Literary Analysis: Passing By Nella Larsen

Passing by Nella Larsen was written in 1929 during the height of the Harlem Renaissance movement. The novel focuses on shifting racial boundaries and the pressures of white-dominated society. The term "passing" carries the connotation of being accepted for something one is not. The title of the novel serves as a metaphor for a wide range of deceptive appearances and practices that incorporate sexual, gender, and racial passing. Passing could refer to sexual passing where one disguises their true sexual identity practiced by lesbians and gays in a society. This term can also be related to racial passing which is where a person classified as a member of one racial group (African American) also can be accepted due to appearance as a member of

She runs into Clare Kendry, a light-skinned African American woman from Irene 's long-forgotten childhood past who is married to John Bellew, a successful white businessman who knows nothing of her racial identity and by whom she has had a daughter. The two happen to be passing when the bump into each other on a rooftop restaurant in Chicago. The whole narrative is centered on the emotionally charged relations between two light-skinned African-American women. Both these woman started out in the same place but chose very different paths in

Clare’s identity is defined by her presentation, with the way she appears, how she dresses and her make-up and perfume she puts on. She is once again passing but this time pertaining to her gender. She appears to be playing up the role outwardly as the model woman. The metaphor of Clare’s face as a mask reveals that there is in fact something beneath the surface she is hiding, “Clare’s ivory face was what it always was, beautiful and caressing. Or maybe today a little masked” (220). Clare’s wearing of a mask allows her to be symbolized even more as a sort of heroine because a hero wears a mask but also relates to how she is hiding her true self by wearing a mask. She has masculine traits such as her not being afraid and being willing to do what ever it takes to get the things she wants (65). She has many more masculine traits then feminine. She is not like most women during the 1920’s whose occupation was to be a mother and wife. She does not really care to be a mother and even goes as far as to say, “being a mother is the cruelest thing in the world” (52). She overall is never worried about being a mother or a wife. We never really see Clare worrying about her daughter or husbands happiness only about her own. Irene on the other hand is depicted as a self-sacrificing