Modernism in "A Lost Lady" vs "Passing".

The essence of a person lingers in one's memory even long after that person has gone away. In the two modernist novels, A Lost Lady and Passing, the authors were both concerned with that indispensable property that characterizes a person rather than their reality. Larsen and Cather tell the story of women who existed in literature primarily as an incorporeal being. By using the non-traditional topics that classify realist literature, each author builds a woman's essence around the issues of sexuality, race, gender and class. I feel that Willa Cather uses this approach to realism best to…