“It wasn’t that she was ashamed of being a Negro, or even of having it declared. It was the idea of being ejected from any place, even in a polite and tactful way” (Larsen 8). This quote encompasses what it means for an individual to partake in ‘Passing.’ Through the process of passing, citizens of black descent were able to be socially accepted and never excluded from facilities and events that individuals who were declared black were restricted from. Irene and Clare meet up after twelve years of not being in contact. The two are very much alike, however there is one thing that sets them significantly apart. While both women are married, Irene’s husband Brian is aware that she occasionally partakes in passing, but Clare’s white and racist …show more content…
She is still hooked on the idea of not selling Clare’s real identity out, but instead somehow having John figure out that Clare was “spending all the time that he was out of the city in black Harlem” (69). The day Irene was thinking about John and how she would spill the truth, she actually ran into him in downtown New York when she was with her friend Felise. She was indeed caught with a black woman (Felise), but could not seem to find the words and courage to introduce Felise to John as well as the real truth about his wife’s racial background. Here is where Irene is stuck with dealing with “herself.” As mentioned before, she is a black woman who has never passed “except for the sake of convenience, restaurants, theatre tickets, and things like that. Never socially I mean, except once” (70). The “once” that Irene is talking about, is during this very recent moment of talking to John who recognizes Irene as being white. She “herself” is not able to come to grips with exposing the truth about who Clare really is, because in doing so she would be throwing a relationship that she once had with a woman (Clare) who is much like her, under the