Passing

Summary

Passing is a short novel in three parts, told in close third person through the consciousness of Irene Redfield, a light-skinned Black woman married to a Harlem physician. It opens with a letter that stirs Irene's memory of an encounter two years earlier. On a hot summer day in Chicago, Irene, who sometimes passes as white for convenience, takes tea on the roof of the Drayton Hotel and finds herself being stared at by a glamorous woman who turns out to be Clare Kendry, a childhood acquaintance. Clare, the daughter of a drunken janitor, was taken in by white aunts after her father's death and has since passed fully into white society, marrying John Bellew, a wealthy white businessman who does not know her ancestry. Clare invites Irene and another old acquaintance, Gertrude Martin, to tea. Bellew arrives, jovially calls his wife by a racial slur as a pet name, and boasts of his hatred of Black people while the three women sit silent. Irene leaves furious and resolves never to see Clare again. Two years later, in New York, Clare writes and then appears, longing to be among Black people again. Despite her misgivings and her fear of exposure, Irene is drawn into Clare's company and brings her to dances and parties in Harlem, including a charity dance for the Negro Welfare League. Irene's marriage to Brian is already strained: he is restless, dreams of emigrating to Brazil, and disagrees with Irene about how frankly to speak to their sons about race and sex. Irene's craving for security colours everything. Gradually she becomes convinced that Brian and Clare are having an affair, though the novel never confirms it. One day, walking with a dark-skinned friend, Irene meets Bellew in the street; he realizes that the woman he knows as his wife's friend is Black, and Irene says nothing to protect Clare. At a party in an upper-floor apartment Bellew bursts in, denouncing Clare. Irene rushes to Clare at the open window, and in the next instant Clare has fallen to her death. Whether Irene pushed her, whether Clare jumped, or whether Bellew was responsible is left deliberately unclear; Irene faints, and the official verdict is death by misadventure. The novel's power lies in this ambiguity and in its portrait of a mind that hides its own motives from itself.

Plot or Argument

• Part One: Encounter

  A letter from Clare prompts Irene to recall their meeting at the Drayton Hotel in Chicago, the tea with Gertrude Martin, and John Bellew's casual racial prejudice toward the wife he believes to be white.

• Part Two: Re-Encounter

  In Harlem, Clare insinuates herself into Irene's social world. Irene's marriage frays, her jealousy grows, and she suspects an affair between Clare and Brian. A chance street meeting lets Bellew guess the truth.

• Part Three: Finale

  At a party, Bellew confronts Clare, who falls from an open window. Irene's role is left ambiguous, and the inquest settles on death by misadventure.

Characters

• Irene Redfield, protagonist, focal consciousness

  Respectable Harlem matron who values security above all and whose repressed jealousy and fear drive the plot.

• Clare Kendry, antagonist and double

  Beautiful, daring woman who has passed into white society and longs to return to Black company.

• Brian Redfield, Irene's husband, a physician

  Doctor who is restless in his life and profession, wants to move to Brazil, and is cynical about race in America.

• John Bellew, Clare's white husband

  Wealthy international banking agent whose open racial prejudice makes Clare's passing perilous.

• Gertrude Martin, old acquaintance

  Another woman passing in marriage, though her husband knows her background.

• Hugh Wentworth, white novelist

  Sophisticated white writer who frequents Harlem society.

• Felise Freeland, friend and hostess

  Irene's friend, in whose apartment the final party takes place.

Lessons

• Identity is performed and policed

  Passing shows race as a social category enforced by gaze, law and family secrets rather than a fixed biological fact. Clare's passing and Irene's occasional passing both expose how arbitrary and dangerous the colour line is.

  • Why does Irene judge Clare's passing while sometimes passing herself?
  • What does Bellew's failure to see his wife's ancestry reveal?

• The unreliable inner voice

  Larsen's focus on Irene's consciousness invites readers to distrust what Irene tells herself. The novel models how fear and envy can be rationalized as concern for safety and family.

  • Is there any evidence beyond Irene's suspicion that Brian and Clare are lovers?
  • Why does Irene think of Clare's death as something she must not remember clearly?
  • What do you believe happened at the window, and why?

• Security versus freedom

  Irene craves stability; Clare and Brian both crave escape. The novel asks what is lost when safety becomes the highest value in a marriage or a life.

  • How does Irene's response to Brian's wish to go to Brazil reflect her values?
  • Is Clare reckless or brave?

Context

Passing appeared at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, in an America of legal segregation in the South, the 'one-drop' rule in law and custom, and widespread anxiety about racial 'passing'. Larsen's own mixed parentage and her estrangement from her white family inform the book's treatment of belonging and exclusion.

Composition

Published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1929, the year after Quicksand. The final sentence of the ending was revised in a later printing, and editions differ on whether the novel ends with the line about Irene's loss of consciousness or adds a further sentence.

Reception

Reviewers in 1929 were generally appreciative but treated it as a minor work. It was largely forgotten until feminist and African American literary scholars revived it from the 1970s and 1980s; it is now widely taught for its treatment of race, sexuality and unreliable consciousness. A film adaptation directed by Rebecca Hall was released in 2021.

Comparisons

• the-scarlet-letter

  Both novels centre on a hidden identity and the social punishment of its exposure; Hester's mark is visible while Clare's secret depends on invisibility.

• the-portrait-of-a-lady

  Larsen's close, ironic focus on a woman's consciousness and her misreading of others echoes James, whose influence on her style is often noted.

• twelve-years-a-slave

  Northup's narrative shows the brutal legal apparatus of race that, two generations later, still structures the choices of Larsen's characters.

• effi-briest

  Both portray a marriage where a secret, once discovered by a husband, leads with grim inevitability to a woman's death.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The opening letter in Part One and how it sends Irene back in memory to the rooftop of the Drayton Hotel in Chicago. The whole novel is filtered through her mind, so ask throughout what she notices and what she refuses to notice.
• The tea at Clare's hotel in Part One, when John Bellew arrives and speaks contemptuously about Black people to three women he does not know are Black. Watch Irene's anger and her silence.
• Irene's arguments with Brian in Part Two about his wish to go to Brazil and about what to tell their sons. Notice how often she uses the word security, or its ideas, to end a conversation.
• The chance meeting on the street in Part Two, when Irene, walking with a dark-skinned friend, meets Bellew and says nothing to protect Clare.
• The final party in Part Three and the moment at the open window. Read the paragraph slowly and note exactly what Larsen tells you and what she leaves out.

Key terms and names

Passing

Living as a member of a racial group other than the one society assigns. Clare has passed completely into white society through marriage, while Irene passes only occasionally, as on the Drayton rooftop, for convenience.

Irene Redfield

The novel's focal consciousness, a respectable Harlem wife and mother married to a physician. Everything the reader learns comes through her perceptions, which are shaped by fear and jealousy she does not admit.

Clare Kendry

Irene's childhood acquaintance, raised by white aunts after her father's death, now married to a white man who does not know her ancestry. Her longing to return to Black company sets the plot in motion.

John Bellew

Clare's wealthy white husband, whose open contempt for Black people makes her secret dangerous. His discovery of the truth leads to the final scene.

Brian Redfield

Irene's husband, a doctor restless in his practice who dreams of emigrating to Brazil. Irene's suspicion that he and Clare are lovers is never confirmed by the novel.

Negro Welfare League dance

The Harlem charity dance in Part Two to which Irene brings Clare. It shows the respectable social world Irene has built and Clare's hunger to enter it.

Death by misadventure

The verdict given on Clare's fall at the end of Part Three, meaning an accidental death. The official phrase closes an inquiry the novel itself leaves open.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension How do Irene and Clare meet again at the Drayton Hotel in Part One, and what has happened in Clare's life since their childhood?
2. Comprehension What does John Bellew say and do at the tea in Part One, and how do Irene, Clare and Gertrude respond?
3. Comprehension How does Bellew discover the truth about Clare in Part Two, and what happens at the party in Part Three?
4. Interpretation Irene condemns Clare's passing, yet she passes herself on the Drayton rooftop. Is she a hypocrite, or does Larsen draw a real distinction between the two women's choices?
5. Interpretation What evidence does the novel give for an affair between Brian and Clare, and what evidence suggests that it exists only in Irene's mind?
6. Interpretation Irene says she values security above everything. How does that value shape her marriage, her treatment of Clare, and her silence when she meets Bellew on the street?
7. Interpretation Why does Larsen leave the fall from the window unexplained? What would be lost if we knew for certain whether Clare jumped, was pushed, or fell?
8. Big Question Irene seems unable to know her own motives. Can a person deceive herself about why she acts, and if so, is she still responsible for what she does?

Faith Connections

• 1 Samuel 16:7 (Scripture)

  When Samuel looks at Jesse's sons, the Lord tells him that man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart. Bellew judges entirely by appearance and is deceived, while the novel keeps directing the reader to Irene's heart, which turns out to be the harder thing to read.

• Jeremiah 17:9-10 (Scripture)

  The prophet calls the heart deceitful above all things and asks who can know it, answering that the Lord searches it. Irene's mind, which hides its envy and fear even from itself, is a close portrait of the heart Jeremiah describes.

• Augustine, Confessions X (Church Fathers)

  In Book X Augustine discovers that his own memory and desires are vast and partly hidden from him, and he says he has become a question to himself. Irene's blurred memory of the window and her uncertainty about her own wishes give a modern instance of the self-opacity Augustine confesses.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Irene believes that safety, for herself, her husband and her sons, is the highest good. Clare's return threatens that safety by bringing risk, exposure and, Irene suspects, rivalry into her home. Because Irene will not admit even to herself how much she fears and resents Clare, those feelings work in secret and shape what she sees and does. The novel thus suggests that a life organized around security, when that security is threatened, can lead a person to harm others while hiding the harm from herself.

Rhetorical device: dramatic irony. At the tea in Part One, Bellew explains his contempt for Black people at length to his wife and two of her guests, unaware that all three are Black. The reader and the women know what he does not, so every word he speaks condemns him and shows the peril of Clare's position.

Debate: Resolved: Irene Redfield is responsible for Clare Kendry's death.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Larsen tells the whole story through Irene's point of view. Using the Drayton rooftop scene, Irene's suspicions about Brian, and the final moment at the window, argue how far the reader can trust Irene's account and what the novel gains by giving us no other narrator.

Comparison with The Scarlet Letter: Hester Prynne's secret is made visible by the letter she must wear, while Clare Kendry's secret depends on remaining invisible. Compare how the two novels treat hidden identity, exposure and the community's judgment, and argue which heroine pays the greater cost for her secret.

Medical Lens

Irene's consciousness is a near case study in anxiety, jealousy and defensive self-deception: headaches, sleeplessness and obsessive suspicion build toward a crisis, and she represses her own memory of the death at the window. Readers have also traced a submerged erotic attraction between Irene and Clare (an influential reading by Deborah McDowell), which should be presented as interpretation. Brian is a physician who dislikes his practice, and his insistence on telling his sons frankly about sex and racial violence sets up a conflict about the 'medical' frankness of the 1920s versus Irene's protective silence. Larsen trained and worked as a nurse, which gives the novel's medical household a quiet authenticity.

• Part One

  Irene, feeling faint in the Chicago heat, takes refuge on the hotel roof and is unnerved by a stranger's stare, with physical symptoms of acute anxiety.

  Neurosis Anxiety
• Part Two

  Disagreements between Irene and Brian over what to tell their sons about sex and lynching; Brian's dissatisfaction with medicine and his wish to go to Brazil.

  Physicians DoctorsSexuality Medicalized
• Part Two–Three

  Irene's growing suspicion of an affair, accompanied by sleeplessness, headaches and intrusive thoughts.

  Neurosis AnxietyPsychology Unconscious
• Part Three (ending)

  Clare's fall from the window and Irene's collapse, followed by her blurred, possibly repressed recollection of the moment.

  Death DyingPsychology Unconscious

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write the final party scene from Clare's point of view in the minutes before Bellew arrives.

• Essay

  Argue for one reading of Clare's death and assess how the novel's narrative method supports and undermines it.

• Dialogue

  Write the conversation Brian and Irene might have had about Brazil had she been willing to go.

Further Reading

• Quicksand, Nella Larsen

• In Search of Nella Larsen: A Biography of the Color Line, George Hutchinson

• The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, James Weldon Johnson

  An earlier passing narrative (1912).

• When Harlem Was in Vogue, David Levering Lewis