Passing by Nella Larsen
...f her real identity would lead to her ejection. Even the reader is unaware of Irene’s race until Clare’s staring at her causes her to panic and wonder if her blackness has been revealed. Irene, until she discovers that Clare is her schoolmate, is entirely convinced that she is a white, upper class woman. They both succeed to cross the color line mainly because of their external appearance. Passing requires the face, skin color, body type, style and behavior which make easy profiling very difficult. With the right appearance and behaviour, passers are able to “fool” the whites, which challenges the idea of race. Not even Clare’s racist husband suspects his wife’s and her two friends’ race, though he ironically calls her “Nig”. All the said above proves that the act of passing challenges racial binarisms and definitions of the early twentieth century. Irene passes not by adopting entirely new white identity as Clare does, but “only” by adopting white values and behaviour. Irene’s and Clare’s ability to pass shows the flexibility of race barriers, even when race is defined only as a social construct with no physical indicators. Clare is an ultimate passer – she moves easily in and out of social classes and crosses the color line. Clare says about her passing that “nothing could have been easier ”. Irene laughs from those white people who think they can spot a black person by “ the most ridiculous means, fingernails, palms of hands, shapes of ears, teeth and other equally silly rot”. She says that she was always thought to be an Italian, a Spaniard, a Mexican or a gipsy but “never, when she was alone, had they even remotely seemed to suspect that she was a Negro” . We see another example of how passing challenges racial binarisms when Clare, Irene and Gertrude mention their schoolmate Claude Jones and they say that “he was no longer a Negro or a Christian but he had become a Jew ”. The act of passing also causes identity crises and difficulties in self-definition among the people that are passing. Clare, although considered legally black, wants to be able to identify herself with both races – black and white. Passing as white causes her to feel lonely and feel as though she is not truly part of either race and she is confused of which race to identify with. Clare can’t be defined – she is what she wants to be, in her case identity means performance (opposite to the race which is given). Also Bellew’s discovery of his wife’s true identity challenges racial binarisms. When he discovers the truth about her heritage he calls her “a nigger, a damned dirty nigger”. And despite the fact that Bellew condemns Clare for being a black, it looks like he still loves her when he shouts after her falling out (or being pushed) from the window “Nig! My God! Nig?”. By discovering that his wife is not white he also realizes that he cannot draw a line between the whites and the blacks. We can say that the act of passing is a tool to subverting racial binarisms and proves that race cannot be fixed and it can be confusing to classify people to different groups according to this parameter. The actions of the passing character are often disputed in the novel, both by Irene, who is a narrator, and by Clare. Although Irene passes by herself, consciously or unconsciously, she criticizes Clare for doing so. She doesn’t do it directly but she expresses her disapproval of such practices by sa...