Symbols of racial possibilities: Perspectives on Nella Larsen, James Weldon Johnson, and Jean Toomer
Date of Award
1999
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
King, Natalie
Abstract
The question of hybridity is a complex social issue that commonly addresses agendas of heart, politics, and mind. It is a question that is both deeply personal and overtly political and addresses the entire spectrum of American society. Hybridity, in my view, can be used to interrogate a society rooted in ideas of race definition. Nella Larsen's Quicksand, Jean Toomer's Cane, and James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man depict the struggles of the mixed-race characters as they seek an identity of wholeness through attempting to live up to a social prescription of sameness. These characters wander in search of a raceless society; they cross boundaries of language and live in silence in a dichotomized world of public conformity and private duality despite their efforts to unite the two.
Extent
63 p.
Recommended Citation
Lynch, Suzanne Marie, "Symbols of racial possibilities: Perspectives on Nella Larsen, James Weldon Johnson, and Jean Toomer" (1999). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 1990 - 1999. 1537.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_4/1537
Identifier
FADT15701
Comments
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1999.|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters