Passing

“This, she reflected, was of a piece with all that she knew of Clare Kendry. Stepping always on the edge of danger. Always aware, but not drawing back or turning aside. Certainly not because of any alarms of feelings of outrage on the part of others.” 

This quote highlights Clare’s daring and dangerous nature. Moreover, it is telling in that Clare recognizes the danger, but takes the risk anyway. Again, this quotation functions to foreshadow the novel’s tragic ending. 

“There had been, even in those days, nothing sacrificial in Clare Kendry's idea of life, no allegiance beyond her own immediate desire.” 

Here, Irene portrays Clare as utterly selfish; a person who was consumed by the satisfaction of her own desires. This leaves no room for political or even personal allegiances, except as they help her to attain her goals.  

“Did that woman, could that woman, somehow know that here before her very eyes on the roof of the Drayton sat a Negro?” 

This is the first instance that Irene’s race is mentioned. Moreover, it shows how startled and frightened Irene is, thus highlighting how dangerous the act of passing can be for people.

“For Gertrude too had married a white man, though it couldn’t be truthfully said that she was ‘passing’. Her husband … had been quite well aware, as had his family and most of his friends, that she was a Negro.”

Gertrude’s character highlights yet another facet of race relations within the novel. Gertrude’s friends and family know that she is black and accept it. Ironically, Gertrude herself does not accept it, and does not want children for fear they will be “dark.”

“Irene admitted, a shade reluctantly, that is arose from a feeling of being outnumbered, a sense of aloneness, in her adherence to her own class and kind; not merely in the great thing of marriage, but in the whole pattern of her life as well.” 

Like many African-Americans of the time, Irene is involved with the project of “uplifting,” the task of furthering the African-American race. When she meets with Clare and Gertrude, her world is upended in that the two women she is having tea with feel no such responsibility to that project. In fact, their words and actions make Irene feel that she must defend African-Americans to them.

‘“But, of course, nobody wants a dark child.’ Her voice was earnest and she took for granted that her audience was in entire agreement with her.” 

Gertrude’s belief that being dark is abhorrent, despite being African-American herself, shocks Irene. They highlight, however, the complex nature of race within the novel and the way that African-Americans can internalize racist values.

“A faint sense of danger brushed her, like the breath of a cold fog.”

Irene increasingly senses danger when in Clare’s company. There is something in Clare that confuses Irene, something shadowy and dark, but Irene has yet to understand what this dangerous, unwelcome feeling is.

“She had a leaping desire to shout at the man beside her: ‘And you’re sitting here surrounded by three black devils, drinking tea.’” 

Irene finds the situation with John Bellew ironic, yet hurtful at the same time. He hates Negroes, and says it over and over, yet has no clue that his wife is black, as are the two women he is having tea with.

“But that she should retain that dim sense of fear, of panic, was surprising, silly.” 

Though Irene has not seen John Bellew for some time, she continues to fear that he will discover Clare’s secret. John represents everything that Irene despises.

“To count as nothing the annoyances, the bitterness, or the suffering of others, that was Clare,” 

Clare seems to only think about her own wellbeing, as well as how her actions will bring about her happiness, even if that happiness is at the expense of others.

“Why, simply because of Clare Kendry, who had exposed her to such torment, had she failed to take up the defence of the race to which she belonged?” 

Irene is upset with herself for liking an individual so much that it eclipses her duty to her “race”. Irene has this argument with herself time and again. She wants to protect Clare because she is her friend but because Clare passes for white, Irene feels she is being forced to divide her loyalties. This raises the interesting point that some forms of identity politics prioritize one form of identity—such as race—over others—such as gender, rather than acknowledging the way these identities coexist and influence each other. 

“That strange, and to her fantastic, notion of Brian’s going off to Brazil, which, though unmentioned, yet lived within him; how it frightened her, and—yes, angered her!” 

Irene likes stability and order. The fact that her husband wants to move to Brazil frightens her because she must actively fight to change his mind. Brian’s dream challenges her control over her life and that of her family, raising the question of why Irene feels such a need to be in control all of the time. What is she defending herself against?

“Yes, it would die, as long as long ago she made up her mind that it should. But in the meantime, while it was still living and still had the power to flare up and alarm her, it would have to be banked, smothered, and something offered in its stead.” 

Irene knows that Brian’s desire for Brazil must be controlled, tricked even. To save her marriage and maintain her control over her family, she is willing to appease him by duplicitous means.

“Actually they were strangers. Strangers in their ways and means of living. Strangers in their desires and ambitions. Strangers even in their racial consciousness.” 

Irene finally begins to see that, even though she shares the same gender and ethnicity with Clare, they are strangers to one another. Clare’s actions pit her against all those things that should bind her to others.

‘“Safe!’ It seemed to Irene that Clare had snapped her teeth down on the word and then flung it from her … She was aware, too, of a dim premonition of some impending disaster.” 

The troubling, dangerous aspect of Clare’s character comes to the forefront again. Irene foresees disaster looming in Clare’s future, made evident in her dismissal of the need to be “Safe”.

‘“I think what they feel is—well, a kind of emotional excitement. You know, the sort of thing you feel in the presence of something strange, and even, perhaps, a bit repugnant to you; something so different that it’s really at the opposite end of the pole from all your accustomed notions of beauty.”

Irene talks to Hugh Wentworth about the appeal Harlem holds for white people. She suggests that these white people, like the women who are attracted to black men despite the social stigma, do so from attraction fascination with the grotesque, rather than as a result of attraction or sense of beauty.

“He was like a man marking time, waiting. But what was he waiting for? It was extraordinary that, after all these years of accurate perception, she now lacked the talent to discover what that appearance of waiting meant.” 

Irene realizes that, while she thought she knew Brian, she does not understand what drives him. As such, he is not in her control. His aloofness worries her because she cherishes knowledge and order.

“And that little straightening motion of the shoulders. Hadn’t it been like that of a man drawing himself up to receive a blow? Her fright was like a scarlet spear of terror leaping at her heart.” 

Brian’s reaction to Irene signifies guilt on his part and leads to her realization that he is having an affair with Clare Kendry. The image of the sphere suggests just the violence that this new knowledge does to Irene’s world and the hurt it causes her.

“Yes, life went on precisely as before. It was only she that had changed. Knowing, stumbling on this thing, had changed her. It was as if in a house long dim, a match had been struck, showing ghastly shapes where had been only blurred shadows.” 

After discovering Brian’s affair, Irene exists with newfound knowledge, knowledge that sheds new light on her whole life, represented here by a house. 

“It was gone, leaving in its place an almost uncontrollable impulse to laugh, to scream, to hurl things about. She wanted, suddenly, to shock people, to hurt them, to make them notice her, to be aware of her suffering.” 

Irene prides herself on decorum and order, but after finding out that her husband is having an affair with Clare Kendry, she wants to act out. In this way, Irene shows that she wants to be noticed and taken seriously for once.

“But she shrank away from the idea of telling that man, Clare Kendry’s white husband, anything that would lead him to suspect that his wife was a Negro.” 

When she bumps into John Bellew, Irene is confronted with a choice between exacting her revenge or protecting Clare. She wants to be rid of Clare, but she cannot bring herself to tell a racist like John Bellew that his wife is black.

“That instinctive loyalty to a race. Why couldn't she get free of it? Why should it include Clare?” 

Irene is frustrated with herself for wanting to protect Clare, especially as Clare has no concern for other African-Americans more generally. Irene, however, is cognizant of her racial identity and does everything she can to protect and support the African-American community.

“What happened next, Irene Redfield never afterwards allowed herself to remember. Never clearly. One moment Clare has been there, a vital glowing thing, like a flame of red and gold. The next she was gone.” 

Clare’s death is troubling in that the reader never really knows if Clare fell or was pushed. It seems that Irene herself does not want to remember the specific events, which in turn suggests that she may be culpable.