There Is Confusion

Jessie Redmon Fauset's debut novel There is Confusion follows an ensemble of middle-class African-Americans as they come of age in 1910s New York. The novel explores a series of on-again, off-again romantic entanglements between four characters: Joanna Marshall, an ambitious but snobby dancer; Phillip Marshall, Joanna's brother who studies at Harvard; Maggie Ellersley, a hairdresser who aspires to climb the social ladder; and Peter Bye, a race-conscious medical student. Through the course of the novel, a series of misunderstandings and intentional slights set former friends and lovers at odds with one another, all the while the forces of racial prejudice prevent each of them from accomplishing the fullness of their vocational ambitions. The book is considered a canonical novel of the Harlem Renaissance for its depiction of the upwardly mobile African-American middle class. Jessie Redmon Fauset (died 1961) was a significant literary figure of the 20th century. Their work has endured across generations and continues to be read and studied worldwide. As a work of classic literary fiction, There Is Confusion exemplifies the narrative craft and social insight that defined great storytelling of its era. Literary fiction of this period was characterized by careful attention to character psychology, social milieu, and the moral questions that animated public discourse.