Clare and Irene Essay

With an African American man running for president, the United States has been more(prenominal) focused on prevail in the last year than both time in the last several decades, but much of the focus has been on the concept that race doesnt matter. For the characters in Nella Larsens Passing, race was everything and although race relations have improve since 1929 when the book was published, it is impossible to believe that race is not mollify a major factor in the development of personal identity and in social interactions.In the novel, Clare and Irene choose different paths because of their race and in bitterness of it. Clare hides her past, and her heritage, passing for white while Irene ashes a part of the black community of Harlem. Perhaps because of her own mixed ethnicity, Larsen is able to tell the story from the stall of both women, both ashamed and confused by the impact that their race has on their lives. Clare spends much of the book assaying to hide her heritage an d Irene revels in hers.Had Larsen scripted at a different time, she might have had Clare suffer some grand cosmic punishment for her deception, but in Passing it is more Irene who suffers for her choice. Because she remains a part of the black community, she suffers discrimination and humiliation that would have been spared a white woman. The most interesting facet of this novel is that it still enlightens us at once about the impact of race on personal identity. Michael Jackson has long been the brunt of many jokes with tabloid speculation that he was lightening his skin, trying to become more white.On the other side of the argument, many African Americans, especially in the rap recording industry, try to make themselves more racially separated than they very are. This is even true in the race for the White House as every time Barack Obamas race is mentioned, someone takes great care to present out that his father was an African, not a black American. The underlying tone of the r acism in American society today is well-reflect in Larsons novel. oft like Clare and Irene, America today is not acknowledging its racial history and how that impacts the way people think and act.The hardest part for Clare and Irene comes in the discovery that Clare has been passing as white. formerly she is discovered, she is brutalized by fellow African Americans who think they are giving her what she deserves because she has tried to put on airs and act white. She is assumed guilty of any account of other crimes because she lied about her ethnicity and Irene, who often was jealous of the decision that Clare made, feels that she should do nothing to stop the prejudice on both sides because Clare made the decision to try passing.Historically speaking, the idea of passing is made much more poignant when we recall Plessey v. Ferguson in which a quadroon man, one quarter black but opened of passing for white, challenged the laws about a white only railroad car. He was convicted an d the court went all the way to the Supreme Court which ruled, at that time (1896) , that any African blood made you black, whether you could pass for Caucasian or not. Obviously, Larsen understood this ruling and its impact on her own life and the life of her fellow citizens of Harlem.