Nella Larsen's Passing

But what about the children? no one asks in Nella Larsen's Passing. The question, or the thought of the question, gives rise to modes of anxiety to both mothers: For Irene Redfield, trapped in a voiceless passivity imposed by her sons, she sees the counterfeit lifestyle in the simplicity of her blackness; for Clare Kendry, by virtue of her rejection of her daughter's welfare, motherhood is an empty site to be replaced with a desire for escape and re-invention. This paper will explore Larsen's dialectic of motherhood - the hyper-sensitive Irene and perma-detached Clare - and to what ends these versions of motherhood coincide.

The reader is introduced to Ted and Junior on the day Irene Redfield reunites with Clare Kendry, as a symbolic placement of dueling antagonisms. Before her encounter, she shops for them, on an errand for gifts, though the manner in which she buys them suggests the act to be a painstaking chore:

Characteristically, she had put it off until only a few crowded days remained of her long visit. And only this sweltering one was free of engagements till the evening. Without too much trouble she had got the mechanical aeroplane for Junior. But the drawing-book, for which Ted had so gravely and insistently given her precise directions, had sent her in and out of five shops without success. (146)

It is a loveless task and she sweats, not out of the passion for her children, but by the imposition of their demands. Even the toys imply a distance from the mother: Junior's mechanical gewgaw suggests rigidity, a lack of imagination and spark, while Ted's toy, though perhaps in the vein of art and creativity, is more or less viewed as a directive, an order to the mother. Not once in the novel do either of the boys follow Irene's commands: When meeting Clare for the first time, they are rude and shrugging, and their attitudes barely change when Irene attempts to correct their behavior [200-1]. Her children are little adults and the reader sees Irene not as a mother, but as distant and ineffectual sufferer for her children and she will never make them happy.