A Touch of Class: [Insert Subtitle]
Nella Larsen’s short novel Passing centers on the conflict between Irene Redfield and Clare
Kendry, two old schoolmates who are suddenly thrust into each other’s worlds after years of separation.
This conflict, driven by a confusing swirl of race, gender, and class, is succinctly highlighted in a
passage that occurs shortly after the two characters reencounter each other. Sitting alone and thinking
of Clare, Irene muses on the nature of their relationship:
Actually, they were strangers. Strangers in their ways and means of living. Strangers in
their desires and ambitions. Strangers even in their racial consciousness. Between them
the barrier was just as high, just as broad, and just as firm as if in Clare did not run that
strain of black blood. (222-223)
Though Irene’s anger at Clare ostensibly stems from Clare’s outrageous act of passing, this passage
underscores the inadequacy of race to explain her estrangement; Larsen suggests here the illusory
nature of a unifying, essential racial identity in favor of a more complex relationship between race and
class.
While many critics have commented on Passing’s provocative mingling of race and gender, the
foregrounding of those two elements obscures to some extent the commentary on class within the text.
Moreover, even those critics who have noted this deeper layer tend to view it through an unsuitably
narrow lens, treating it primarily as a mere accumulation of wealth, failing to consider the deeper social
implications of financial success. Thus, when framed by a combination of the work of Thorstein
Veblen and Pierre Bordieu, Larsen’s text reveals a deeper and more subversive commentary on both
class and race than previously realized. Specifically, Passing suggests that race functions primarily as
a component and signifier of social class and not a separate method of classification; moreover, race
(specifically, “whiteness”) operates as a kind of symbolic capital that can be employed to enhance one’s
class position.
Larsen's ability to engage with the class-based origins of race are predicated on the
complications that arose with the influx of a wide variety of immigrants in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. These immigrants, many of whom were phenotypically white, resisted easy
integration into the American racial schema. Their presence – and the subsequent court cases that
attempted to define their racial identities – helped break down racial categories in such a way as to
facilitate Larsen's engagement with racial doxa.
Beginning with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the United States began to heavily restrict
the immigration of “undesirable” races. The Chinese, for example, had a moratorium placed on their
immigration in 1882, with only certain high-class occupations excepted. Even then, Chinese emigrants
were denied naturalization rights, preventing them from fully integrating into American political and
cultural life (Lee 36). By the 1920s, similar restrictions on the immigration of other Asian nationals
had lead to twenty-five federal cases that challenged race-based obstacles to citizenship (Ngai 81).
Two cases in particular, Ozawa v. United States and United States v. Thind proved crucial in unraveling
the strict scientific notions of race that had predominated for much of the past century.
As the nineteenth century closed and the twentieth century opened, the courts relied less and
less on the “scientific” definitions of race that had played significant roles in earlier rulings; this
stemmed from the successful employment of scientific categories of race to grant citizenship to
individuals who would otherwise have been classified as non-white. George Najour, for example,
successfully argued his right to citizenship by citing the work of ethnologist A.H. Keane (Ngai 84).
Keane had classified Syrians within the broad field of the Caucasian category, and upon that basis
Najour, a Syrian, claimed that he had sufficient “whiteness” for citizenship (84). With the work of
racial scientists now being used to erode the barriers between whites and non-whites, the courts were
forced to abandon racial science in an effort to protect the color line.
Ozawa v. United States represented a major rift between legal and scientific definitions of race.
As Ngai explains,
The court acknowledged that color as an indicator of race was insufficient, given the
“overlapping of races and a gradual merging of one into the other, without any practical
line of separation.” Yet, the court resisted the logical conclusion that no scientific
grounds for race existed. It sidestepped the problem of classification by simply asserting
that white and Caucasian were one and the same, concluding, with circular reasoning,
that Japanese cannot be Caucasian because they are not white. (84)
Circular reasoning in the federal courts was nothing new, but the recognition of color's insufficiency to
determine race was a significant step toward acknowledging the constructedness of race. Moreover,
the precise equation of the terms “Caucasian” and “white” would give rise to disruption caused by
United States v. Thind.
Thind's case rested on his status as a “high class Hindu, of full Indian blood” (United States v.
Thind). Thind argued that, due to his Aryan roots, and his caste's prohibition on outside marriage, he
qualified as a Caucasian, and therefore, as white (Ngai 84). In response, the court was forced to
backtrack somewhat on the decision it had made in Ozawa, declaring that the while the term
“Caucasian” was a technical term used in ethnology, “'white persons' […] are words of common speech
and not of scientific origin” (United States v. Thind). Indeed, the court essentially rejected the term
“Caucasian” out of hand, troubled by the broad interpretation it was being by ethnographers. Instead,
the court ruled that “the words 'free white persons' are words of common speech, to be interpreted in
accordance with the understanding of the common man” (United States v. Thind). This amounted to an
admission that whiteness defied scientific description, and was rather a matter that could be recognized
by most people.
While Ozawa and Thind represented short-term setbacks for Asian immigrants, they proved to
be crucial turning points in the broader battle of racial classification. The court, having been forced to
untether the concept of race from scientific doctrine, had not only implicitly recognized the
constructedness of race (Ngai 85), but also suddenly made racial classification much more dependent
on observable difference of outward physical signs. This renewed emphasis on color physiology
heightened the power of ambiguously-raced figures to challenge racial classification and point to the
roots of racial doxa.
Thus, Larsen's novel emerged in the context of instability for racial classification; she did not
need to engage the scientific discourse surrounding race directly, as it had been firmly rejected by the
American courts. In its place, Larsen could address the long-obscured intersections between race and
class, as social rank took on an increasingly important role in classifying individuals within the racial
spectrum.
The conflict between the novel’s two main characters, Clare Kendry# and Irene Redfield, stems from
the “unfortunate” paradox of their relationship. Clare, the daughter of a janitor, has risen from her
humble origins to a position that outstrips her childhood friend#’s own considerable social rank. The
lowliness of Clare’s childhood cannot be overstated; Irene’s mental image of Clare is summed up as “a
pale small girl sitting on a ragged blue sofa […] [with a] drunken father, a tall powerfully built man
[who] bellow[ed] curses and ma[de] spasmodic lunges at her” (172). Her father’s death in a “silly
saloon fight” (173) underscores the patronizing fondness (181) that Irene’s father, an accomplished
man and college graduate (183) displayed toward him in life. By contrast, as Jennifer DeVere Brody
notes in “Clare Kendry’s ‘True’ Colors: Race and Class Conflict in Nella Larsen’s Passing,” Irene is
“thoroughly middle class […] went to college, is a member of the Y.W.C.A. committee and the Negro
Welfare League” (1059). Indeed, Brody’s analysis is that “the narrative plays out a racial, sexual and
class war between these characters” (1056, emphasis added).
Irene rankles at the idea that Clare, who had “never been exactly one of the group” (183) (i.e.,
never of sufficient status to run in her social circle) has managed to exceed her in status. She
simultaneously struggles with the feeling of being trapped by the unbreakable bond of race that links
her to Clare: “What she felt was not so much resentment as a dull despair because she could not change
herself in this respect, could not separate individuals from the race, herself from Clare Kendry” (260).#
The root of Irene’s frustration is in her inability to fully understand the deep connections between
race and class. Anthony Dawahare provides a useful context on the class connotations of blackness
during Larsen’s time:
The reification of black people […] as “naturally” fit to be slaves, domestics, unskilled
workers, etc. is the greatest consequence of what I refer to as racial reification. Racial
reification transforms a social relation between the capitalist/slaveholding class and a
section of the working class into a relation between ontological beings conceptualized as
“whites” and “blacks.” (28-29)
Blackness, as Dawahare notes, makes concrete the attribution of working-class status. In the absence
of race, class boundaries are more fluid and permeable. Veblen explains that “[t]he possession of
wealth […] becomes […] a meritorious act. Wealth is now intrinsically honorable, and confers honor
on its possessor” (19). An accumulation of wealth elevates one’s social rank#, potentially permitting
one to move into the envied “leisure class.” Racial reification sharply delimits class, forcing at least a
portion of the population to permanently occupy an inferior social rank.
This concept can be refined by coupling it with Bordieu’s notions of social capital and doxa.
Bordieu would likely agree with Dawahare’s basic point, but would expand the underlying premise:
So it is in the degree of objectification of the accumulated social capital that one finds
the basis of all the pertinent differences between the modes of domination […] [and]
social formations in which, mediated by objective, institutionalized mechanisms, […]
relations of domination have the opacity and permanence of things and escape the grasp
of individual consciousness and power. (184, emphasis added)
What Dawahare terms “racial reification,” Bordieu would consider an example of the “objectification
of social capital.” This reification of intangible (and ultimately arbitrary) value is a crucial component
in class domination and control. As Bordieu explains, “The adherence expression in the doxic relation
to the social world is the absolute form of recognition of legitimacy through misrecognition of
arbitrariness” (168). The doxa of race thoroughly obscures and reinforces class division. Thus, the
hard limit applied to African-American social advancement is misrecognized as a product of an
essential “racial” quality.
Thorstein Veblen offers a helpful metaphor in understanding the nature of racial reification as it
pertains to whiteness. Veblen notes that, given a choice between two spoons, the costlier of the pair
will always have greater value, even if the two spoons are otherwise completely indistinguishable:
The Superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and
supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our
sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty. Our higher appreciation of
the superior article is an appreciation of its superior honorific character, much more
frequently than it is an unsophisticated appreciation of its beauty. (86)
The value of whiteness over blackness operates in an identical way; the supposedly “intrinsic” value of
whiteness is derived from its (arbitrary) “honorific character.” Daware notes that Langston Hughes
himself once commented on this phenomenon: “the word white comes to be unconsciously the symbol
of all virtues” (31).
Dawahare, while missing the broader implications of his concept, nonetheless astutely pins down
one of its applications to Passing: “[…] the institutions and ideologies of modern capitalism reify race
as an indicator of self and social worth. As a result, wealth equals whiteness for Larsen’s protagonists,
and her novels expose how this reification of race operates by converting social relations of class into
ontological concepts that appear natural and universal” (24-25). For Irene, Clare’s “blackness” is
grounded in her humble origins as a janitor’s daughter (Larsen 183). Her confusion, fear, and
resentment stem from Clare’s ability to cross both race and class boundaries; Clare’s acquisition of
“whiteness” is, to Irene, a shocking revelation of her own social inferiority.
Clare’s superior whiteness allows her to exert considerable control over Irene, even as Irene clings to
a lingering sense of superiority. Brody keenly identifies Clare’s power in the text:
Clare slyly invades Irene’s space, and “tossing aside” (193) Irene’s expressions of awe,
“seats herself slantwise# in Irene’s favorite chair” (193). She demands to know why
Irene refused to respond to her gestures. Irene “lit a cigarette, blew out the match, and
dropped it… she was trying to collect her arguments, for some sixth sense warned her”
(194) that Clare Kendry was a formidable adversary. (1060)
This powerful, even menacing influence stems from the bewitching power of Clare’s white beauty.
Irene experiences a “sudden inexplicable onrush of affectionate feeling” that overrides her initial
irritation, and even forces a verbal acknowledgement of Clare’s beauty (225). This white beauty of
Clare’s is the source of “her ability to secure the thing that she wanted in the face of any opposition,
and in utter disregard of the convenience and desire of others” (233).
Indeed, Larsen’s descriptions of Clare – and specifically, Clare’s whiteness – subtly underscore the
value of whiteness as symbolic capital. The words “ivory” and “gold” appear in nearly every
description of Clare, emphasizing not only the intensity of her whiteness, but the material value
associated with it: “[…] she’d always had that pale gold hair [and] the ivory skin had a peculiar soft
luster” (191; other examples on 230, 235, 254).# Dawahare begins to recognize the important
implications in this language: “[Clare] appears intrinsically valuable, but she conceals her family
origins in the working class […] Her white body is remarkable not because of its particularity but
because it functions socially as an abstract symbol of value” (34). Clare’s act of passing is subversive
and threatening because it reveals the arbitrariness of racial doxa. That Clare rose from such humble
class origins only emphasizes the critique implicit in her passing. As Bordieu would put it:
It is when the social world loses its character as a natural phenomenon that the question
of the natural or conventional character […] of social facts can be raised […] In class
societies, in which the definition of the social world is at stake in overt or latent class
struggle, the drawing of the line between the field of opinion, of that which is explicitly
question, and the field of doxa, of that which is beyond question […] is itself a
fundamental objective at stake in that form of class struggle which is the struggle for the
imposition of the dominant systems of classification. (168-169, emphasis added).
By “asking the question” through her passing, Clare threatens the dominant, doxic order in which Irene
herself is (somewhat ironically) a participant.
Though Larsen’s descriptions of Clare already imply the “wealth” of “whiteness,” the legal
perspective of Cheryl Harris further clarifies its reified value. In “Whiteness as Property,” Harris
explores the “valorization of whiteness as treasured property in a society structured on racial caste. In
ways so embedded that it is rarely apparent, the set of assumptions, privileges, and benefits that
accompany the status of being white have become a valuable asset” (1713). In her comprehensive
essay, Harris explores the extensive historical background of the value of “whiteness”, and identifies
key court cases that recognize its “property” value. An exhaustive review of Harris’ work is not the
aim of this paper, but some key passages are particularly helpful and illustrative:
Property may “consist of rights in ‘things’ that are intangible, or whose existence is a
matter of legal definition.” Property is thus said to be a right, not a thing, characterized
as metaphysical, not physical […] the fact that whiteness is not a “physical” entity does
not remove it from the realm of property […] Whiteness is not simply and solely a
legally recognized property interest. It is simultaneously an aspect of self-identity and
of personhood […] According whiteness actual legal status converted an aspect of
identity into an external object of property. (1725)
Thus, by Larsen’s time, through such court cases as Plessy vs. Ferguson, whiteness had already legally
been objectified as a valuable good in and of itself; racial reification was enforced by the courts and
transformed whiteness into a (nearly) literal object as well as an intangible aspect of identity.
The legal trend toward the end of the nineteenth century indicates an imperative need to avoid the
shift of racial classification from a matter of doxa to orthodoxy; that is, a shift from an immutable,
incontrovertible (even unspoken) truth to a matter of contention and question. As Harris explains,
In adjudicating who was “white,” […] if an individual’s blood was tainted, she could not
claim to be “white” as the law understood, regardless of the fact that phenotypically she
may have been completely indistinguishable from a white person, may have lived as a
white person, and have descended from a family that lived as whites. Although socially
accepted as white, she could not legally be white. (1739)
The law had an interest in reifying the concept of race, lest mixed-race individuals who passed should
erode its power. Candice Jenkins quotes Robert Reid-Pharr in noting that by 1920, the US census had
removed the word “mulatto,” leaving only “Negro” (146, quoted in Jenkins). As passing became more
widely recognized (and, presumably, common) it therefore became essential to further reify race
through the adoption of a strict, doxic “one-drop” rule.
E.F. Frazier’s Black Bourgeoisie: The Rise of a New Middle Class in the United States offers
additional insight into the need for this racial retrenchment. Frazier notes that the “small upper class”
of blacks who migrated to Northern cities after the Civil War was largely composed of mulattoes raised
in the “genteel tradition.” Many of these families “took pride in the fact that a mulatto ancestor could
not be distinguished in his physical appearance, dress, manners, and speech from his white halfbrother” (98). The ability of such families to cross both racial and class lines made reification through
racial redefinition (or at least, a refinement of the definition) absolutely essential to protect the interest
of the dominant class. Thus, figures such as Clare Kendry provided the impetus for legal redoxifying
by illustrating the ease with which such property could be appropriated by those to whom it did not
“belong.”#
While one might think that Irene, as a black woman, should align herself with a campaign of
destroying racial doxa, some historical context helps clarify her own confused feelings on the matter.
In “Decoding Essentialism: Cultural Authenticity and the Black Bourgeoisie in Nella Larsen’s
Passing,” Candice Jenkins comments (quoting Kevin Gaines) on “uplift ideology […] the belief among
middle class blacks in the late nineteenth century that ‘rights and freedom would accrue to those who
had achieved the status of respectability” (135, quoted in Jenkins). As a result of a desire to shed
stereotypes that equated blackness with low social rank, the black middle class developed a new
urgency in distinguishing themselves from their working-class brethren, and according to Jenkins,
“such renegotiations of black identity were attempts to grant middle-class African Americans a greater
power over the imagined boundaries of their community” (136). Indeed, Jenkins, quoting Robert Reid
Pharr, goes on to clarify the significant problem posed by mixed-race figures in this period: “’much of
the effort on the part of black writers was to erase the prior distinction that had once existed between
the black and the mulatto,’ suggesting the constructedness of the racial grouping we now understand as
‘black’” (146). By policing racial and class boundaries, Irene protects her own interests by reinforcing
the structures that allow her to occupy a superior social station.
Irene, as a member of the black bourgeoisie, is quite naturally threatened by Clare’s
transgressive abolition of boundaries between herself and working-class blacks. Indeed, Irene’s first
negative reaction to Clare (before she even recognizes her) is prompted by her familiarity with a
(presumably) black waiter:
Irene saw her smile up at him as she murmured something […] It was an odd sort of
smile. Irene couldn’t quite define it, but she was sure that she would have classed it
coming from another woman, as being just a shade too provocative for a waiter. About
this one, however, there was something that made her hesitate to name it that. A certain
impression of assurance, perhaps. (177)
After recognizing Clare, Irene revises her appraisal of Clare’s smile: “Now Irene was sure that it was
too provocative for a waiter” (180). Clare’s familiarity with the waiter rankles Irene because it
suggests the constructedness and arbitrariness of her own class distinction; Clare’s familiarity with the
waiter, founded on a recognition of shared origins and the arbitrariness of both class and race, erases
some of the boundaries that Irene uses to separate and elevate herself from him. As Brody puts it,
“Clare continually collapses the distance between Irene and ‘the masses’” (1057). Indeed, Irene’s
chance encounter with Clare is facilitated precisely because of her distaste for the lower class, as she
retreated to the Drayton to escape the feeling of being “damp and sticky and soiled from contact with
so many sweating bodies” (175).
Especially telling is that Irene’s own acts of passing reinforce the doxic notions of class and race.
When Irene passes in order to enjoy a cool drink and avoid contact with her social inferiors, she
implicitly affirms both race and class hierarchies. Because of her wealth and status (and the ability that
her light skin gives her to permeate racial boundaries), Irene does not feel limited by these hierarchies;
rather she cherishes them because of the benefits they entail, such as a friendly relationship with
famous individuals like Hugh Wentworth, and the ability to (literally) look down on others: “she […]
looked out over some lower buildings […] gazing down for some time at the specks of cars and people
creeping about in the streets, [...] thinking how silly they looked” (176). Irene’s place in the dominant
class and Clare’s lack of shame over her own origins inevitably put the two in conflict with one
another: ”The dominated classes have an interest in pushing back the limits of doxa and exposing the
arbitrariness of the taken for granted; the dominant classes have an interest in defending the integrity of
doxa [sic]” (Bordieu 168-169).
Furthermore, acts of passing are essential for Irene to fully enjoy her (perceived) status. Meredith
Goldsmith asserts in “Shopping to Pass, Passing to Shop: Bodily Self-Fashioning in the Fiction of
Nella Larsen” that “Larsen’s protagonists […] manipulate their bodies to gain access to objects of elite
consumption […] each is passing, Irene for a day and Clare for life, to enjoy the pleasures of the white
leisure class” (97, 111). Indeed, she goes on to argue that “the racial masquerade of Passing permits
the appropriation of class identity” (109). Both Irene and Clare engage in this activity with their acts of
passing, but Clare clearly understands the process and its implications. As Goldsmith puts it, “Clare
accepts, while Irene denies, the relationship between these terms” (110). While Clare refuses to be
denied the comforts of consumption by class and race because of their constructedness, Irene passes
because she views those comforts as rightfully hers, owing to her superior social station and her high
level of “whiteness”.
Clare’s self-conscious, transgressive act of passing is thus a direct challenge to everything that Irene
holds dear. As the novel progresses, Irene exhibits increasing anxiety about her “security”:
Was she never to be free of it, that fear which crouched, always, deep down within her,
stealing away the sense of security, the feeling of permanence, from the life which she
had so admirably arranged for them all, and desired so ardently to have remain as it
was? That strange, and to her fantastic, notion of Brian’s of going off to Brazil […] how
it frightened her, and – yes, angered her! (217)
It is unsettling enough that Irene’s husband is growing dissatisfied with the boundaries of race and class
in America; Clare’s direct assault on those very concepts (and Brian’s subsequent attraction to her)
threatens to destroy not only all of Irene’s carefully-guarded privilege, but her very sense of self.
In “Deauthenticating Community: The Passing Intrustion of Clare Kendry in Nella Larsen’s
Passing,” Josh Toth provides a helpful explanation of the way in which Clare (and indeed, all who
cross boundaries of race and class) attacks Irene’s world:
My individuality is determined by the community of being to which I ostensibly belong
[…] By implication, and quite paradoxically, I am a singular and coherent entity only
insofar as I am (in one way or another) indistinguishable from a certain communal
whole, or plurality. As a result, if my identity as an individual is ambiguous or unfixed –
if I do not clearly belong anywhere – then I disrupt the stability of the communities to
which I only seem to belong […] Characters who refuse to align or identify themselves
with the communities to which their lineage […] assigns them deny their origins and, by
implication, the communal stability upon which their coherence as individuals is based
(55).
Irene, a woman obsessed with her social standing and the preservation thereof, cannot conceive of
herself outside of that classification; for Clare to destroy the very concept that gives Irene a sense of
identity, of being, is an act of violence not merely against the structures that Irene embraces, but also
against Irene herself. Irene’s lethal reaction to Clare is thus a proportionate response; faced with the
annihilation of her self, Irene feels forced to destroy Clare with a “terror tinged with ferocity” (271).#
Beyond the self-definition that class offers Irene, Larsen also alludes to a symbiotic relationship
between high-ranking whites and blacks that aligns her against Clare. Irene cherishes her friendship
with Hugh Wentworth, (“the Hugh Wentworth”) a man who has “[L]ived on the edges of nowhere in at
least three continents [and] [b]een through every danger in all kinds of savage places” (229).
Wentworth’s high social rank is derived from his immersion in the world of exploit (Veblen 14-17),
and accordingly, those who share his company can capture some of his reflected glory. Irene’s
relationship with him is grounded in the curious practice that Irene explains to a confused Clare:
This, Irene told her, was the year 1927 in the city of New York, and hundreds of white
people of Hugh Wentworth’s type came to affairs in Harlem, more all the time. So many
that Brian had said: “Pretty soon the colored people won’t be allowed in at all, or will
have to sit in Jim Crowed sections.” “What do they come for?” “Same reason you’re
here, to see Negroes.” (229)
This strange racial mingling is clarified through the employment of Veblen’s concepts of conspicuous
consumption and waste, through which a member of the leisure class displays his wealth, and in so
doing, advertises his advantageous position.
If whiteness functions both as social and material capital, the practices of Wentworth and other
whites like him fit the Veblenesque model nicely:
The quasi-peaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life
beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his
consumption also undergoes a specialization as regards the quality of the goods
consumed. He consumes freely of the best, in food, drink, narcotics [etc.] […] Since the
consumption of these more excellent goods is an evidence of wealth, it becomes
honorific. (52-53)
Wentworth displays a surplus of whiteness by distributing it amongst those without such capital,
specifically, the upper-class blacks with whom he socializes. In so doing he acquires even more
“honor,” because he can be selective regarding those blacks with whom he chooses to associate.
Wentworth does not merely “go slumming” amongst the working class; rather, he hobnobs with the
elite of the black bourgeoisie, consuming their company much as he would a fine wine or tobacco.
Viewed through this new lens, Larsen’s text becomes even more subversive than traditionally
thought, as its reduction of race to a component of class even more aggressively attacks the concept of
racial essentialism than the mere act of passing. To read race as a class signifier in America, where (in
the popular mind at least) class is exceptionally fluid, is to profoundly and powerfully erase the
traditional boundaries that have separated vast segments of the American population. To continue to
view race as a separate construct, however, is to continue to reify it and allow it to wield considerable
power over our consciousness.