There are several instances in the text in which Thurman seems to suggest that race is something that can be performed, something that requires an audience, or something that one might try to manipulate by donning a costume or putting on a mask. An early example is Hazel, from USC, whom Emma Lou views as disgracefully playing the role of the primitive Negro. Emma Lou disdains Hazel’s “circus-like appearance” (44) and “darky-like clownishness” (46), feeling ashamed by the way in which Hazel “play[s] the darky for the amused white students” (55). But if Hazel acts out the stereotype of the uncivilized Negro, then Emma Lou plays a role herself, constantly trying to mold herself into the likeness of what she conceives as ‘the right sort of people.’ The way in which she manipulates her appearance to better play this role is rather interesting, for she seems to sheds one mask for another; she uses acids and bleaching creams to “remove this unwelcome black mask from her face” (23) while dousing herself in powder and makeup to construct yet another mask to wear. If she considers her blackness a mask yet her efforts to reject it result in the donning of a new mask, do we ever see her authentic, unmasked self? (Perhaps at the end when she resolves to “begin life anew, always fighting, not so much for acceptance by other people, but for acceptance of herself by herself” (217)?) Other instances of performing race can be seen in the figure of Arline who literally performs as a mulatto in a show about Negro life, coating herself in powder to become darker. Emma Lou can recognize a sense of falsity in this sort of performance, more so than in her own, doubting the veracity of the plot and the characters and considering the show “a mad caricature” (105). Even the colored actresses in the show must make a performance of their race: “Their makeup and the lights gave them an appearance of sameness” (117). At the real cabaret, Emma Lou too senses “a note of artificiality” in the scene, aware that the two female entertainers are so self-consciously performing their race and gender for an audience of both white and black men and women. To her, the audience’s captivation implicates them in the performance: “At last the audience and the actors were as one” (110). Even at the house-rent party, what we might assume would be the closest approximation to authentic Harlem life, the party-goers are transformed into performers. Alva’s guests study the action with fervid interest and amazement, treating the partygoers, presumably, as material for future writings or artworks. However, there does seem to be a certain rawness to the house-rent party; the dancing and the music are more spontaneous, less contrived than the cabaret scenes. Emma Lou feels as though the atmosphere “create[s] another person in her stead” (149). But is this new person a more authentic version of Emma Lou, one that has loosened itself of its many masks, or is it yet another posture that she has assumed to accommodate herself to a new environment? Also, how is it that Emma Lou can detect the performance of race around her yet cannot own up to her own playacting?

I had a very negative reaction to the opening pages of The Blacker the Berry in that the depiction of self-hate was so vivid. Emma Lou’s own as well as her grandmother Maria Lightfoot’s self-hate for traits that mark them as having Black heritage reminds me of the internalized homophobia that queer people experience.

Emma Lou’s mother and uncle both do not marry “mulatto” people, and in Maria Lightfoot’s mind, “Joe’s wife was not as undesirable as Emma Lou’s father, for she was almost three-quarters Indian, and there was scant possibility that her children would have revolting dark skins, thick lips, spreading nostrils, and kinky hair” (30). The fiercely subjective language used to describe Black phenotypes, especially the word “revolting,” show a viscerally negative reaction in Maria toward some typical features of her Black ancestors. Like internalized homophobia, this internalized racism stems purely from society’s arbitrary norms about what is attractive and socially acceptable, such as straight hair, lighter skins, thin lips, and small noses. Because society devalues non-white physical attributes, this person of color herself believes that “whiter” looking people of color are superior, and she passes this anti-Black notion on to her granddaughter.

Also, I just wanted to note that Maria’s last name surely has some kind of connection to her preference for those whose bodies are lighter; I wonder what the significance of a lighter-colored foot might mean? Figuratively more carefree because of white privilege perhaps?

In Quicksand, Nella Larsen’s autobiographical aspects of her story, as Kimberly Monda writes in the spring 1997 issue of The African American Review, are extensive. From similar parentage, to their “escape” to Denmark, to their employment in libraries—biographical details taken from McDowell’s introduction—Helga Crane and Nella Larsen’s lives mirror or model one another. Even their names roll similarly, syllabically. And that’s a conflation between character and author—or rather, authorial voice—that troubled me throughout the text. The same conflation haunted readings of Nabokov’s novels, especially Lolita: whose desires and distastes are we really reading?

The tangling of author and character is, generally, misplaced, discounting the mediating activity of the author’s imagination in crafting a story, rather than adapting their own factual experiences. But the fact of autobiography in fiction opens up the question again—and here I found it a particularly troubling trend. Was the systematic, repetitive disgust Larsen’s, or her protagonist’s? Obviously, the first answer is the protagonist: that’s the mechanism of the novel. And when we read in the introductory comments to Fire!, that commentary claims to write as and not for, it almost seems as though autobiography would be more tempting, more fitting for that specific appeal, for the author to write as themselves, rather than for a character, posed and directed through a series of societal contexts.

But autobiography in this specific case would contradict my understanding of my novel, as a commentary on the protagonist as well as her surroundings. I read Larsen as looking down a little on her protagonist, critically, making some moments of rage feel self-indulgent rather than prudent, making some motivation questionable, particularly the religious catapult into marriage at the end. An autobiographical frame presents challenges for that kind of interpretation, if more of the stories’ phenomena belong to reporting, rather than critical invention.

I know of course that these two modes can intermingle, speak to and inform one another. But at the point where critics, like Monda, become clumsy with antecedents, where it almost seems inconsequential if the she refers to Larsen or Crane, if the popular or even scholarly distinction between authorial voice and character voice have broken down to a damaging degree, a degree that would bar certain interpretations—criticisms, satires, exaggeration—from consideration by Larsen’s readers.

“Yet, the New Negro must be seen in the perspective of a New World, and especially of a New America.”

“Negro life is not only establishing new contacts and founding new centers, it is finding a new soul”

These two lines from Alain Locke’s forward capture eloquently the impact the Harlem Renaissance had on the Black community and the World. As highlighted by James Weldon Johnson in “Harlem: The Culture Capital”, Harlem was the epicenter for this change in “perspective” and perception of the Negro, particularly as an artist. Bruce Nugent’s piece, “Sahdji” demonstrates a claim and celebration of the Negro heritage which of course contributes to that “new soul” mentioned by Locke.

Nugent begins Sahdji’s tale by focusing on her image which represents a powerful visual of the narrative. Sahdji’s figure is distinct and framed by geometric patterns characteristic of African art. This visual piece distinguishes one of the means through which the “New Negro” establishes “new centers” and finds a “new soul” because not only is Nugent celebrating an image characteristic of the African heritage but he also teaches the reader how to admire it through his piece. He highlights her “beautiful dark body” and her position as a “favorite wife” to denote her importance and instructing us on recognizing said importance in the image. Nugent’s combination of visual and verbal signals a transformation happening occurring within the literary community to best showcase art.

The writing of the narrative also evokes the idea of a “New Negro” in a “New World”. Nugent’s use of ellipses to punctuate and emphasize the narrative shows the experimentation, typical of the modernist time, and makes it harder for the reader to grasp. In addition to giving the writing modern qualities, the punctuation humanizes the narrator since each gap acts like a pause in thought. The blend of a modernist writer and one who celebrates the Negro culture/figure embodies Locke’s “New Negro”.

In Illusion the readers meet a new woman, the very “sensible” and “gentlemanly” Miss Bruce. Miss Bruce is every inch a respectable new woman, having a British character and a part of higher middle class. In order to maintain being a proper “artist” of the Parisian Salon, as being a “woman” and also an “artist” are incompatible, she must give up her femininity; her status and mobility is always under a critical eye. The narrator, in having to go through Miss Bruce’s wardrobe, reveals that Miss Bruce has actually made “frivolous” feminine purchases, dresses, make-up, and nightgowns. Miss Bruce, while a “new woman”, still longs for beauty and some amount of femininity—and the narrator understands, “I knew. …I knew it all;…the perpetual hunger to be beautiful and the thirst to be loved which is the real curse of Eve, well hidden under her neat dress, more or less stifled, more or less unrecognized.”

It is through the scene when the narrator is going through Miss Bruce’s wardrobe that it is suggested that being a new woman is not really good social development. Being a new woman is not just about denying femininity, but rejecting the female identity entirely by being “sensible” and “gentlemanly”. It is setting up a new class of women but it is not a positive growth, at least the way Rhys presents it; the new woman is a woman acting as a man, not actually independent or any freer from societal standards and norms than the usual woman. The new woman has to adhere to acting more like a gentleman, and has to reject what is perceived as feminine frivolity, like beauty. If the “new woman” truly meant that women had more social mobility and freedom, there would not be requirements, but the new woman would be able to do as she chooses, whether she chooses to marry, live alone, be beautiful, be sexually free, and the list goes on. Rhys is showing in Illusion that it is not just Miss Bruce living an illusion, but that the “new woman” is a social illusion.

When we were discussing the parallelism between Mrs. Dalloway and Septimus, one of the conclusions we made was that they were both “strangers” in their society. But while Septimus’ strangeness was obvious, Mrs. Dalloway’s strangeness was hidden. While on the outside she fits right into society, throwing parties, chatting with people, on the inside she has thoughts and opinions that vary from society’s expectations. Almost all of the stories we read today exhibited some disconnection between the surface and internal workings of a character.

In Illusion, Miss Bruce is the epitome of what a British woman is supposed to be. She is “utterly untouched, utterly unaffected, by anything hectic, slightly exotic or unwholesome”. The narrator even states that he/she “only knew the outside of Miss Bruce – the cool sensible, tidy English outside”. Later we find out about her dress collection and her inner passion to be beautiful. Even though she would never wear any of her dresses in public, she buys them with so much emotion and longing that is tucked away beneath a solid layer of tradition and expectations that the narrator did not notice them at all even though they had been “dining and lunching together…for two years”.

In Mixing Cocktails, the narrator desires some private time “between [her] thoughts and [her]self”, but she keeps getting interrupted. She longs to be like her aunt, who does odd things, but she is “a well-behaved little girl”. She wants to be a stranger, but she is too afraid of leaving “her shell”.

In Hunger, the narrator is struggling through hunger. She mentions having been “a mannequin” in the past, but having given that up. A mannequin could refer to the idea of living your life within expectations and basically being a carbon copy of a woman, simply a mannequin. A figure that is not human, does not have human thoughts or opinions. Having given that life up, this woman is now struggling to make money and life her life as an individual. In this case it appears this woman listened to her internal desires and shed her outer layer, but it ended up hurting her.

We see two stories of women who keep their inner desires strictly under lock and key and with the third story we understand why.

*I deduced that the narrator is a teen because she’s too well written to be very young, but she also makes statements that pull out her childhood innocence and curiosity.

The narrator in “Mixing Cocktails” voices her frustration with being of the age where adult supervision is still required. She shares angst-like teen thoughts that exhibit a bitterness toward the society constructed by adults. The narrator sorely and satirically reflects on adult chides: “One was not to sit in the sun. One had been told not to be in the sun….One would one day regret freckles.” Her expression of distaste for these good intentioned parental cautions augments her status as a typical moody teen. Yet, her thoughts expands into reasonable intellectual territory, condemning adult society. She criticizes society (she uses the word “humanity”) for aggressively interfering with individuals by eliminating the difference between them through a “level up” process.

We can further understand her agony when she directly speaks to the this society. “I am speaking to you; do you not hear? You must break yourself of your habit of never listening.” Her accusatory and attacking language sends a clear message, a call for attention and recognition of those who are silenced because they are “other”. As a teen, the narrator exist in a liminal state, she is within the transition between childhood “otherness” and adulthood. She is in a position of vulnerability because both ages are fraught with appealing and unappealing expectations and responsibilities. (Children with imaginary freedom and physical constriction by adults vs the married, “feather hats” wearing adults with rules for everything) We see the narrator being drawn to an “other” role, one in contrast to the adult society, when she claims a delighted interest in the letters of strangers on the steamers that pass by her home. In an interesting twist the narrator calls the adults of society, the “Other People” (otherness always depending on if you’re on the “right” side). She mockingly declares,

“I long to be like Other People! The extraordinary, ungetatable, oddly cruel Other People, with their way of wantonly hurting and then accusing you of being thin skinned, sulky,vindictive or ridiculous. All because a hurt and puzzled little girl has retired into her shell”

The narrator obviously does not want to be like the “Other People” so then she remains a little girl. But I’m sure she does not want to be a little girl because she’ll still have to put up with adults. On a side note, I thought it was humorous that the narrator referred to her aunt (I think she’s her real aunt) as “The English aunt” to create a formality that, through language, continues to distance the narrator from adults.

I see similarities with the ending of “Mixing Cocktails” and our discussion about Mrs. Dalloway’s party offerings. The narrator assembles like Mrs Dalloway, but with cocktail drinks and not parties. They both provide an important function within society that makes them happy despite all the issues that are rampant within societal systems. The narrator and Dalloway have found their niche

When the readers finally meet Miss Kilman, though Mrs. Dalloway is afraid that her daughter, Elizabeth, is in love with her, surprisingly, it turns out Elizabeth loathes and pities her. Elizabeth’s relationship with Miss Kilman is somewhat convoluted and strange. When the reader is looking through Elizabeth’s perspective, we sees that Elizabeth is intrigued by Miss Kilman, pondering what the woman could be thinking, though also put off by her. It seems like Elizabeth is interested, really, not in Miss Kilman herself, but how Miss Kilman functions and thinks. On the other hand, Miss Kilman is obsessed with Elizabeth, seeing her as “beauty” and “youth”. During the meeting we see not only the current dialogue between them, but past dialogue and internal thoughts of each other.

Elizabeth seems to be friends with Miss Kilman because, although she seems to despise her, Miss Kilman represents the opposite of what Mrs. Dalloway seems to be to Elizabeth, “what interested Miss Kilman bored her mother… Miss Kilman was frightfully clever.” (131) Not only that, but Miss Kilman represents what Elizabeth may be ignorant of or look over: “Elizabeth never thought about the poor.” (131) Miss Kilman is so intriguing to Elizabeth because Elizabeth does not understand her and provides a very different view of the world and society—Elizabeth is almost using her as a pessimistic foil to herself to see her world differently. As Miss Kilman see Elizabeth as the epitome of beauty and youth, Miss Kilman could be seen as the epitome of ugliness and wasting away, always so pessimistic and being possessive of beauty and youth, latching on to it.

Clarissa’s guiding life philosophy seems to be one that vests the highest value in individual moments and individual people. While she proclaims that it is her gift “to combine, to create” (122), I get the sense that her job of bringing people together resembles more the weaving of connections between individuals rather than the melding of individuals into a single new amalgam. Her party has the same crowd-like feeling of the street: many people united by the circumstance of being in the same place at the same time yet each permitted to retain unique, often contradictory, points of view. Woolf contrasts this idea with the more tyrannical philosophy of Dr. Holmes, Sir William Bradshaw, Lady Bruton, and Miss Kilman. All of these figures worship “Conversion,” who, as we saw last class, “feasts on the wills of the weakly, loving to impress, to impose, adoring her own features stamped on the face of the populace” (100). Clarissa, quite contrarily, refuses to impose any particular vision on the people around her; we see this aversion to forcing people into boxes early on when, walking down the street, Clarissa admits that “she would not say of any one in the world now that they were this or were that…and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that (8-9). She intentionally keeps things undefined, as with the vagueness of “the thing there was that mattered” (184), for the attempt to find certainty and impose definitions is contrary to the very idea of life.

Clarissa’s philosophy, then, is anti-agenda. She calls Miss Kilman her enemy (174) because Kilman has made it her mission to force her religion upon Elizabeth; she thinks Bradshaw evil because he can use his power to blunt the passions and twist the souls of his patients (184). Clarissa sees value rather in letting life be as it is. Her sort of non-intrusive voyeuristic relationship with the old lady who lives across the way especially illustrates her belief that real life is found where “the privacy of the soul” (126) remains untouched by outside agendas. Woolf beautifully communicates this idea in the following passage, which appears just after Kilman and Elizabeth have left for the Stores:

Why creeds and prayers and mackintoshes?, when, thought Clarissa, that’s the miracle, that’s the mystery; that old lady, she meant, whom she could see going from chest of drawers to dressing-table. She could still see her. And the supreme mystery which Kilman might say she had solved, or Peter might say he had solved, but Clarissa didn’t believe either of them had the ghost of an idea of solving, was simply this: here was one room; there another. Did religion solve that, or love? (127)

It is old women like this, going about their ordinary private business undisturbed and unimposing in their own pockets of the world, that we might think of when Clarissa thinks, “What she liked was simply life” (121).

Clarissa’s response to the news that a man killed himself surprised and confused me, but also helped me see the larger idea of unspoken understanding in this text and start to better understand the connection between Clarissa and Septimus. Though Clarissa knows very little about this man, I was surprised at how well she seemed to understand his motives for killing himself; she really hits the nail on the head when she muses that perhaps this man was a poet whose soul Bradshaw attempted to force (281). Clarissa understands, too, that “Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There was an embrace in death” (280-1). This “impossibility of reaching the centre” shows the way in which both Septimus and Clarissa are, in a way, outsiders to this society. I am still not sure if I understand exactly what this “centre” is—possibly the negative foundation of society that Holmes and Bradshaw represent?

Furthermore, the passage depicting Clarissa’s reaction to Septimus’ death ties in nicely with the earlier passage about Clarissa’s theory “to explain the feeling they had of dissatisfaction; not knowing people; not being known” (231). She theorizes that “since our apparitions, the part of us which appears, are so momentary compared with the other, the unseen part of us, which spreads wide, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that, or even haunting certain places after death… perhaps—perhaps” (232). I think that Clarissa’s reaction to Septimus’ death proves that her theory is correct. Clarissa fully understands Septimus’ decision to kill himself and she also benefits from the knowledge that a greater connectedness than that which she manufactures through her parties exists in the form of “an embrace” after death. This man’s death provides Clarissa with a newly optimistic outlook on life: “She felt somehow very like him—the young man who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away…. He made her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun” (283-4). Both Clarissa and Septimus have always appreciated the beauty of life and Clarissa recognizes that her position within society interferes with a greater value of human existence: “A thing there was that mattered; a thing, wreathed about with chatter, defaced, obscured in her own life, let drop every day in corruption, lies, chatter. This he had preserved” (280). Septimus serves as a sort of martyr for an Aesthetic recognition of beauty in life, and in doing so assures Clarissa that there is something of value beneath the corruption of the society to which she belongs.