Group 1

In Plum Bun, Angela is tasked with the difficult choice of whether or not she should pass, or pretend to be white. There are many passages that show both the positive and negative impacts that passing entails. It seems that using her lighter complexion as an advantage throughout the novel will bring some heavy choices that will affect not only Angela, but her family and relationships as well.

Angela is detrimentally affected by her chastised, unincluded treatment by her peers as a girl, and this greatly affects her idea of blackness, causing her to ultimately resent it. She realizes that “passing” gives her a sense of autonomy she never would have known if relegated to the world of black life in America, like her father and Virginia. Upon reaching New York, Angela is immediately thrilled by the opportunities afforded to her and her new agency, but is later struck with introspection: “Would these people, she wondered… would these people begrudge her, if they knew, her cherished freedom and sense of unrestraint?” She contemplates whether the white woman sitting next to her in a movie theatre would “show the occasional dog-in-the-manger attitude of certain white Americans and refuse to sit by her or make a complaint to the usher?” Angela reaches a kind of paradox of thought in which she knows white people would not accept her and perhaps vilify her if they knew the truth, and yet she desperately wants to live among them.

“Mary said again: ‘Coloured!’ And then. ‘Angela, you never told me you were coloured!’... ‘Tell you I was coloured! Why of course I never told you that I was coloured! Why should I?’” This is the beginning of a recurring theme in Angela’s life and leads to her to pity colored people. After being elected as chief representative for the school magazine, Mary Hasting appointed Angela as her assistant. Afterwards the students revealed to Mary that Angela was colored which leads to the quote above. Afterwards, Angela begins to detest being colored and wonders why Mary had a change of heart after discovering that she was colored. This is the first of many instances of Angela being denied opportunities that were given to her while others thought she was white. As a result, Angela comes to the conclusion that if she moves away from Philly and hides the fact that she is colored she will have a greater possibility of becoming a successful painter.   

Plum Bun also captures the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance. Describing her first impressions of Harlem the book says, “She was amazed and impressed at this bustling, frolicking, busy, laughing city within a greater one. She had never seen coloured life so thick, so varied, so complete,”. This quote shows that she was finally being exposed to her idea of what the ideal black community should look like, which made passing almost unnecessary. It was apparent that New York City, Harlem specifically, offered way more opportunities for Angela.  By moving to Harlem, Angela opened up limitless possibilities for herself and this passage is indication of that.

Throughout Plum Bun, Angela demonstrates wisdom over the shallowness of slavery, yet also paradoxically glorifies and yearns for the life of a “free” white woman. Interestingly, as a child, Angela seems to understand the absurdity of slavery in a more mature and concrete manner than in her adult life. When one of her good friends in school is shocked to find out that she is “coloured” Angela is forced to confront the realities of what her life will be like for the rest of her life. Angela contemplates her friends actions by saying, “She failed me once, -- I was her friend, yet she failed me for something with which I had nothing to do. She’s just as likely to do it again. It’s in her” (Fauset 46). Angela is aware of her friends own  limitations, yet she also comes to terms with her own limitations as a “coloured” girl. As a young adult, Angela’s attitudes towards white people changes. Instead of confronting her racial struggles, she uses her pale skin to avoid the “ugliness” of her true self. After Angela moves to New York she is overwhelmed with the opportunities she has away from her black culture. Angela explains, “She remembered an expression ‘free, white and twenty-one,’... this is what it meant then, this sense of owning the world, this realization that other things being equal, all things were possible. ‘If I were a man,’ she said, ‘I could be president’” (Fauset 88) Angela succumbs to neglecting her own obvious ignorance. To “own the world” meant to be another race. Simply having African blood was looked down upon. Angela’s own contradictions show the power of social constructs, and illuminate how easily societal pressure can cause a person to change their own identity in order to fit in.