Download or read book The Passing Figure written by Juda Bennett and published by Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 1996 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How and when does literature most effectively uncover race to be a metaphor? The passing figure, a light-skinned African-American capable and willing to pass for white, provides the thematic focus to this provocative study. In exploring the social and cultural history of this distinctly American phenomenon, Bennett moves freely between literature, film, and music, arguing that the passing figure is crucial to our understanding of past and present conceptions of race.