Analysis Of Passing By Nella Larson

Within the novel Passing by Nella Larson, the author reveals what it is to pass, in chapter two of Passing, Irene has agreed to go to a tea party at Clare’s home where she meets Gertrude, but more importantly she meets Jack Bellew, Clare’s husband. In this scene Irene is exposed to the tranny of Jack Bellew and how race ethics has forced Clare into becoming a white woman. Clare’s husband Jack Bellew who calls Clare “nig” on the basis that “when [they] got first married, she was as white as...a lily. But I declare she gettin’ darker and darker. I tell her if she don’t look out, she 'll wake up one of these days and find out she has turned into a nigger” (Larson 29). Not only was Irene invoked about Jack calling her “nig” as to insult her own race, but after the previous statement, even Gertrude felt uneasy passing in front of this man. The thought that Clare had to marry a white bigot, helped Clare fall into the role of a white …show more content…
Omi and Winant note the political terms of the past when the law was “one-thirty-second ‘Negro’ was to be considered black” (Omi and Winant 1). This very specific political evidence is what ties into people passing in the first place. The reason for passing in the first place is for individuals to come out on top, to do better for themselves even if that means cutting off everything in their life or past such as what Clare Kendry had done. Irene on the other hand takes passing to a protection reasoning in her mind, much of what she is forced to do is protecting her sons from the people like Jack Bellew, a bigot. Irene wants to protect her kids from hearing about lynching or having her kids hear the word “nigger” called to them and having them understand the social contestants on their life. That her kids will not be able to match up to that of a white person, thus playing into the Race theory brought up by Omi and