Passing as a Means of Expansion and Legitimization

As long as people remain stratified into the various labels that define their existence, they will be forever be breaking and reshaping these molds attempting to grasp what they do not posses. This concept, known as passing, is an unavoidable facet of this post-modern society and all those that have come before it. Pamela L. Caughie looks on the idea of passing not as a positive or negative reflection on the nature of human beings or their societies, but as a natural occurrence that works to continually stretch the meaning of these postmodernist social labels. There are three texts which can be drawn upon for support of Caughie’s thesis and also provide alternative views on the subject as a whole. One is Charles W. Chestnut’s novel House Behind the Cedars, which looks at mulattos attempting to pass for white in the post civil war South. Second is Nella Larsen’s novel entitled Passing shifts the focus from the action of passing, into more of its ethical correctness. Third is Nat...