We have the story from Irene's point of view. Did you like her?
I had a lot of sympathy for her, which veered into pity when it became apparent how desperate she was to keep her marriage intact, to the point that she would, if necessary, endure a mere "shell" of a marriage so long as it appeared normal and whole to the outside world. Any thoughts on why this appearance was so paramount to her?
My sympathy for her also took a hit when it became apparent how determined she was to squelch her husband's South American dreams. I could see why she wouldn't be keen on the idea, and I admired her for claiming her citizenship so ardently and refusing to be chased out of her own country to supposedly greener pastures (at least in regard to race relations), but she was just so uncompromising and rigid (and unadventurous, I would add) about it. It's like she didn't really care about how miserable he might be so long as he didn't openly manifest his misery in a way that upset her nicely ordered life. I'm not saying she should have abandoned her own dreams to follow her man! But it seems like she could have handled the conflict in a less manipulative, more empathetic way. What do you think?
Also, do you think the differences in their skin color greatly affected their outlooks? Irene considered herself black and valued her heritage, but she also was routinely mistaken for white when she was out in public, so maybe she didn't feel the brutality of racism in the same personal way that her darker husband did?
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Hmm ... I think my liking for her shifted throughout the book. Like you, I could see why she would clamp down on Brian's dream to go to South America, but I also think she could have tried harder to find some sort of compromise, or at least considered his feelings more.
ReplyDeleteGreat point about the differences in skin color - I hadn't considered that before, but it makes a lot of sense.
Perhaps the time I felt most sorry for Irene is near the end, when she ponders security: "Was it just a word? If not, then was it only by the sacrifice of other things, happiness, love, or some wild ecstasy that she had never known, that it could be obtained? And did too much striving, too much faith in safety and permanence, unfit one for these other things?"
Yes! That passage stood out to me as well. It was a moment of reckoning for her in which she was weighing how she had lived her life vs. how she might have lived it. And, you know, it reminded me a lot of the Edith Wharton novella we read, "The Old Maid," where the main character, Delia, had opted for a life of security and propriety, renouncing her youthful dreams of passion, only to spend her mature years wondering precisely what she had missed — and she even had some of that mixture of admiration and hostility for her supposed romantic rival as Irene had for Clare. (The New York setting also reminded me of Wharton).
ReplyDelete(Larsen is really, really good, I think.)
I'm with you guys on the South America thing. It bothered me that she didn't seem to even consider trying it for Brian's sake. She could have been less rigid about it, especially if her marriage was as important to her as she claimed.
ReplyDeleteGreat point about the Wharton book! There are definite parallels.
Why would Irene settle for a shell of a marriage? I'm not sure, although she did seem to be pretty concerned with her social status in the community and making a good appearance at dances and teas and such.
My impression was this was a story of more than just Clare's "passing" -- that Irene underwent a form of it as well, and that the world she had built through her marriage was key to maintaining it.
ReplyDeleteClare escaped being "Negro" by moving in society as a white woman. Irene embraced her heritage, but her ability to live with it depended by moving in a highly orchestrated and protected society. She wanted a well-to-do man with a career above reproach. She wanted tea parties and concerts and society living with others like her and the white people intelligent enough to embrace their intellectual and cultural contributions . And she never had to leave that world if she didn't want to -- her encounter with Clare's husband showed how she had (understandably) sheltered herself from hostility and intolerance. She was ready to do that with her sons, too -- ship them off to some private school where names and insults couldn't reach them. Or maybe she wasn't passing, she was hiding. She could claim her race as long as she got to stay in a protective, insular community.
If Brian took them out of that community (or if she lost her status in it with his departure), she wouldn't have that protection, and her sons might not, either. No, keeping the status quo was her aim at all costs, and to her that would seem like a sacrificial thing to do, because it would protect the four of them whether it made them happy or not.
Cl, I love that "hiding" vs. "passing" analysis! Brilliant.
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