Analysis Of Passing By Nella Larsen

Nella Larsen's Passing tells the story of two childhood friends with parallel lives reconnecting after making different choices and yet ending up on the same path. Through these two characters Larsen weaves together a story with a set of everything. Two plots, problems, and endings, that explore the possibility of living a double life. With Clare and Irene, Larsen brings to light the consequences and advantages that each woman faces with the life they have chosen. Both striving to live the best life they can during the 1920s, a constant and yet changing time. Clare is an example of what life most likely was like for a black woman who was “passing” as a white woman. Larsen's does a stellar job of relaying the good and the evil that comes
Clare worked hard to become who she was in the 1920s, embracing the fact the past was no longer something should refer to for the present or future. It was to be left where is was left, in the past. To be forgotten, to make room for a new mind set, a new set of goals. Working her way into a life of someone of the other race. This where the differences between Clare and Irene really emerge. Since Clare has chosen this way of living it brought along with it some conflict. The fact that she had to mingle amongst the very people that detest her race. Clare attempts to escape the social barriers put up against black people, and she does by “passing”. ““I’ve often wondered why more colored girls…never ‘passed’ over. It’s such a frightfully easy thing to do. If one’s the type, all that’s needed is a little nerve” (25). This quote provides evidence to the thought that Clare is so far gone in this process of “passing” that she relates every other black kid to her experiences as a child, that it seems strange that not more people are not hopping on the bandwagon to begin “passing”. Clare also is living in fear of her own husband, who was not aware that she is a black woman. Fear that once her husband finds out he would be extremely dangerous to her and others. “‘So you're a nigger, a damned dirty nigger!’ His voice was a snarl and a moan, an expression of
“It’s easy for a Negro to ‘pass’ for white. But I don’t think it would be so simple for a white person to ‘pass’ for colored” (78). Larsen uses Irene here to show that “passing” can’t work both ways, there is no white woman or man who wants to be called the “n” word or ignored when there is desperate need for help. No white person wants to be black and be scoffed by other white people in the street or not be able to be loved by another person due to their skin. Unlike Clare, Irene chose a husband who was black and loved her just as she was. Although Irene was not “passing” in an outright manner, she still was in her own way. Irene was “passing” by her own rules only choosing to receive the perks on “passing” while by passing the pain and betrayal. She the treatment she receives from people who assumed she was white and did not take the time to correct people in situations where she could have benefited from their help. Irene stands up for her race, and joins of these clubs and parties, only to mirror the way of the