what she has as an African American. She “used to go over to the south side, [and] used to almost hate all [African Americans]. [They] had all the things [she] wanted and never had had. It made [her] all the more determined to get them” (Larsen 159). In order to get what she wants Clare marries a white man, John Bellows, under the pretense that she is white. Clare is then required to “deny everything about her past – her girlhood, her family, her language, places with memories, folk customs, folk rhymes, her language, [and] the entire long line of people that have gone before her” (Washington 50). She realizes that this is the only way she can get the middle-class stability she craves. It is obvious that Clare eventually pays a price for this stability that she feels is so necessary in her life. Passing for Clare, “entails secrecy, deception, loss of identity, and eventually tragedy. It means to be separated from a lifestyle which offers up romantic image of sensation…and to lose something of one’s soul” (Gayle 113). The fact that she has to deny her identity in order to feel safe eventually leads to her realization that her life has become a lie. Clare tells Irene that she “nearly died of terror the whole nine months before Margery [her daughter] was born for fear that she might be dark” (Larsen 168). Her husband even calls her “Nig” as a nickname, completely unaware of her African American status. Eventually, Clare realizes that she is “not close to a single soul…[with] never anyone to talk to” (Larsen 196). Although Clare’s desire to return to the African American community outwardly seem merely whimsical, inwardly Irene begins to see “something groping, and hopeless, and yet so absolutely determined” inside this woman (Larsen 200). Clare will stop at nothing to leave the life she once desired in order to re-e...
