Passing is an extraordinary novel that examines the several aspects of the second class race experience. Nella Larsen, the author of the novella, presents a multitude of complex characters who each have distinct relationships with the act of passing and race during the 1920s America. The novella mainly focuses on the lives of two biracial women who pass as white women to reap the benefits and privileges of the first class citizens. The first character Irene, has a Type A personality. She is controlling and likes to have order among her surroundings. Clare, the second main character, has a Type B personality. She is an extroverted free spirit who possesses insurmountable beauty. While both women pass as white, they do not do it with the same
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Belonging means acceptance as a member or part. Although Irene and Clare do not agree on which racial group is better to associate with, both characters’ patterns are examples of the natural human need to belong. As mentioned before, Irene has a deeply rooted attachment to her black heritage and culture. It has developed to the point of becoming emotionally bound to it. Moving into the middle of the short novella, Brian is introduced. Brian is Irene’s husband who is a dark-skinned successful doctor. Irene constantly recalls Brian’s desire to escape America and live in Brazil with her and their two sons. The text says, “that craving for some places strange and different, which at the beginning of her marriage she had had to make strenuous efforts to suppress”(47). Irene describes Brazil as being a “strange” and “different” place; however, it is probably far better than the racist American society she currently inhabits. Why is she so afraid to leave a bigoted country in exchange for a country that is probably far more diverse and much more comfortable for her family? That can be explained through an encounter Irene has with Gertrude and Clare. During Irene’s uncomfortable interaction with two other biracial women whom also pass, she expresses where her feeling of annoyance derived from. The text reads, says, “Irene admitted, a shade reluctantly, that it arose from a feeling of being outnumbered, a sense of aloneness, in her …show more content…
Every person on this great green planet desires to find an accepting community that shares similarities to themself. Irene and Clare are great examples of this natural human phenomenon. Irene finds herself in the Black-American community and is so afraid of not fitting in elsewhere that she works hard to convince her husband from moving their family and she also limits her contact with white people to assure herself that her place in the black community will not be lost. Clare was always an outcast and was the misfit of her family for being different, forcing her to strip herself of her racial identifiers and manipulating her way into a high class community. However, because she can not halt external forces from pointing out her differences she becomes lonely and longs to find a new company to be a part of. All in all, the world is full of people who vary in size, color, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and so on and so forth. No matter how different someone is, they can always find a community willing to accept them and make them feel that they
Belonging means acceptance as a member or part. Although Irene and Clare do not agree on which racial group is better to associate with, both characters’ patterns are examples of the natural human need to belong. As mentioned before, Irene has a deeply rooted attachment to her black heritage and culture. It has developed to the point of becoming emotionally bound to it. Moving into the middle of the short novella, Brian is introduced. Brian is Irene’s husband who is a dark-skinned successful doctor. Irene constantly recalls Brian’s desire to escape America and live in Brazil with her and their two sons. The text says, “that craving for some places strange and different, which at the beginning of her marriage she had had to make strenuous efforts to suppress”(47). Irene describes Brazil as being a “strange” and “different” place; however, it is probably far better than the racist American society she currently inhabits. Why is she so afraid to leave a bigoted country in exchange for a country that is probably far more diverse and much more comfortable for her family? That can be explained through an encounter Irene has with Gertrude and Clare. During Irene’s uncomfortable interaction with two other biracial women whom also pass, she expresses where her feeling of annoyance derived from. The text reads, says, “Irene admitted, a shade reluctantly, that it arose from a feeling of being outnumbered, a sense of aloneness, in her …show more content…
Every person on this great green planet desires to find an accepting community that shares similarities to themself. Irene and Clare are great examples of this natural human phenomenon. Irene finds herself in the Black-American community and is so afraid of not fitting in elsewhere that she works hard to convince her husband from moving their family and she also limits her contact with white people to assure herself that her place in the black community will not be lost. Clare was always an outcast and was the misfit of her family for being different, forcing her to strip herself of her racial identifiers and manipulating her way into a high class community. However, because she can not halt external forces from pointing out her differences she becomes lonely and longs to find a new company to be a part of. All in all, the world is full of people who vary in size, color, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and so on and so forth. No matter how different someone is, they can always find a community willing to accept them and make them feel that they