FICTIONS OF LAW AND CUSTOM: PASSING NARRATIVES AT THE FINS DES SIECLES By Sinead Moynihan University of Nottingham Hallward Library ..( Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of American and Canadian Studies May 2007 1 Abstract This dissertation examines narratives of passing of the nineteenth- and twentieth- century fins de steele. My central thesis is that passing narratives of the 1990s and beyond evidence symmetry between the tropes of passing that occur at plot level and passing strategies surrounding the production of the texts themselves. I argue that the connections between passing and authorship that emerge in contemporary stories invite us to reconsider extant interpretations of earlier passing stories, specifically those published at the turn of the twentieth century. The Introduction challenges the historiography of the passing narrative traced in existing studies of passing. It also suggests the ways in which authorship and passing are inextricably linked via the arbitrary standard of "authenticity," both authorial and racial. In Chapter One, I examine the relationship between the African American body-as-text and the African American author who produces a text in The Bondwoman's Narrative (date unknown), Philip Roth's The Human Stain (2000) and Percival Everett's Erasure (2001). Chapter Two takes the self- reflexive detective genre and traces the changing roles of the passing character within the conventions of the form, fromfemmefatale to hard-boiled detective. Here, I focus specifically on Pauline Hopkins's Hagar's Daughter (1901-1902), Walter Mosley'S Devil in a Blue Dress (1990) and Robert Skinner's Wesley Farrell series (1997-2002). In Chapter Three, I examine texts whose protagonists' gender and/or racial ambiguity serve to destabilise analogously the religious categories under interrogation in those texts, namely Hopkins's Winona (1902) and Louise Erdrich's Tracks (1988) and The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (2001). Chapter Four examines tropes of passing in relation to three contemporary novels of adolescence, Paul Beatty's The White Boy Shuffle (1996), Danzy Senna's Caucasia (1998) and Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex (2002). Finally, the Conclusion discusses recent controversies of authorship and authenticity in the U.S., particularly as these pertain to the ambiguous literary category of "memoir." 11 Acknowledgments First of all, lowe a tremendous debt of gratitude to my supervisors, Sharon Monteith and Celeste-Marie Bernier, for their unfailing support and assistance over the last three years. In our meetings, their feedback was always challenging and motivating. I would like to thank Sharon for encouraging me to come to Nottingham in the first place and for her particular help in integrating me into the research community in the School. I am grateful to Celeste for her infectious enthusiasm and all those informal chats over coffee. There are several other scholars at Nottingham and elsewhere to whom I am also indebted. Heartfelt thanks to Susan Billingham for providing challenging and stimulating perspectives on my work. I am also grateful to Lee Jenkins at University College Cork, Eric Lott at the University of Virginia and Sean Ryder at N.U,!., Galway for all their help and encouragement. I am deeply grateful to the National University of Ireland for awarding me a three-year Travelling Studentship in 2003. Without their financial support, my doctoral research at the University of Nottingham would not have been possible. I was fortunate to be able to undertake two research trips to the United States during my Ph.D. studies. I am grateful to the British Association for American Studies for awarding me the Ambassador's Travel Award in 2005, which enabled me to spend two weeks researching in New Orleans. Thanks are also due to the Graduate School at the University of Nottingham for awarding me Universitas 21 funding, which allowed me to spend a month at the University of Virginia in 2006. For his unique contribution to this thesis, I would like to give special thanks to Robert Skinner who responded so promptly and engagingly to my email enquiries and who subsequently gave freely of his time in order to be interviewed by me in March2005. I would also like to express my gratitude to all those involved in the Irish Association for American Studies for welcoming me into the fold, though an "expatriate." Thanks especially to Philip Coleman, John-Paul Colgan, Ger Naughton and Julie Sheridan for their help and generosity. Particular thanks are also due to Owen Butler, Joanne Hall, Aine Kelly, Catherine Mills, Jennifer O'Sullivan and Simon Turner for providing assistance and inspiration to take my research down exciting, and sometimes unexpected, paths. I am grateful to my friends, both at home and abroad, for their love and support, especially over the last three years. To all those, too numerous to list by name, who took the time and effort to visit me in Nottingham, your presence meant a lot. (I do have to make an exception, though, in mentioning Karen Deasy who, with seven visits, holds the record!). For their help and generosity while I was researching in the States, I am grateful to Adrianne and Jeremy Bock, Erin and Kate Dempsey, Tara and Chris Ferragamo and Mairead Scully. I would also like to thank, in particular, Ceri Gorton, Mina Papakonstantinou and Donna-Marie Tuck for their inestimable friendship and support since I moved to Nottingham. Finally, and most especially, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my parents, Philip and Patricia Moynihan, for providing constant encouragement over the many years of my studies. Wherever my research has taken me, both intellectually and geographically, they have been unfailingly generous and supportive. Mile buiochas. III Contents Page Abstract Acknowledgments ii Abbreviations iv Introduction "Passing" into the Present: Passing Narratives Then and Now 1 Chapter One Bodies / Texts: Passing and Writing as Acts of Creation 21 and De(con)struction Chapter Two From Femme Fatale to Hard-boiled Detective: The Passing 65 Mulattola in Crime Fiction Chapter Three The Way of the Cross(-dresser): Gender Passing, 120 Race and Christianity Chapter Four (W)Rites-of-Passing: Shifting Racial and Gender Identities 181 in Contemporary Fictions of Adolescence Conclusion "Passing" Fads?: Recent Controversies of Authenticity and 237 Authorship Notes 259 Works Cited 286 IV Abbreviations Since this thesis often refers to more than one primary text by the same author, I have used the following abbreviations for the sake of clarity. AE-CM James Weldon Johnson. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. 1912. New York: Dover, 1995. ATW James Weldon Johnson. Along This Way: The Autobiography of James Weldon Johnson. 1933. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990. CF Pauline Hopkins. A Love Supreme [Contending Forces]. 1900. London: X Press, 1995. HS Philip Roth. The Human Stain. 2000. London: Random, 2001. lL Frances E. W. Harper. lola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted. 1892. Three Classic African-American Novels. Ed. and introd. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Random, 1990. LM Louise Erdrich. Love Medicine. 1984. New York: Bantam, 1987. LR Louise Erdrich. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. London: Flamingo, 2001. MN Pauline Hopkins. The Magazine Novels of Pauline Hopkins. 1901-1903. Ed. Hazel V. Carby. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. or Charles Johnson. Oxherding Tale. 1982. New York: Plume, 1995. PB Jessie Redmon Fauset. Plum Bun. 1928. Boston: Beacon, 1990. PS Robert Skinner. Pale Shadow. Arizona: Poisoned Pen, 2001. PW Mark Twain. Pudd'nhead Wilson. 1894. New York: Dover, 1999. SD Robert Skinner. Skin Deep, Blood Red. New York: Kensington, 1997. 1 Introduction "Passing" into the Present: Passing Narratives Then and Now Bette: [... J I would never define myself exclusively as being white any more than I would define myself exclusively as being black. I mean, really, why is it so ... wrong for me ... to move more freely in the world just because my appearance doesn't automatically announce who I am? Yolanda: Because it is a lie. I - The L Word (2004). This exchange occurs not in a nineteenth-century American novel, nor even in one of the many racial passing narratives of the Harlem Renaissance.i but in Showtime's hit drama series, The L Word, in an episode first aired on 7 March 2004.3 Bette (Jennifer Beals), who is mixed race, and her partner, Tina (Laurel Holloman), who is white and is carrying their child, attend a support group in which the couple discuss their impending parenthood. An African American member of the group, Yolanda, takes issue with the couple over (what she mistakes for) their decision to use a white sperm donor in order that Tina will give birth to a white child. Yolanda reproaches Bette for talking "so proud and ... forthright about being a lesbian," while never once referring to herself as "an African American woman." Yolanda notes that the other members of the group are "wondering what the hell we're talking about because they didn't even know you were a black woman." At a subsequent meeting, Bette turns Yolanda's own critique against her, observing that she didn't realise Yolanda was a lesbian until she read a poem of hers. As Bette puts it, "you're not exactly readable as a lesbian, and you didn't come out and declare yourself." 2 Several interrelated issues arise from the Bette-Yolanda exchanges. First, and most obviously, is that Yolanda, in charging Bette with "hiding so behind the lightness of your skin," is effectively accusing her of "passing" as white." As Yolanda perceives it, for Bette not to declare her blackness is dishonest, a "lie." Why is it that in March 2004, so recently, the metaphors of concealment, subterfuge and deception that have historically characterised passing are still pervasive in U.S.