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In the first chapter of this book, Irene receives a letter
from Clare that “was a piece with all she knew of Clare Kendry” who was “stepping always on the
edge of danger” (9). This letter causes Irene to recall her encounter with Clare in Chicago,
marking the beginning of the fictional time line of this text. In this beginning, it was “a
brilliant day, hot, with a brutal staring sun pouring down rays that were like molten rain” (12).
This was “A day on which the very outlines of the buildings shuddered as if in protest at the
heat (12). The reader immediately encounters “wilting pedestrians” and “what small breeze there
was seemed like the breath of a flame fanned by slow bellows” (12). Continually emphasized in the
beginning of Passing is this intense heat. While Irene was walking on the Chicago
streets, “right before her smarting eyes” she witnessed a stranger who “toppled over and became
an inert crumpled heap on the scorching cement” (12). Around “the lifeless figure a little
crowd gathered” with questions of “Was the man dead, or only faint” (12). It is noted that
“Irene didn’t know and didn’t try to discover” (12) and instead quickly “edged her way out of
the increasing crowd” where she “for a moment stood fanning herself” (12) until suddenly
"aware that the whole street had a wobbly look, and realized that she was about to faint” (12-13).
Lightheaded, Irene then “lifted a wavering hand in the direction of a cab” and duly “sank down on
the hot leather seat” (13). “For a minute her thoughts were nebulous” and then she informs the
driver that “‘it’s tea I need. On a roof somewhere’” (13).
The ending of Passing, and of the life of Clare Kendry, begins on the sixth floor of an apartment complex at a party in the home of Felise and Dave Freeland. At the party, Irene comments “it seems dreadfully warm in here. Mind if I open this widow?” and then proceeds to “open one of the long casement-windows” (110). Of course, the emphasis on how hot Irene is evokes the beginning of the novel, which opened on “a brilliant day, hot, with a brutal staring sun” (12). Abruptly, Clare’s husband, John Bellew, storms into the party. Having recently discovered Clare’s secret of being part black, he confronts her with a shout of “So you’re a damned dirty nigger!” (111). Rather than a dramatic reaction, “Clare stood at the window, as composed as if everyone were not staring at her” (111). The narrator notes that “she seemed unaware of any danger or uncaring” and that “there was even a faint smile on her full, red lips, and in her shining eyes” (111). In particular “it was this smile that maddened Irene” and causes her to run across the room towards Clare (111) where she lays her hand upon her friend with one thought in her mind, that “she couldn’t have Clare Kendry cast aside” by her husband (111). Yet, exactly what happens thereafter is unknown because “what happened next, Irene Redfield never afterwards allowed herself to remember” (111). All the reader is informed of is that “one moment Clare had been there, a vital glowing thing, like a flame of red and gold” and “the next she was gone” (111). Irene herself later reiterates that Clare “just fell” (113).
What is made clear in these descriptions of Clare’s fall is that it is in some sense out of her own control; the event just happens with no clear explanation. But again this provides a significant parallel with the beginning of this work; once again someone collapses onto a public street and their falling is shrouded in uncertainty. While the cause of the man’s falling is unknown to Irene because she quickly flees the scene, the reason for Clare’s falling being uncertain is because Irene immediately represses this memory. Here, one might argue, in both the beginning and the end of this text the cause of falling is unknown to Irene because she wilfully choses to refuse this knowledge, either by rushing away or repression. In both cases, Irene is unaware of the reason behind the fall because of a necessary distancing of herself, in the beginning physically and in the end psychologically. Moreover, in both instances the person who falls is instantaneously removed from the narrative. The man just “toppled over and became an inert crumpled heap on the scorching cement” (12), Clare "just tumbled over and was gone before you could say Jack Robinson” (113). The connection between the beginning and the end is also reinforced by a syntactic similarity. For example, in the beginning of this novel we discover “what small breeze there was seemed like a breath of a flame fanned by slow bellows” (12). These same images are revisited in the conclusion. At the time of her fall, Clare is “a flame of red and gold (111) with an irate John Bellew lurching towards her. Not only does her approaching husband’s name resemble the word bellow, but at the party he actually "bellows" to Clare “So you’re a damned dirty nigger”(111). Thus, in both the beginning and end of Passing, we find an imagery of bellows moving towards a flame.
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