white woman and marry a white man, who is racist.Irene lives in Harlem, where she commits herself to racial uplift, and marries a black doctor. The novel centers on the meeting of the two childhood friends later in life, and the unfolding of events as each woman is fascinated and seduced by the other's lifestyle. The novel traces a tragic path as Irene becomes paranoid that her husband is having an affair with Clare. (the reader is never told whether her fears are justified or not, and numerous cues point in both directions). Clare's mixed race is revealed to her husband John Bellew. The novel ends with Clare's sudden death by "falling" out of a window.
The end of the novel is famous for its ambiguity, which leaves open the possibility that Irene has pushed Clare out the window, or that Clare has killed herself.
Many see this novel as an example of the plot of the tragic mulatto
Tragic mulatto
The Tragic mulatto is a stereotypical fictional character that appeared in American literature during the 19th and 20th centuries. The "tragic mulatto" is an archetypical mixed race person , who is assumed to be sad or even suicidal because they fail to completely fit in the "white world" or the...
, a common figure in early African-American literature after the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Others suggest that the novel complicates the plot by introducing the dual figures of Irene and Clare, who in many ways mirror each other. The novel also suggests erotic undertones in the two women's relationship. Some read the novel as one of repression, while others argue that through its attention to the way "passing" unhinges ideas of race, class, and gender, the novel opens spaces for the creation of new, self-generated identities.
Passing has received renewed attention because of its close examination of racial and sexual ambiguities and liminal spaces. It has achieved canonical status in many American universities.
Further reading
- Passer la ligne, A French translation of Passing, ACFA Editions, Marseilles, 2009. ISBN 978-2952425926
- Thadious M. Davis, Nella Larsen, Novelist of the Harlem Renaissance: A Woman's Life Unveiled ISBN 0-8071-2070-7.
- George HutchinsonGeorge HutchinsonGeorge Henry Hutchinson was a professional footballer who played for Huddersfield Town, Sheffield United, Tottenham Hotspur, Guildford City, Leeds United, Halifax Town & Skegness Town. He served in the RAF during National Service and was stationed at Ballykelly in Northern Ireland & RAF Cosford...
, In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line - Sheila Kaye-SmithSheila Kaye-SmithSheila Kaye-Smith was an English writer, known for her many novels set in the borderlands of Sussex and Kent in the English regional tradition...
, All the Books of My Life, Cassell, London, 1956 - Nella Larsen: links, secondary bibliography
- Martha J. Cutter, "Sliding Significations: Passing as a Narrative and Textual Strategy in Nella Larsen's Fiction," in Passing and the Fictions of Identity, ed Elaine Ginsberg, Duke UP 1996, pages 75–100.'