| Like her contemporary Jessie Redmon
| |
| | Tuskegee Institute" (Wall 92). While
|
| Fauset, Nella Larsen also fictionalized
| |
| | working at Tuskegee, Larsen discovered
|
| middle class society; however in Larsen's
| |
| | that "along with their academic and
|
| works, there are undercurrents that imply
| |
| | vocational training, students were also
|
| middle class values are not always
| |
| | schooled in subservience and docility"
|
| 'good.' Nella Larsen's only two novels,
| |
| | (Wall 92). Larsen left Tuskegee after one
|
| Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) were
| |
| | year. She returned to New York, where she
|
| 'novels of passing' but unlike their
| |
| | quickly became discontented with nursing
|
| predecessors, these two novels are "more
| |
| | and obtained a position as an assistant
|
| complex and ambitious" (Davis 560). In
| |
| | with the New York Public Library; this
|
| these works, Larsen "explores the
| |
| | move put her in contact with the New
|
| relationships between appearance and
| |
| | Negro intelligentsia (Wall 92).
|
| reality, deception and unmasking,
| |
| | Larsen's personal life, like her
|
| manipulation and imaginative management,
| |
| | characters, exhibits a continuous quest
|
| aggression and self-defense" (Davis 561).
| |
| | to establish an identity for herself. But
|
| Perhaps Larsen is able to delve deeper
| |
| | Larsen, if she ever did succeed in her
|
| into the consciousness of people torn
| |
| | quest for a sense of self, adroitly
|
| between two worlds because she herself
| |
| | concealed it from her contemporaries and
|
| had experienced living in both the
| |
| | from the rest of the world. This
|
| 'white' world and the 'black' world.
| |
| | concealment of her self is described by
|
| Larsen's mother was an emigrant from
| |
| | Wall in an interview with a reporter:
|
| Denmark, and her father was from the
| |
| | The interview concentrated on more
|
| Virgin Islands. During her early
| |
| | personal concerns. The "unforgivable sin"
|
| childhood, she lived in a "white
| |
| | was being bored, so [Larsen] selected
|
| working-class neighborhood of Chicago,"
| |
| | only amusing and natural people, not too
|
| and attended an elementary school which
| |
| | intellectual. She would never "pass,"
|
| consisted mainly of the "children of
| |
| | because "with my economic status it's
|
| German and Scandinavian immigrants" (Wall
| |
| | better to be a Negro. So many things are
|
| 91). However, Wall reports that Larsen
| |
| | excused them. The chained and downtrodden
|
| suffered "alienation" in her home life,
| |
| | Negro is a picture that came out of the
|
| and was "ostracized at school and in the
| |
| | Civil War." And while she claimed to be
|
| neighborhood" (Wall 91).
| |
| | "not quite sure what she wanted to be
|
| In her teen years, Larsen attended
| |
| | spiritually," she knew she "want[ed]
|
| Wendell Phillips High School, and later
| |
| | things - beautiful and rich things."
|
| "enrolled in the high school department
| |
| | (Wall 120).
|
| of Fisk University in Nashville,
| |
| | Wall describes many more instances of
|
| Tennessee" which put Larsen among middle
| |
| | Larsen's flippancy in public, detailing
|
| class African Americans (Wall 92). But
| |
| | the "considerable lengths" that Larsen
|
| Larsen left Fisk after only one year,
| |
| | utilized to "project a frivolous image"
|
| apparently "she was no more at home in an
| |
| | (Wall 120). The reasons for Larsen's
|
| all-black community than she had been in
| |
| | deceptive image is unclear, but Wall
|
| a white one" (Wall 92). After leaving
| |
| | surmises that "behind its mask, one
|
| Fisk in 1908, until she enrolled at New
| |
| | supposes, [Larsen] felt safe" (Wall 120).
|
| York's Lincoln Hospital Training School
| |
| | This "masquerade of femininity" is a
|
| for Nurses in 1912, there exists no
| |
| | major theme in Larsen's novels, as also
|
| evidence of her life in the intervening
| |
| | is transgressing social, racial, and
|
| four years (Wall 92). Larsen says that
| |
| | gendered boundaries. The themes Larsen
|
| she spent some time in Denmark attending
| |
| | employs mark her as a Romantic novelist.
|
| the University of Copenhagen, but Wall
| |
| | Bibliography
|
| asserts that "in fact, Larsen did not
| |
| | Davis, Thadious M. "Nella Larsen." The
|
| leave the United States" (Wall 92). Wall
| |
| | Oxford Companion to African American
|
| further states that what Larsen did in
| |
| | Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews,
|
| that period of her life "remains a
| |
| | Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris.
|
| mystery," that Larsen "went to great
| |
| | Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
|
| lengths to conceal" (Wall 92).
| |
| | 427-28.
|
| After graduating from nursing school in
| |
| | Wall, Cheryl A. Women of the Harlem
|
| 1915, Larsen accepted a position as an
| |
| | Renaissance. Indianapolis: Indiana
|
| "assistant superintendent of nurses at
| |
| | University Press, 1995.
|
