Summary Of Passing By Nella Larsen

Clare Kendry in Larsen’s Passing, is a very complex character. She is an African American woman, who is “passing” as a white Caucasian. It all started when her Dad died when she was little, and was taken to her white aunts. Her aunts treated her like she was the help, so this made her want to be wealthy when she is older. Irene is her childhood friend, who saw Clare go through her tough times. They grew apart for a while, but met up in Chicago a couple of years ago. Clare has made herself an outsider through her actions. She is an outsider because she tries to pass as a Caucasian, uses her friends for her own benefit, and secretly wants to get back to her cultural roots.

In Nella Larsen’s Passing: A Problem of Interpretation, Claudia Tate argues that race “is not the novels foremost concern, but is merely a mechanism for setting the story in motion” (344). Tate’s decision to focus on the “psychological ambiguity” (343) of the novel forbids her to elaborate on the relation between race and social class. As a result, I disagree with certain statements from Tate’s argument due to the lack of acknowledging the issue regarding race and social class. Tate initially claims that Irene’s understanding of race becomes a concern “when the impending exposure of Clare’s racial identity threatens to hasten the disruption of Irene’s domestic security” (Tate 344). However, Irene’s fear of being spotted as a

‘ This is dirty out here, Mae Mobley. You’ll catch diseases!’”( Stockett, 111). Mae Mobley is one of Hilly’s children and accidentally used the bathroom that only the colored people could uses. Hilly yelled at her daughter and made her cry. Aibileen was mad, but there was nothing she could do. Aibileen said “I wanted to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain’t a color, disease ain’t the Negro side a town. I want to stop that moment from coming-and it come in ever white child’s life-when they start to think that colored folks ain’t as good as whites”(Stockett,112). Colored people were always viewed as dirty and it was due to racial prejudice. That was believe and it was passed on from every parent to their child. Soon their children would start believing the same way.

When Irene finally realizes that this woman is Clare, someone who chooses to “pass” and hide all traces of her black heritage, Irene’s opinion of her changes. She no longer wants to be involved with Clare in any way, and “had no desire or intention of making the slightest effort about Tuesday. Nor any other day for that matter. She was through with Clare Kendry.” (p. 31) Irene is appalled that someone can so easily throw away her background just for the sake of gaining privilege over another race. When Clare asks her if she had ever thought of passing, Irene replies, “No. Why should I? You see, Clare, I’ve everything I want.” (p. 28) She is happy with what she has, not even having to give up anything to get there. Or at least that’s what she convinces herself to believe. Irene is again hypocritical in her beliefs. Even when she opposes Clare’s view of passing, she is still very interested in the idea. “The truth was, she was curious. There were things she wanted to ask Clare Kendry. She wished to find out about this hazardous business of ‘passing’…” (p. 24) She even admitted that she held for her “a fascination, strange and compelling.” (p. 28) Irene doesn’t seem to be able to decide if she accepts passing as reasonable. She forces herself to disagree with passing, allowing her to hate Clare for doing it. This shows us that sexuality and race are two matters that conflict with each other, at least in Irene’s opinion. She uses race to

The main plot of “Passing” focuses on two light-skinned black women, Irene Redfield and her old time friend Clare Kendry. Both women can “pass” as white women. Irene who is married to a successful African-American doctor, passes only when it is

Nella Larsen was an American writer of the Harlem Renaissance. One of her novels, Passing, took place New York society during the 1920s. The story surrounds the reunion of two women, Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield and their struggles they face because of ‘passing’. Through Passing, Nella Larsen demonstrates the challenges that the gender constructs during the time as women are powerless against race and men.

For centuries many have practiced a deception of identity called 'passing ' not only in America but other nations as well. Passing is a term that many Black/African-Americans have heard at one time or another from an acquaintance or possibly from someone in their own family speaking of a relative that 'passed ' as another race during a time period in America pre-civil rights era, for personal gain, whether it was for acceptance in their communities, ease of living or financial equality.

Nella Larsen’s Passing uses the two main characters to explore how the idea of racial identity is not a discussion that is black and white, but rather one that is grey. The story is utilized to demonstrate how some individuals of black complexion fell trap to societal standards, causing them to abandon their own race in search of better life. But, in all actuality, the text argues that the pursual of another identity ultimately causes an individual to lose their own self identification.

Nella Larsen’s Passing challenges the traditional ideology of ethnic, racial, and gender integrity, transforming the concept of an “acceptable”- definition of identity, which both individuals and society can appreciate. By developing exceptionally round characters whom are unstable and volatile, Larsen builds monologues to display how easy it is to lose one’s identity. Clare Kendry, challenges the stereotypes, society has ascribed to her. Leaving her in a limbo for identity white-or-black, however, she never has the chance to align to a particular identity because of her mysterious death, while Irene Redfield, becomes obsessed and envious of Clare, destroying her own sense of self by committing psychological suicide, in terms of assimilation

She criticizes the way the blacks walk, talk, and live; and she states, "Who wants to be mixed up wid uh rusty black man, and uh black woman goin' down de street in all dem loud colors, and whoopin' and hollerin' and laughin' over nothin'?" (Hurston 135). Hypocritical of her own culture, she works in her successful eating establishment while she pronounces that "[c]olored folks don't know nothin' about no business," a truth which she believes further connects her life to the white community (Hurston 136). Mrs. Turner grasps at minute differences in shading as differences in intelligence because she is substantially more cruel to "those more negroid than herself in direct ratio to their negroness" and because she expects "[a]nyone who look[s] more white folkish than herself [to be] better than she [is]" (Hurston 138). Her prejudice against her own people is alarming; she sees her insults of a lower culture as rungs in the ladder of social prestige, bringing her ever closer to Caucasian characteristics. As she associates her lighter skin with the complexions of white people, Mrs. Turner argues, "Ah got white folks' features in mah face," a visage lacking the "flat nose and liver lips" she stereotypically associates with black facial features (Hurston 136). She constantly judges and condemns while she worships a paradise of "straight-haired, thin-lipped, high-nose boned white seraphs" (Hurston 139). Examining the dark-skinned humans around

Although Irene feels that there is "nothing sacrificial in Clare's idea of life, no allegiance beyond her own immediate desire," it is apparent that Clare's desire to return to her African American race is honest, even if the motives seem rather one-sided (Larsen 144). Irene considers Clare to be "selfish, cold and hard" (Larsen 144). Irene also feels that Clare does not have "even in the slightest artistic or sociological interest in the race that some members of other races displayed…[She] cared nothing of the race, she only belonged to it" (Larsen 182). This may be true, but it does not diminish Clare's own pain at having to deny her African American heritage, and her desire to return to it. Irene represents a portion of society who feel that people who pass must have a morally acceptable reason to return to their African American roots such as a desire to rebel against a white society that has forced them into the role of a white person. Just because Clare feels "no permanent allegiance to either the black or white worlds or any of the classic anguish of the tragic mulatto" does not mean that she is not a tragic mulatto (Washington 48). In her own way, "Clare Kendry belongs with that group of tragic mulattos…emerg[ing] as an individual, not as a stereotype" (Davis 98). Because she wants to return to her own race on her own terms illustrates her individuality in the face of the

In Passing, Clare and Irene two light-skinned African American woman, try to pass for white in a segregated society. Irene infrequently passes while Clare who is biracial, lives a boastful life by identifying herself as a white woman (so it seems). Irene on the other hand strives to

Racial identity is an important concept that everyone must deal with in their life. It is an individual’s sense of having their identity be defined by belonging to a race and or ethnic group. How strong the identity is depending on how much the individual has processed and internalized the sociological, political, and other factors within the group. In some instances, people do not identify with their race and they will “pass” as another. Nella Larsen, an African American writer and prominent member of the Harlem Renaissance movement, she explores the consequences of “passing”. Larsen’s Passing is a novel that challenges the concept of ethnicity, race and gender while revolutionizing the idea of what we describe as identity. The novel explores the issue of race through vivid plotting that depicts a mentally touching story of affecting boundaries in the early American society. The novel also explores the effects of racial construction on a person through multiple levels. Through Larsen’s characterization and setting she is able to bring out the social construction of race in an enjoyable and educated format in which race, class distinction and identity themes are intertwined. Larsen herself often struggles with identity, as she grew up being raised by an all-white household after her father, a black West Indian, disappeared from her life. Larsen depicts the theme of racial identity by using two women characters, both of which are attractive, and are “light” enough to be able

Passing” by Nella Larsen is a great piece of art, that is mostly concentrated on the act of passing as a member of other race in order to assimilate with them and cover their own race. I have to be honest through reading the book I developed love hate relationship because how this book was structured. It is filled with really charismatic personalities such as Claire Kendry or Irene Redfield but at the same time I was really frustrated how they behave themselves regarding their race. For someone who never had any conflicts regarding race it was really hard for to rationalize Clare’s or Irene’s actions that involved covering their own identity to benefit from it either socially or financially. Book still lacks clarity in most of the cases that happen in story, for example ending where Clare dies but it might be also seen as way for reader to think and guess who might be the murderer. Even though this story takes place in the early 20th century when the African American society was still harshly treated by white society, I think we can still see a lot of racial conflicts that happen nowadays among all races that live in big cities such as New York or Paris and etc. Also, depiction of how race might be sign of belonging to specific class was interesting topic. Most importantly what frustrates me most in the story is how racial difference is troubling or forcing characters act in specific ways. By that I mean how Clare went extra mile and even married a white bigot John Bellew

According to the Introduction of Passing Penguin Edition the term passing can be defined as “the movement of a person who is legally or socially designated black into a white racial category or white social identity” (viii). In the novel Passing by Nella Larsen, readers can see passing not only as a racial activity but also as one related to sexuality. The main character Irene Redfield is passing as straight woman that ends up killing Clare Kendry, the woman she seems to be in love with. On the surface, Irene’s motivation to kill Clare is the possible affair between Clare and Bryan but in fact it is more than that. Irene’s unconscious knows that the only way to keep her lesbianism repressed is by maintaining a