Passing In James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography Of An Ex-colored Man

As a renowned African-American politician, scholar, poet, song-writer andnovelist in the Harlem Renaissance, James Weldon Johnson dedicates his whole life topromoting the black movements and exploring in his works racial issues of his time.The novel The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man, his most famous book, has beenprinted for many times. It still attracts the attention of critics a century after its firstpublication.In the novel, the life story of a mulatto named Ex-colored Man is told in the formof autobiography. He is a light-skinned African American who is raised by his blackmother and only meets his white father for a few times during childhood. By virtue ofhis light skin and the assumption of whiteness, the protagonist is able to freely switchbetween black and white. After experiencing and observing the African American lifein the US and the white American life both in the US and the Europe, he decides topermanently pass for white in the end.This thesis attempts to analyze “passing” in The Autobiography of an Ex-coloredMan by using theories of transgression and parody, mainly from the perspectives ofcharacterization and genre. It consists of five chapters. The first chapter is a briefintroduction to the author, the novel, some critics’ comments on this book, researchquestions and relevant theories. The second chapter employs the theory oftransgression to analyze the protagonist’s arbitrary passing. His passing seems to be a betrayal of black race, but actually reflects Johnson’s interrogation and attack of the“One-drop Rule” that supports racism. The third chapter is devoted to analyzing howJohnson passes the fiction off as a traditional African American autobiography todisclose and emphasize the double consciousness of mulattos and the newpredicament faced by blacks. The fourth chapter concludes the thesis anddemonstrates that Johnson’s use of “passing” succeeds in discrediting the theory ofracism and exposing its absurdity. As a result, the issue of mulatto’s racial identity isemphasized.