Racial Identity In Passing By Nella Larsen

Nella Larsen’s novel Passing explores two African-American women, Irene and Clare, coming to terms with their racial identity. Evenmore, Larsen demonstrates that race is a social construct when these two women are able to “pass” as white due to their lighter complexion. Irene and Clare struggle to create an identity for themselves that goes beyond any racial boundaries; however, it becomes a battle of creating an identity without facing alienation from the black community that has sustained both of them. Irene and Clare reunite for the first time, on top of the Drayton, having tea while both are white. Irene does it so naturally that she is hardly aware that she is sometimes. However, there is a sense that Irene is afraid to be discovered for passing, she …show more content…
Both women are not content with being black or white and in the end Clare die unsatisfied and Irene, although rid of Clare now, has not won anything. Therefore, Larsen has both characters suffer due to their negligence of others around them while they strived to find who they are. In using passing, Larsen delves into the deeper issues in America, the strive for racial conventions and identity. The fluidity and ambiguity with which both women are able to pass into the white world calls upon the inherent ideas of race. Larsen shows how race is a social construct because despite the fact that white people have ways of distinguishing the blacks from others through different traits, they are easily fooled by two women who pass into their world. Therefore, the racial ambiguity becomes a threat to racism. However, it also threatens racial identity of black people because it takes away the ideas of genetic differences and combines everything into a shared experience of being the same people. Nevertheless, there is a certain downfall that awaits a society that allows itself to be completely divided by race, as signified by Clare’s