Abstract
This thesis compares and contrasts the portrayals of motherhood and passing in Fannie Hurst’s Imitation of Life(1933), its adaptation and remake, and Cid Ricketts Sumner’s Quality and its adaptation Pinky. The adaptation of Imitation of Life is set during the Depression, while the second film is set in a time shortly after the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education which ended legal segregation. Pinky, however, is set in the racially divided South by the end of the 1940s. The films are all greatly colored by the Production Code, and are also influenced by money-hungry movie companies. These influences result in portrayals of racial stereotypes, great changes from the novels to the adaptations, and careful portrayals of passing mulattoes, which this thesis will explore.