In fact, on the fateful day of their reunion, both women are passing for white. The Drayton is an exclusive hotel, and not one in which African Americans, or Negroes, to use the parlance of the day, would be welcome. Irene and Clare have not seen each other in twelve years when they reunite by chance on the roof of the Drayton Hotel in Chicago, where both women are enjoying a respite from a blazing hot August day. ‘Passing’ is a meditation on the uneasy dynamic between social obligation and personal freedom. It is a universal story of the messiness of being human as it is portrayed in the particularly explosive relationship between two black women, Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield. Passing is about hypocrisy and fear, secrecy and betrayal. It reveals the power of desire to transform and unhinge us, and the lengths to which we will go to get what we want. The novel is an indictment of consumer culture and the dangers it poses to personal integrity. It dramatizes the impossibility of self-invention in a society in which nuance and ambiguity are considered fatal threats to the social order. It is a meditation on the uneasy dynamic between social obligation and personal freedom. It is about changing definitions of concepts like race and gender, and the inextricable relationship between whiteness and blackness. Passing is about the monumental cultural transformations that took place in American society after World War I. To describe it simply as a novel about a black woman passing for white would be to ignore the multiple layers of its concerns. Passing is a work of fiction, but it is a true story about the world in which its author, Nella Larsen, lived. Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work.
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