Cultural Production and the Politics of Women's Work in American Literature and Film by Polina Kroik

Author:Polina Kroik [Kroik, Polina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367731908
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2020-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

Plagiarism controversy, dependence, and disappearance

Larsen’s attempt to conform to the modern girl figure might have been less significant had she continued publishing after the 1920s like some of the Harlem Renaissance authors. Yet Larsen’s professional and social success turned out to be short-lived. As the Depression loomed and Harlem writers found fewer ways to support themselves financially, the atmosphere became more competitive. After Larsen published the short story “Sanctuary” (1929), which was closely modeled on an earlier work of fiction by the British writer Sheila Kaye-Smith, male writers leveled charges of plagiarism at Larsen and attacked her for her association with Van Vechten. Around the same time Larsen found out about her husband’s ongoing affair with a white woman. As Larsen’s personal and professional world unraveled, she continued to perform the modern girl role, a role that entailed financial and psychological dependence. Larsen seems to have repudiated her professional careers in nursing and librarianship along with the relative autonomy that these careers afforded. Even as Larsen realized that writing required sustained work, she apparently stopped short of defining herself as a professional writer in the way that Edith Wharton did. Instead Larsen characterized the labor of writing in negative, racialized terms and seemed to regard the modern girl persona as integral to her work. The insistence of keeping to that role both socially and creatively helps explain Larsen’s breakdown and disappearance in the 1930s. With the shifts in the social milieu and Harlem’s cultural institutions, and the upheavals in Larsen’s personal life, this role became untenable.

With the publication of Quicksand and Passing, Larsen became a well-known figure in the world of letters. She was invited to speak at the 135th Street Public Library where she had previously served as a children’s librarian, gave interviews, and attended parties alongside with the stars of black and white modernism (Hutchinson). In 1929, she won a Guggenheim Fellowship to support travel to Europe. This success, however, did not result in financial stability for Larsen and her husband, Elmer Imes. A practice then current in the publishing industry drastically reduced novel prices a short time after the initial publication. Though Elmer Imes drew a regular salary as a research physicist, that salary was not enough to sustain the couple’s high living standard. When Larsen submitted the short story “Sanctuary” to Forum magazine in 1929, it was likely out of financial considerations (the magazine paid $200 for the story). Set in the South, and foregrounding local dialect, the story lacks Larsen’s characteristic psychological depth and irony. The simple narrative centers on a black woman who shelters a fugitive black man. When a police officer tells her that the man killed her son, the woman decides not to turn him in. The story affirms race solidarity in a straightforward manner, lacking any reference to the complex politics of race seen in Larsen’s two novels.

Very soon after the story’s publication, rumors began to circulate that the story was plagiarized. Harold Jackman, a prominent socialite who penned gossip pieces, belligerently insisted on exposing Larsen as a plagiarist.

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