Group #3:  Reem, Hudson, Jack, Marlena
Date 3/17
Reading: 239-end (Home Again and Market Done)

Loneliness is a recurring theme the “Home Again” chapter. Although we see that Angela begins to acknowledge the consequences for her decision to pass, it’s evident that she hasn’t fully matured because of the fact that she still justifies her actions and doesn’t take responsibility for them. Her naïveté is further exemplified because she remains oblivious to the fact that going back to see old friends and family that she once abandoned isn’t as easy as she puts it off to be. She states “How marvelous to go back to parents, relatives, friends with whom one had never lost touch,” this was the relationship which she had forfeited with everyone, even with Jinny” (Fauset 140). Although Angela doesn’t take responsibility for her decision to pass, she acknowledges the fact that her decision hadn’t been worth the consequences. It states, “Jinny had changed her life and been successful. Angela had changed hers and had found pain and unhappiness” (141). Angela begins to realize the worth of her own racial pride. Had she aimed her goals towards her own race, she would be successful with her results. In other words, she would have a life that wasn’t surrounded in lies, and she’d find her comfort where she initially did to begin with: with her family.

The theme of loneliness eventually seems to benefit Angela at the end of the chapter, given that the need for comfort and company drives her to her sister, Jinny. When she realizes that Jinny needs her as much as she needs Jinny, she gradually lets go of her false identity and begins to turn to her true one. Of course, she’s reassured by Jinny, and ends up even more appreciative of her sister’s company rather than ashamed. This change in Angela results in her reclamation of her racial pride in the following chapter, “Market is Done.”

Angela also realizes that the negative circumstances of her life are a direct result of her decision to “pass” as a white individual rather than identifying with the black community. As a result of her newfound loneliness, she begins to recall her past. Her mother’s old phrase, “life is more important than colour”(333) is applicable to her situation because Angela’s lets her racial identity hinder her from finding happiness within her life. After coming to the realization that she has let her skin color prevent her from happiness, Angela is able to reveal her identity without regret. This would also depict her newfound level of maturity. She ventures to Paris, and in doing so, she is adamant about traveling as a black woman. Although her ability to reveal her true identity only arises as a result of Miss Powell, Angela is able to understand that she cannot live her life as a “white woman” in falsehood, and she knows that the truth would have been unveiled eventually. She forms a negative association between “passing” and loneliness in regards to her unhappiness. Angela is able to accept her fate, which allows her to be content within herself.

Race as always plays a very important and heavy role in these last sections of the novel. Now the Angela has identified herself to most of the people as being colored, she knows that her life will dramatically change forever. After she accepts the fact that she is going to live her life like the black woman as she is intended to, she tries to repair all the bridges that she burned when she had decided to pass. It was hard for Angela to come all the way around like this. She comes to a conclusion that all of what she did to try and get away from her family was wrong, and realizes that it was the nature of her being white that did this, “Perhaps this selfishness was what the possession of white blood meant, the ultimate definition of Nordic Supremacy(p 275)”. There are many possition and ways that you can look at her actions; either through a lens of her trying to raise up in the world and focus on herself, or her focusing on her community and acting selfless. In the end, after she returns home and starts the life that she now realizes is suitable for her and one she is happy with, Angela starts to feel at home again and feels comfortable in her own skin. Angela asks Jinny, “Oh, Jinny, tell me, have I been an utter fool! I’ve thrown away every chance I’ve ever had in the world (p.349)”, but she finally realizes that she is happy. This leads to many, many more questions of whether we should forgive her for her actions.

In the end, this novel shows us the opportunities that were given to the whites during the Harlem Renaissance, and the ways which blacks were excluded from society. Through the trial and failure of passing, Fauset was able to look into both worlds and find the opportunities that were so intriguing, which it made it worth it to go against her community and family.  In Fauset’s title, Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral, she infers that there is not one clear message to take from this story, but rather she leaves her novel open to many ideas concerning color and race.