l, however, Passing also centers on the complexity of human relationships. The racial dilemmas of the novel “illuminate intricate personal relationships between Clare, Irene and Brian [Irene’s husband]” (Ravitz 393). Passing is told in an omniscient point of view that centers on the life of Irene Redfield. Because of this, her thoughts and feelings remain the backdrop of the story, giving her the benefit of the doubt when it comes to her reactions to the events that transpire.Irene Redfield is a woman whose most prized possession is the security of her life. She regards “all other plans, all other ways…as menaces, more or less indirect, to that security of place and substance which she insists upon for her sons and in a lesser degree for herself” (Larsen 190). This is why her relationship with her husband Brian is strained. She cannot understand why he dreams of moving away from the United States. This would mean change, and Irene does not “like changes, particularly changes that affected the smooth routine of her household” (Larsen 188). The middle class life she so desperately clings to threatens to be torn from her because of Brian’s unhappiness with their life. Eventually, “For the sake of security and control, life with her husband becomes a series of routine gestures, interaction becomes staging, talk becomes dialogue, and relations become the public performing of the privately rehearsed”(192). Brian is “always the attentive husband” to Irene, whose own desire to control her life inevitably threatens to destroy their marriage (Larsen 215). Irene also knows that “prestige and standing in the black community amount to nothing in the absence of her husband” (Gayle 215). This is why Irene becomes determined to keep her marriage together when she feels that Clare is threatening to tear it apart.Irene’s middle class life not only ...
