A reading of Nella Larsen’s Passing

 

The anguish occurred from made-up identity: A reading of Nella Larsen’s Passing

 

In 1920s, there had been an assertion in the African American community that they need to take off their negative stereotypes made during their slavery period and to build a better image for them. This attempt was for their dignity which directs to their admission and safety against white people. And the issue was well presented in contemporary literature of America written at that time. Nella Larsen’s Passing (1929), also as a novel published in 1920s, deals with this issue by presenting a character named Irene but in some skeptical perspective. In the novel, Irene, who seems as a representative of a ‘typical middle class African American woman’, meets Clare, who was once a friend of Irene, described as if she possessed characteristics that Irene doesn’t have. Through their reunion, Irene’s status as a ‘middle class African American woman’ undergoes disruption. In this essay, this disruption will be explained by asserting that in the novel, Irene was presented as a race, 1920s’ African American women itself, and Clare was presented as desires and characteristics itself, inevitably excluded from African American women. Irene’s status and feature could earn security by being separated from Clare. The feature of ‘typical middle class African American woman’ was an identity which was made-up for Irene’s security by excluding Clare. Thus, the title Passing can be easily accepted by Clare’s passing as a white, however, it truly means Irene’s passing as a middle class African American woman in 1920s’.

 

Community spirit of their race and motherhood which Irene insists and emphasizes in the novel were features that hoped to be considered as 1920s’ African American woman themselves. Expressing characteristics like that was to demolish their stereotypes like being illiterate and salacious. Irene’s care for race and motherhood is well presented in the novel, sometimes, excessively. Irene is a dedicating mother of their children. She visits toy stores repeatedly, about six times to get a toy which her child wanted. Irene has tendency to put private things as racial things. For example, after her visit to Clare’s house, Irene explains that it was because of Clare’s race not revealing her passing as a white to her husband, Bellow. Though, excepting the race, keeping secrets like that between friends seems normal and natural. Also, later in the novel, in the middle of Irene’s suspicion of Brian and Clare’s affair, Irene’s thought expressed as “She was caught between two allegiances, different, yet the same. Herself. Her race. Race!” (258). Given that she regards herself and her race in the equivalent value, and possessing the characteristics like intelligence, community spirit, and motherhood seems that she is described as a representative of African American woman or of her race of 1920s’ itself in the novel.

 

However, Clare has totally opposite characteristics with Irene. She has less motherhood than Irene, but her attractive appearances and provocative attitudes make men to fall into her. Clare’s husband Bellow, Irene’s friend Freeland’s husband, and even Irene’s husband Mr. Brian. That maximized sexuality is that Irene has not possessed. As being a mother, that sexuality is unnecessary and shouldn’t have to possess for the security of her family. Also, Clare’s not caring of her race and her child was the opposite characteristics with Irene. For instance, in the conversation with Irene, there was a Clare’s utterance, ‘children aren’t everything (240).’ Furthermore, Clare feels no guilt of her passing as a white and even recommends to her friends to pass. In consequences she could married Mr. Bellow, and could possess amount of fortune which Irene doesn’t have. Which Irene has, Clare doesn’t, and which Irene doesn’t have, Clare does. They are in the opposite part each other. And from their separation, no problem had occurred before.

 

‘The weather, like people, they ought to enter into the spirit of the season’ (245). It was Irene’s thought toward unlikely warm weather in December. She started to feel incompatibility around her. Feeling that circumstances around her does not suit to her anymore. Having been through more connections with Clare, things that Irene thought she has possessed, get dwindled. Growing suspicion between Clare and Brian’s affair, Irene’s feeling described as ‘Strange that she couldn’t now be sure that she had ever truly known love’ (268). Her desire toward sexuality which she kept running away grows inside her and on the contrary, her motherhood dwindled. The boys were now just an insurance of security of her family. Also, despite her ardent care of her race she insisted before, she starts to keep thinking of getting rid of Clare who is also a member of her own race. Motherhood, community spirit, everything she believed were so easy to collapse and she was just pretending to possess. She now felt that she was not a right person for the identity that she thought she was belonged to, like a warmness of December. At last, to regain her identity and things she possessed when Clare wasn’t with her, Irene leads Clare to death, who was threatening her security.

 

Larsen’s Passing (1929) takes its end by Clare’s death. However, it is not quite certain whether Clare committed suicide or Irene pushed Clare out of the window. Larsen deliberately scattered factors in the novel that both opinions can be accepted. ‘Irene finished her cigarette and threw it out, watching the tiny spark drop slowly down to the white ground below’ (270), in this sentence, ‘cigarette’, a thing which has a white body, can be a motif of Clare, and that means Irene killed Clare. Also, there is a description of Clare when her husband found her in the black society’s party like ‘She seemed unaware of any danger of uncaring. There was even a faint smile on her full red lips and in her shining eyes’ (271), which can be assumed that Clare was already aware of her death and accepted it. Though Clare’s death was voluntarily carried out by both African American women, Irene and Clare, we can’t exclude the responsible of Clare’s husband Bellow, the white people, who was also there in the scene of an accident. The whole thing, killing their own nature, and suffer from getting rid of a part of their characteristics, were for getting a right admission in the white dominant society. Voluntarily, but semi-forced death of Clare means excluded desire and characteristics of 1920s’ African American women. The novel Passing was an appeal of Larsen’s and African American women’s self-pity of living different identity from theirs.