Form and Content
Passing is a conventionally structured novel in which the tale is told from the controlled omniscient perspective. It is a story whose tension emanates from the three main characters and which concludes in a web of ambiguity and mystery. The unmistakable purpose lies in the psychological-social problem area, for the racial dilemmas illuminate intricate personal relationships, all of them possibly doomed.
Nella Larsen, an African American writer and prominent participant in the Harlem Renaissance, explores the consequences of “passing” (a phenomenon sometimes, in social science, called “crossing”; both terms are used to describe a light-skinned African American’s choice to live in society as white without revealing his or her true racial history). She also studies potential marital problems precipitated by jealousy and suspicion, dilemmas of child rearing and infidelity, and financial security versus personal fulfillment. There is no doubt, however, that the catalyst propelling the narrative, initiating examination into personal values, and forcing a confrontation with individual racial identity is Clare Kendry, the woman who is, indeed, passing, and whose characterization embodies the theme noted in literary history as “the tragic mulatta.”
Larsen’s challenging novel focuses on two African American women whose lives have taken radically different paths, it would seem, and who meet after years of separation. In passing, Clare has deliberately distanced herself from the past, but Irene quickly remembers, with more than a touch of uneasiness, her old friend as unpredictable, an aggressive, risk-taking woman who delights in living dangerously. Irene Redfield, proud of her black identity and disapproving of Clare’s way of life, instinctively fears the imminent intrusion into her own safe and secure home. Yet, fascinated with the possibilities, she allows it, even encourages it, to happen. The persistent Clare, aided and abetted, however reluctantly, by Irene, makes herself part of the Redfield circle. When her husband, the racist Bellew, goes off on his frequent business trips, Clare and the Redfields are together, for at these moments the passing woman feels that, in a sense, she is openly validating her own identity, reaching out to relate to the people and that part of herself that she had rejected—and that she continues to reject in her life as a white wife. Irene Redfield tolerates the imposition of her old friend, and, in fact, introduces Clare into the sophisticated group of friends, black and white, who gather regularly for art shows, discussions, or parties. It appears that Clare’s identity problems and her daily life, poised over the abyss between two disparate worlds, create a riveting, hypnotic aura around Irene. She is repulsed by Clare’s passing but must admire her willingness to take the risk that is involved, a risk similar to that of starting a new life, which she is unwilling to take with her husband Brian. A clearly ambivalent Irene Redfield feels the palpable invasion of a new spirit into her home. The bickerings and sometimes harsh arguments between her and her husband are soon exacerbated.
Irene Redfield’s understandable contentment with her luxurious home and handsome, articulate children has seemingly created in her a fetish of economic security and marital safety, leading her to oppose Brian’s desire that they leave the United States. At the same time, she recognizes that Clare’s passing is similarly motivated by the desire for economic survival, safety, and security. The two are, actually, not so different in their overall perception of what is important in life. Thus, suddenly, as if struck by a lightning bolt, Irene, irritated at the domestic turbulence with her husband, realizes that Clare Kendry is a direct threat to her own home and marriage. In response to...
(This entire section contains 932 words.)
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a question about what she would do if her secret of passing were discovered, Clare asserts that she would move to Harlem to be with her people. Recalling this, Irene becomes suspicious and fearful. If Clare cannot be made to vanish from the earth, at least her secret must be kept and protected at all costs—to keep the Redfields together.
Through an accidental meeting with Irene in the company of a black friend, Bellew is alerted to the possibility that his “Nig” is indeed, passing. Driven by the fury of his hatred, he sets out to discover the truth, first going to the Redfield home and then directly to a sixth-floor apartment where a black cultural soiree is in progress, the couple and Clare in attendance. Unabashed, the racist bolts angrily onto the scene, furiously denouncing his wife as a “nigger.” Larsen has set her finale in mystery, one that, nevertheless, dooms all the crucial relationships depicted in her narrative. On Bellew’s frantically charged entrance, the frightened Irene rushes to Clare’s side, for her passing friend had been calmly standing by an open window. Little of what follows is made perfectly clear, but two things are evident: Clare goes tumbling out the window to her death; her husband did not push her. Many questions, however, remain. Why did Irene rush to Clare? Because the revelation of Clare’s passing to Bellew would have ended the union and would have driven her to Harlem, a fear of Irene’s? Did Irene push Clare out the window? Accidentally or intentionally, driven by fear, propelled by her psychological desire to have Clare “disappear,” did she commit murder? Did Clare, terrified by her husband’s fury, accidentally fall? Perhaps Clare committed suicide, realizing that her passing days were over and that her “white” daughter would be lost to her? Amid these questions and possibilities the narrative concludes, leaving evidence for all the interpretations suggested.
Context
Dedicated to Carl Van Vechten and his actress wife Fania Marinoff, both prominent patrons of black artists during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s, Passing established Nella Larsen as one of the most promising writers to come from that important aesthetic movement. With this novel, her achievement as an African American woman author is especially notable, for the book examines the psychological divisions and challenges in modern middle-class marriage, emphasizing the women’s perspective. The book further explores the limits that society of the mid-1920’s imposed on all women, with, naturally, the additional restrictions put upon women of color. Passing deals, too, in subtle fashion with female sexuality and its role in the context of racism as well as its power within the emotional drama acted out among Irene, Clare, and Brian, for much of the tension in their unhappy confluence appears to be unleashed by overtones of a suggestive sensual energy. While Larsen has studied the chaotic emotional ambience surrounding the woman who passes, and while her treatment of the tragic mulatta theme is possibly the best in American writing, the social burdens of both women are also demonstrated, with suffering and death finally epitomizing their individual struggles.
Nella Larsen does not sentimentalize women’s plight; she approaches the depiction of her women with realism. The limits to a woman’s actual freedom in the 1920’s were stringent; economic security meant dependence on a husband for support. The freedom of Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield is tied directly to their marriages, Clare’s complicated by her “passing” and Irene’s threatened by her husband’s unhappiness. Here, then, is a portrait of woman as prisoner, a person whose very identity is suspect without acknowledged attachment to a man. Thus, while Passing derives its materials profoundly from the experience of the African American woman, it also addresses areas of concern for all women.
Although she was neither a crusader for women’s rights nor a modern feminist, Larsen created a quietly powerful portrait of the forces and pressures exerted upon women in America in her time. Perhaps her most important contribution to women’s literature lies in her having written Passing, a book whose social realism and psychological insight herald an achievement in American letters by a black woman writer whose artistry delineated two vital themes of enduring critical concern: the quest for identity and the struggle of women—both within the dark context of racism.
Bibliography
Blackmore, David L. “‘That Unreasonable Restless Feeling’: The Homosexual Subtexts of Nella Larsen’s Passing.” African American Review 26, no. 3 (Fall, 1992): 475-484. Offers a complementary reading to Deborah McDowell’s essay (see below). Blackmore focuses on Irene’s husband’s enchantment with Brazil as a symptom of his homosexual desire; Brazil is portrayed as an idealized locus of sexual and racial experimentation and freedom.
Carby, Hazel V. Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Considers Nella Larsen to be one of the most important novelists to emerge from the Harlem Renaissance. Focuses on Larsen’s aesthetic issues and on her political and social critiques.
Christian, Barbara T. Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892-1976. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. An important discussion of black female writers that helped to bring about a new assessment of their fiction. Significant analysis of Nella Larsen, the integrity of her fiction, and the forward-looking quality of her vision.
Davis, Arthur P. From the Dark Tower: Afro-American Writers, 1900-1960. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1981. Takes a historical perspective, focusing on Larsen’s fiction and its place in the larger aesthetic ambience of black American writing of the twentieth century.
Davis, Thadious M. “Nella Larsen’s Harlem Aesthetic.” In The Harlem Renaissance: Revaluations, edited by Amritjit Singh, William S. Shiver, and Stanley Brodwin. New York: Garland, 1989. Argues that Larsen’s aesthetic faithfully captures the spirit of her times. Emphasizes the tension Larsen evokes between the social and the personal.
Fuller, Hoyt. Introduction to Passing. New York: Collier Books, 1971. A valuable introduction to Larsen’s novel that emphasizes the aesthetic structure of the book and the social dilemmas portrayed through the phenomenon of passing.
Kramer, Victor A., ed. The Harlem Renaissance Re-examined. New York: AMS Press, 1987. Especially important in this collection of contemporary background essays updating the critical views on Nella Larsen and her literary associates is Lillie P. Howard’s study of the novelist’s employment of the themes of crossing and materialism.
Larsen, Nella. An Intimation of Things Distant: The Collected Fiction of Nella Larsen. Edited by Charles Larsen. New York: Anchor Books, 1992. A perceptive introduction emphasizing the major motifs and themes embodying the creative energy in Passing and, at the same time, relating these themes to the author’s life.
McDowell, Deborah E. Introduction to Quicksand and Passing, by Nella Larsen. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1986. Explores the sexually charged relationship between Irene and Clare and its eventual suffocation by the reigning black bourgeois ideology of the period.
Madigan, Mark J. “Miscegenation and ‘the Dicta of Race and Class’: The Rhinelander Case and Nella Larsen’s Passing.” Modern Fiction Studies 36, no. 4 (Winter, 1990): 523-529. Argues that the one reference to the Rhinelander case in Larsen’s novel suggests that the work may have been inspired by it. Leonard Rhinelander was a young man from a prominent New York family, who had married a black woman light enough to pass for white. When his family discovered her race, they forced him to divorce her, and a public uproar resulted.
Robinson, William H. Introduction to Passing. New York: Arno Press, 1969. Introductory remarks focus on the theme of the mulatto as well as on Larsen’s expression of the materials within black culture.
Singh, Amritjit. The Novels of the Harlem Renaissance:Twelve Black Writers, 1923-1933. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976. An analytical survey of prominent contributors to the Harlem Renaissance that includes a study of the psychological and social pressures depicted by Larsen in her text.
Shockley, Ann Allen. Afro-American Women Writers, 1746-1933. New York: Meridian, 1988. Presents a general and useful overview of black female writers. Has a specific discussion of Larsen’s life and her major works.
Washington, Mary Helen. “Nella Larsen: Mystery Woman of the Harlem Renaissance.” Ms. 9 (December, 1980): 44-50. This article details the personal saga of Nella Larsen and the concomitant pressures stemming therefrom, all contributing significantly to the materials and the resolution of her novel.