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Emma Lou, much life Irene, does give the narration of her story a subjective point of view. Just as Irene tries to make the readers sympathize with her stance on passing and racism, Emma Lou’s narration has several flaws in remaining objective. Since we are seeing the story through an unreliable narrator, Emma Lou’s upbringing is imbedded into the story throughout. She grew up believing that having lighter complexion is desirable. Her entire family, other than Joe, sees themselves as higher or superior compared than their black ancestors. She rejected two relationships on the basis that the other person was too dark skinned. In the end, she remained with Alva in an abusive relationship because he had fairer skin. I found that Emma Lou did not embrace her heritage as Irene did (on the surface).

This held me back from relating to her and rooting for her. Although I knew she was a product of her society, I couldn’t help but wish that she would stand up for herself and learn to love her roots. As Irene did. Of course, I too, am a product of my own society. I grew up to believe that we should embrace all cultures and fight for human rights, so I am judging Emma Lou harshly for her actions. From my point of view, it is natural for me to connect with Irene, who is having an internal struggle but overall wants to be proud of her heritage, as opposed to Emma Lou, who has no intention of associating herself with her ancestors.

-Not Seeing Past Skin Color

From the beginning of The Blacker The Berry, there were great similarities to Larsen’s Passing. Irene Redfield and Emma Lou are both the main voices in the novel. The readers only hear one side of every story and this is what they must trust. This makes the narration very unreliable and quite deceiving. One characteristic about Irene Redfield that I noticed in Emma is the judgmental thinking. Irene judged everyone and everything that surrounded her and Emma does the same in this novel. The narration of this novel allows us to get inside the protagonist’s head but it does not mean that this results in a reliable narration.

Similarities between Irene and Emma are very apparent throughout the rest of the novel as well. “Emma Lou was too powerless to resist”(p.20). This reminded me of Irene because she could not resist Clare in Passing. Also, Irene was easily influenced and discriminating towards others, which is seen in Emma Lou’s character. Emma Lou judges everyone around her by their skin color. What she chooses to believe solely depends on the person’s color. What she sees rarely goes beyond a person’s color. We see that Emma belittles everyone who is dark-skin before even getting to know them and often this is the rest of her experience with that person. This is shown in her relationship with Hazel and John. However, when a person is lighter-skinned, she treats the person a completely different way even if they do not treat her well. This is what makes everything Emma Lou unreliable. She simply does not see past the skin color because she resents her own skin color and this makes her an untrustworthy narrator.

Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry deals with the personal struggles a dark skinned girl faces with white people and with colored people. Emma Lou grew up in a family that discarded her as a disgrace just because her skin is darker than anyone else’s and even her own mother and grandmother used harsh chemicals to try and lighten her skin color. Her mindset has always been that she will never amount to as much as anyone else just because of her skin color. Even though she puts lighter skinned people above herself, she claims that she doesn’t, “mind being black, being a Negro necessitated having colored skin, but she did mind being too black” (21).  If not even her own race and her own family could accept her, how could she learn to accept herself?

Like Irene from Nella Larson’s Passing, Emma Lou is an unreliable protagonist. She never admits to herself that she hates being a dark skinned black girl and justifies her hatred towards other black people by saying they are just not educated at her level. This is evident in the scene where she meets Hazel at UCLA and immediately dismisses her because of her dark skin and the way she talks. Since the reader only sees how Hazel is through the eyes of Emma Lou, the reader is misinformed of what is true and what is not true.

After Emma Lou moves to Harlem, she meets John who quickly helps her with finding and home and showing her around the city. Although John only showed her the most kindness she’s ever received in her life, Emma Lou breaks up with him after two days because of his dark skin. When the light skinned Alva shows some interest in Emma Lou, she falls completely in love with him even though he is pretty much embarrassed of her and her dark skin. Emma Lou never truly realizes this and yet still continues to love him for mostly his light skin. She is hypocritical in her ways and racist to her own kind. That is why she is an unreliable protagonist.

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.

Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry tells us the story of a dark skinned African American girl who cannot seem to come to terms with the skin she was born with. Emma Lou the main character of the story grew up in a town where all the people in the black community praised being light skinned. Though having a light skin mother, Emma Lou gets her dark skin from her father’s side, and because of it she is told by her mother and grandmother that she will never make it anywhere in life. That her skin color defines her. Though the story is told through a third person narrator, just like in Passing with the story being told through Irene, the story is mainly told through the eyes and mind of Emma Lou. What makes Emma Lou so unreliable though is the fact that she always contradicts what she says.

Emma Lou has so much hatred for the lighter skin colored people that treat her differently due to her skin, yet she doesn’t like to be associated with any darker skinned people either. Take Hazel for example, she is a dark skinned girl just like Emma Lou, and just like Emma Lou she is starting college looking for friends. But Emma Lou doesn’t want to be Hazel’s friend because of her skin color, and the way she acts, because she doesn’t act “white.” She says, “No wonder people were prejudiced against dark-skin people when they were so ugly, so haphazard in their dress, and so boisterously mannered as was this present specimen,” (p. 17). Emma Lou is in no position to judge Hazel the way she does because she is no different than her.

Another example of Emma Lou being a hypocrite is her ending her relationship with John. When she first moves to Harlem, John is kind enough to help her find a home and show her around. She takes advantage of his kindness and uses him to her advantage. As soon as she finds herself a little more stable she ends their relationship because he is also dark skinned and not good enough for her. Once again she is treating someone unfairly just the way she doesn’t want anyone to treat her.

Furthermore, every time does get respected by someone who is lighter skinned, she believes that that person is just pitying her. With her there is no win win situation, and everything  that happens always comes back down to her skin color. To me she is selfish, contradictory, and a hypocrite and it makes her opinion hard to believe. That is is why she is certainly not a reliable narrator.

In Nella Larsen’s Passing, one of the main characters, Irene, highly influences the tone and subject of narration. The reader begins to look at situations from the point of view of Irene and believe Irene’s speculations because they are the only ones shown to the reader. Only Irene’s thoughts and mental conclusions are captured in the third person narration of the novel. As a result, Irene becomes an unreliable source for narration because her ideas are taken to be the truth, despite the one-sidedness of her ideas. However, in Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry, the protagonist Emma Lou is anything but unreliable. In The Blacker the Berry, the narrator creates a balance between the truth and Emma Lou’s version of truth due to her extreme color consciousness. As a result, the narrator is able to present Emma Lou’s ideas and pokes holes in her ideas — inevitably, leaving it up to the reader to settle the score.

The narrator neutralizes Emma Lou’s emotional states and color conscious fits in order to get the truth across to the reader. The author allows Emma Lou to spill her ideas but makes her look foolish and delusional in the process using Alva’s character. Alva acts as a neutralizing voice of reason for Emma Lou in the part where she cries and Alva soon leaves her. Emma Lou shares that she was a target at the theater and at the gathering with Alva and his friends because on those occasions, she felt her dark color was being ridiculed. In response, Alva says, “You’re being silly, Emma Lou.” Then Alva points out Emma Lou’s color consciousness and her obsession with “color, color, color,” to the reader and to Emma Lou. Depending on the reader, equal weight can be given to both arguments. The narrator accounts for Emma Lou’s exaggerated ideas that might make her an unreliable character.

Another part that shows Emma Lou’s reliability under similar technique is when she returns home, has a fling with Weldon. Emma Lou shares with the reader her fantasies about making a life with Weldon. Then, the narrator “makes it real” by making the reader aware that Emma Lou has constructed this fantasy world within her mind unaware of other people’s feelings and other elements. It’s the narrator’s way of stepping in and setting it straight for the reader that Emma Lou’s feelings are highly influenced by who she is. After Weldon had to leave Emma Lou to pursue money, Emma Lou once again resorted to color as the issue. The narrator clears up Emma Lou’s distorted thoughts by saying, “It never occurred to her [Emma Lou] that the matter of color never once entered the mind of Weldon.” Once again, the narrator steps in to keep the story straight. The narrator is able to share Emma Lou’s ideas in their entirety and make them reliable by explicitly pointing out the flaws in Emma Lou’s thought processes to the reader. In this way, the reader is well informed of the situation and of Emma Lou’s character and thinking processes. The narrator in Passing failed to do this and as a result made Irene’s account of events the only account and an unreliable one at that.

Emma Lou’s unreliability is similar to Irene’s from Passing in that their allegiance to their race is unreliable. Emma Lou strives endlessly to fit in with the “right sort of people” while in Los Angeles, those who are fair-skinned, well-mannered colored folk, but also ends up taunting herself with those darker than her that could never be blue vein circle material. Her relationship with John in Harlem, for example, is limited to only two nights because he was too dark for Emma Lou, despite all he did to find her a place to live and acquaint her with the area. Although Emma Lou wants to be part of the Negro community that wouldn’t accept her back in Boise, she can only accept the “superior” Negro community in Harlem. Her unreliability to her race is similar to Irene’s in that Irene’s passing for white out of convenience is demonstrative of an air of superiority. As proud as Irene claims to be to be a part and to have remained a part of the Negro community, she still passes for white instead of bearing the burden of her color, which she would do if she were so proud of her roots.

My first association with the word “passing” is passing away or something passing by. After beginning the book however, I soon realized that is referred to passing as white in the highly racist society of the Harlem Renaissance. The two main characters in the novel, Irene and Clare, are half white and half black. They both choose to pass as white in their society so that they can experience the privileges of white people. Although they both share this trait they use it in different ways. Irene still holds on to her black heritage that she grew up with, whereas Clare attempts to full assimilate into white society. Clare goes so far with this that she even lies to her husband about her race.

The other meaning of “passing” does not become apparent until the end of the book. Clare’s death brings new meaning to the word in the context of the book. Passing away is kind of a statement of how she may have gone to far in her attempts to pass as white. She tried to completely disregard the fact that is still half black. That is the fundamental difference between the two women. Irene uses “passing” as a way to move up in society and get privileges that she deserves but still accepts her true identity. Clare has a much shallower approach to the idea of “passing”, which ends up working to her disadvantage in the end.

Nella Larsen’s novel is entitled “Passing”. In the novel, two African-American women are light enough to “pass” as white women. Therefore, we can interpret that the main reason for the title of the book is to reference the two main characters and their experiences passing for white.

In the 1920’s, passing for a white woman brings great advantages and privileges. As white women, Irene and Clare can dine and visit where ever they want. They can freely enjoy the company of white men and women, which means they can participate in the activities of high society without discrimination. They get respect and admiration from most other people. Understanding these advantages helps us to understand why they would sacrifice their own racial heritage to pass as white women. Irene wants to hold on to her black culture, but Clare is too far gone.

Passing could also be a reference to the passage of time, as Clare and Irene were childhood friends, and chose to continue their relationship as adults. In addition, it could also refer to Clare’s sudden passing (death) at the end of the novel.

 

Throughout the novel, there are many instances in which the word “passing” is relevantly used or its definition is alluded to. The main usage of the word is to mean “passing as a white person.” This definition is present as a basis for the novel. In the beginning, Irene worries that she will be found out to be black as she sips tea at a cafe in Chicago and Clare stares at her.

Later, she remembers who Clare is and where she knows her from: she was known rather infamously in their home town for passing as white and riding around with older wealthy white men, who would wine and dine her, spend lavishly on gifts for her, and take her to various parties and social events.

The unfortunate fact is that passing is very much so rooted in ideas of self hatred or struggling for power, or often a combination of both. Clare soon admits that she hates her husband and his racist ideas, and wishes that she could tell him off and be true to her self and her race, but of course she can’t because it would completely blow her cover and ruin her life as it is.

In the more literal sense, “passing” in the novel also sometimes means a passing of time, as in the two years that pass between Clare and Irene meeting in Chicago and Irene receiving Clare’s letter. It’s other meaning in the literal sense is Clare’s death that comes at the end of the novel, when Irene pushes her out of the window in a panicking and jealous rage.