The thing I find most striking about Passing so far is the relationship between Irene and Clare. Irene is often irritated by Clare and frequently vows to stop speaking to her. Yet each time Irene sees Clare, she is overcome with warm feelings toward her and gives in to all of Clare's wishes. Clare has a certain magnetic quality, perhaps due in part to her beauty, that keeps drawing Irene back to her.
The two characters are also drawn together by what appears to be a mutual fascination with each other. Irene is both horrified and fascinated by Clare's chosen lifestyle of constantly passing. Clare, meanwhile, yearns to reconnect with the African-American community and sees Irene as her key to be able to do this. Clare sometimes feels used because of this, but ultimately continue her relationship with Clare because of her continued fascination and enchantment. Irene's feelings are very strong but they alternate depending on Clare's presence. She seems to have a love-hate relationship with Clare.
3 comments:
I agree. I really think Irene is fascinated with Clare because Clare gets to do what she wants to, with it appears no real remorse. While Irene feels she has a duty to her family and her children. On the other hand, Irene has what Clare wants, at least by outward appearances. A connection with other African Americans, and a life, she assumes is not based on lies.
The realtionship between Clare and Irene was complex and confusing throughout the book. It is almost like they want what the other one wants. I think it's interesting that in the end Irene realizes that she is lucky to want to be a good mom. She had to destroy Clare in order to save her family. Clare really didn't care about her family and was living on a lie.
In the begining of the book Clare was the more developed character, as the novel carried on we see Irene develope and become more fo the main character!
I think the same thing about clare and irene relantionship. Clare beauty i think definitly plays a part in their relantionship in a kind of a weird way. Clares beauty kind of has control over Irene's chooses sometimes. For example when she told zulema that she didnt want to see her then she said ok send her in she was going to tell her what she was feeling but then told her how beautiful she was. Which was weird but at teh same time is an advantage that clare has over irene that seems to be so strong.
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