Stepping Out Of The Elevator By Clare Larsen

The scene in which Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield reencounter one another after twelve years of separation serves to initiate the reader into the strange phenomenon of passing. Escaping a searing heat of an August day in Chicago, Irene seek refuge in the Drayton, an only white space hotel. While the reader is currently unaware of racial implications, Larsen’s language clearly

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conveys a metaphor of passing. Larsen writes: “Stepping out of the elevator … It was, [Irene] thought, like being wafted upward on a magic carpet to another world, pleasant, quiet, and strangely remote from the sizzling one that [Irene] had left below” (147). Here, passing for white, serves as a social escapism to the black population who lived in a nation

that supported the political, economic, and social oppression of African Americans. However, it is only when Irene becomes aware of another woman’s stare that the reader understands that Irene has been passing herself off as white. After Irene recognizes that the women staring at her is Clare, both of them engage in a long conversation about each other’s lives and understand that each of them have followed very distinct paths. Irene lives an upper-middle class lifestyle. Clare, on the other hand, has spent her life trying to obtain the luxuries Irene and their other wealthier friends have. During their encounter Clare confesses to Irene: “You had all the things I wanted and never had had. It made me all the more determined to get them, and others” (159). Clare’s longing for these things lead her to “pass,” to
live her life as a white woman. Upon first learning about Clare’s lifestyle, Irene “wished to find out more
about this hazardous business of ‘passing,’ this breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one’s chances in another environment, not entirely strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely friendly” (157). Irene uses this definition to describe Clare's passing, but it might just as easily describe her own since, she herself, is passing at this moment in the Drayton hotel. Indeed, whereas Irene passes for convenience, situational and functional passing to escape the difficulties of being Negro, Clare’s passing is a life commitment,

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a means to obtain the economical security that she never had as a child. This revelation establishes the key distinction between Irene and Clare and suggests, that passing is as much a state of mind as a physical act. The title, then, refers both to Clare's actions, demonstrating the usual meaning of the word, and to Irene's actions, implying psychological passing or a sort of “escapism”.
To pass for white was to secure economic opportunities unavailable to most African Americans. In Larsen’s Passing, Clare Kendry passes for white in order to escape poverty and domestic labor. Because Clare has African American ancestry, her white aunts assume their niece possesses an inherent skill and disposition for labor. Therefore, Clare blames her white aunts’ harsh treatment of her for her decision. She explains: “They made me what I am today. For, of course, I was determined to get away, to be a person and not a charity or a problem, or even a daughter of the indiscreet Ham” (159). She uses her ability to pass to gain the things denied to her as a biracial woman during her childhood. Therefore, Clare does not choose to pass simply for economic reasons. By passing for white, Clare hopes to escape her society’s racial, gender, and class enclosures. And it is through her visual aspect that Clare’s constructs her white identity. In fact, the way she appears, how she dresses and the make-up and perfume she puts on helps form her persona. For example, Irene views Clare as an almost work of art: “Clare’s ivory face was what it always was, beautiful and caressing. Or maybe today a little masked. Unrevealing. Unaltered and undisturbed by any emotion within or without” (220). The adjective “ivory” signifies Clare’s whiteness but also carries the connotation of a material solely used for decorative purposes. The metaphor of Clare’s face as a mask reveals that there is in fact something beneath the surface.

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Indeed, by exploring the passing of Clare, Larsen reveals the social construction of race.

For African Americans, passing provides an escape, but it also brought new anxieties and dangers. Clare constantly runs the risk of someone recognizing her as a person with black heritage, especially her husband jack Bellew. Married to a self-proclaimed racist, Clare fears giving birth to a dark child. As she says: “I nearly died of terror the whole nine months before Margery was born for fear that she might be dark. Thank goodness, she turned out all right. But I’ll never risk it again. Never! The strain is simply too—too hellish” (168). Additionally, Clare would like to be part of the black community again more than anything. Clare clearly admits that she lives in isolation. She states to Irene: “For I am lonely, so lonely... cannot help to be with you again, as I have never longed for anything before…. I was glad to be free of... it’s like an ache, a pain that never ceases” (145). The repetition of the word “lonely” reinforces her isolation and it adds conviction and certainty to what she’s saying. Also, being among blacks, brings Clare some sort of liberation that she is unable to experience around white people. This is the beginning of Clare openly admitting that passing for white is not as great as it seemed. However, even as she finds herself drawn to Harlem and her African American friends, she nevertheless continues her marriage to Jack Bellew. Declaring openly the inferiority of blacks, he ironically nicknames his wife “Nig” (170) and tells her: “You can get as black as you please as far as I’m concerned, since I know you’re no nigger. I draw the line at that. No niggers in my family. Never have been and never will be” (171). Bellew’s statement reduces Clare to a disrespectful racial identity, one which Irene also fears she will be reduced to. At the Drayton hotel for example Irene states: “It wasn't that [Irene] was ashamed of being a Negro, or even of

having it declared. It was the idea of being ejected from any place, even in the polite and tactful way in which the Drayton would probably do it, that disturbed her” (150).

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It is the threatening power of exclusion and destruction that Bellew’s words conveys that both women try to escape. Unfortunately, at the end of the novella, Clare’s husband finds out and confronts her with a shout of: “So you’re a damned dirty nigger!” (238). Rather than a dramatic reaction, “Clare stood at the window, as composed as if everyone were not staring at her” (238) and “there was even a faint smile on her full, red lips, and in her shining eyes” (239). What happens exactly after is unknown because all the reader is informed of is that Clare “just fell” (242). Clare's death finds its symbolic meaning in correlation with the term passing as it embodies double meaning. As death signifies the ultimate “crossing over”, Clare’s death allows her to end her “double life”, her passing as white, by actually crossing over. As in by “passing” to the other side.