Both Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry and Nella Larsen’s Passing are novels written in third person limited point of view. Similar to Larsen’s book, Thurman writes so that everything the reader learns comes from Emma Lou Brown’s point of view. The reader gets insight into her thoughts, her actions, and her environment. We get to understand her reasons for doing things, yet nobody else’s. Everything that we learn about the other characters comes from Emma Lou and is seen through her eyes. While this is a beneficial writing style, as it lets us understand and connect to her more, it provides for an unreliable narrative. Like in Passing, we have to accept that everything we read about did not necessarily happen the way Emma Lou sees it or for the reasons Emma Lou thinks. Basically, the reader learns to take everything in the book ‘with a grain of salt,’ as the saying goes.
We can see this narrative established right away in the first few paragraphs of the book. The reader is instantly made aware of Emma Lou’s thoughts, “not that she minded being black, being a Negro necessitated having colored skin, but she did mind being too black” (21). We see Emma Lou thinking of herself and lamenting, but also contradicting her previous statements. The many contradictions she makes through the books all support the unreliable narrative of the book, but are done to show how torn and confused Emma Lou is; when she finds herself unable to relate to lighter skinned Negros but chooses to ignore Hazel and John, when she supports and stays with Alva even though he manipulates her. She is participating in what she, herself is a victim of. Emma Lou looks at herself with self- hatred, while the reader knows that she is overly critical of herself.
