Passing Nella Larson

Nella Larson was an African American writer during the Harlem Renaissance. After Larson was born in 1891, her Danish mother left her mulatto father and remarried a white man. Being the only member of color, Larson was an outcast with her family and their peers. At the same time, she was lighter skinned than most people of color, so she was an outcast to them as well. This left Larson struggling both with identifying herself and with whom to identify with. Larson uses this personal struggle as the backbone of her widely acclaimed novel, Passing. Published in 1928, Passing is an intricate story told through the eyes of a middle aged, African American woman named Irene Redfield. Like Larson, Irene has a light complexion, and she is even able to

pass as a white woman in certain situations. Also like Larson, she is married to a successful, black physician, and they live in Harlem in the 1920s.

The other main character, Clare Kendry, is another light skinned, colored woman; however, she is married to a white man and is actually passing for a white woman. Through these two characters, Larson conveys how easy it is to lose one’s sense of self and her belief that it is a tragedy for human beings to live inauthentically.
Larson uses the character of Irene to demonstrate how easy it is to lose one’s sense of self. At the start of the narrative, Irene comes off as an intelligent, reliable woman who is quite sure of herself; however, as she interacts more with Clare, it is quite clear that Irene is becoming infatuated with her. “She remembered her own little choked exclamation of admiration, when, on coming downstairs a few minutes later than she had intended, she… had found Clare there. Clare, exquisite, golden, fragrant, flaunting, in a stately gown of shining black taffeta, whose long, full skirt lay in graceful folds about her slim golden feet;

her glistening hair drawn smoothly back into a small twist at the nape of her neck; her eyes sparkling like dark jewels” (Larsen 53).This seems to shake and confuse Irene since she is married and seemingly has never felt this way towards another woman. Instead of embracing this homosexual side of her, Irene fights these feelings more and more, and eventually they cause her to become paranoid and obsessive. She believes her husband is having an affair with Clare, even though she has no grounds to believe that this is true. She feels that her marriage is falling apart and blames this on Brian’s infidelity, but in reality it is her own desire for Clare that is causing her to think this way. Irene is unwilling to accept her true feelings for Clare, so she is conjuring up a false narrative in order to give her an excuse to reject Clare. She lets this snowball to the point until Irene finally decides that she must be “rid forever of Clare” (Larsen 69). Once a strong woman who was proud of her husband and position in life, Irene transformed into an insecure, paranoid woman who believed her husband was cheating on her due to the fact that she was unable to come to grips with a side of her that she had never faced before.
While the progression of Irene’s psychological breakdown is evidence of how easy it is to lose one’s identity, the culmination of this breakdown, Clare’s death, is a demonstration of the tragic nature of not living true to one’s self.

For most of her life, Clare is passing for a white woman and marries a racist, white man. She expresses no regret about deserting her identity in order to propel her own socioeconomic status, and even goes so far as to say that “to get the things I want badly enough, I’d do anything, hurt anybody, throw anything away. Really ‘Rene, I’m not safe’” (Larsen 58). One expects a person in her situation to be racked with uncertainty or guilt about ditching her roots for superficial gains, but Clare shows no signs of either of these. While this appears to be advantageous for getting exactly what she wants in life, it turns out too good to be true as her husband finds out just before Clare’s tragic death. The cause of her death is left unclear, and this ambiguity serves to emphasize just how hopeless and tragic this situation was. If one believes that Clare killed herself, it could be interpreted as her not being able to handle the strain of keeping up this false identity as a white woman. If one believes that Irene pushed her, it could be interpreted as Irene not being able to handle her personal battle with her sexuality. If one believes it was just an accident, it could be interpreted as being symbolic for the wrath she would’ve faced from her

husband and the community she had been a part of for much of her life. Whichever version one believes, it can lead him or her to the same conclusion, which is that Clare’s death could’ve been avoided had Clare and Irene been true to themselves and embraced their identities instead of trying to pass as something they were not. Ultimately, Larson shows that passing as something you are not for an extended period of time can lead to the restriction of a person’s individuality to the extent of death or psychological suicide.
The two main characters of this novel represent different facets of Larson’s struggle with her identity throughout her life. Clare represents the side of her who, growing up as an outsider surrounded by white people, must’ve wished at some point that she was white, or at least that she could simply be viewed as an equal. Although it would have been possible for her to pass as white for a while, she battled through her own anxieties about this rejection and learned to accept her position. On the other hand, Irene represents her ongoing insecurity that although she may feel confident about her family and who she is at the moment, she may find herself in a position where she must fight to accept a new aspect of herself. Through this narrative, Larson has given the reader a very intimate insight into lessons she has learned and battles she has fought with herself. Hopefully, others who also struggle with their identities can read this and realize it would be a tragedy to go through life passing as someone they are not.