ENGL 6600: Critical Methodology

This is the cover from the first edition of Wide Sargasso Sea (1966).

This is from the Norton Paperback Edition and is an illustration by Pierre Mornet. I find interesting here Antoinette’s “colouring” and its resemblance to Gaughin’s portraits of Tahitian women.

And of course the Penguin Classics Edition...

Rhys uses colour in Wide Sargasso Sea to produce a textual landscape flush with life and sensuality. Her language is evocative, and there is a case to be made for its painterly qualities, i.e. the way it creates a world out of the strokes of her language, which is at once lush and masterfully spare. More so than merely attempting to paint a vivid “canvas” on which her story can unfold however, colour serves a more symbolic and subtle function in the text. The first thing that struck me was the fact that “orange” is not used once as a colour, only as a descriptor of the fruit that is the source of the colour’s name. Rochester notes that he could smell “cloves… and cinnamon, roses, and orange blossom” (66), there grew a “Seville orange tree at the end of the veranda” (93), and another “wild orange tree covered with fruit, the leaves a dark green” grows near the ruins of the stone cottage Rochester finds in his wanderings (95). Rhys instead uses “yellow-red” to describe objects, both natural and man-made, that are “orange” in hue. Interestingly, “yellow-red” was, at one point, a word in itself: native to England before the citrus fruit was brought back from more tropical climates, “giolureade” and “ȝolwer[e]de” were used in 1050 and 1398 respectively (OED). Orange’s first recorded use as a colour in English was not until 1557 in a statute concerning sumptuary laws (OED). My point in this is not to give a detailed history of the use of colour in the English language, merely to suggest my line of thinking as I began to look more closely at the prevalence of “yellow” in Rhys’s text.

While on a very facile level, “yellowness” might connote warmth, light, and health – it serves a different function in Wide Sargasso Sea. While not a fully developed theory, I have observed that to Rochester yellow is that which is strange, sick, and “Other” about the Grambois and the island on which it was built. It is to him the colour of fever, the colour of Christophine’s kerchief, the colour of Daniel Cosway’s skin, and eventually comes to be the colour of his wife Antoinette. He awakes after his first night on the island “in the yellow-green light, feeling uneasy” as his new wife lays next to him (76); he is repulsed by Daniel’s “thin yellow face,” his “yellow sweating face” (110, 113), and Daniel mocks him: Antoinette has a “pretty face, soft skin, pretty colour – not yellow like me. But my sister just the same …” (114). This use of “yellow” is of course a reference to Daniel’s mixed-race ancestry. We have discussed the use of “yellow” in this context when reading Passing, and there is no doubt that this scene is meant to connote that definition, but to dismiss his sallowness and wan colouring as merely metaphor diminishes the striking visual impact of that “thin yellow face” on Rochester. Yellow, to him, serves as a physical and palpable manifestation of this place and people’s alterity, an “otherness” that he finds both insidious and immanent.

Though Cosway claims that Antoinette is not “yellow” like him, Rochester symbolically imbues that “yellowness” in her – a manifestation of his anxieties about her pedigree and past:

Then I saw her shiver and remembered that she had been wearing a yellow silk shawl. I got up (my brain so clear and cold, my body so weighted and heavy). The shawl was on a chair in the next room, there were candles on the sideboard and I brought them on to the veranda, lit two, and put the shawl around her shoulders (117).

Rochester quite literally here “clothes” his wife in the “yellow” he believes exists within her – that “otherness” that she embodies and is so hateful to him. “I was too giddy to stand and fell backwards on the bed,” he recalls “looking at the blanket which was of a peculiar shade of yellow” before immediately retching out the window (125): the yellowness now induces a physical and visceral sickness that he can no longer abide. “It’s red in parts of England too” Rochester explained to Antoinette as they made their way to Grambois, but it is yellow and all that the colour represents that belongs solely to the West Indies and its inhabitants.

-- Sarah

I found the reoccurring image of birds, insects and fire very interesting as we know that this there is a history with this and fire for Antoinette and her family. At dinner they see a firefly and Antoinette's husband relate, " A large moth, so large that I thought it was a bird, blundered into one of the candles, put it out and fell to the floor" (48). This is reminiscent of Coco and we see him then sing to Antoinette, who asks if he believes she has slept too long in the moonlight, meaning she has this lunacy or insanity, he sings to her "Hailt to the queen of the silent night, Shine bright, shine bright Robin as you die"(49). In the same way that Coco seemed to foreshadow the imminent demise of Antoinette's mother, moths in this particular section do the same. When asked if she believes in God Antoinette responds, "It doesn't matter, she answered calmly, what I believe  or you believe, because we can do nothing about it, we are like these. She flicked a dead moth of the table" (77).  Their lives parallel and her life seems to be a repetition of her mothers life. Both enter into a marriage for practicality as opposed to love and both seem to be at odds with this decision. In both couples we see there is a disconnect and neither seems at peace or at home, not in where they live and not with one another. The appearance of Daniel further problematizes this as he relates to Mr. Rochester the supposed history of Antoinettes family. Here we see a new and even greater marginalization of a character whose racial identity removes him even further from society. There are futher parallels as once again we see a servant threaten the world of the story. Much like Mayra was disliked and is mistrusted by Antoinettes mother so is Amelie. Rhys also grants Antoinette's husband the authority over the narration and this begins the removal of Antoinette from the reality of the story. Yet it is worth noting that prior to this Mr. Rochester was sick with fever and seemingly unconscious or faced with deliria during much of it. The real and imagined which is used by both characters to discuss their homeland and this leeks into their own lives as both experience that first hand. Their relationship with one another is also plagued with questions of what is real and what is a dream. Antoinette's husband admits there is no love and for two characters whose fears stem from similar feeling of alientation there is an in ability to connect. These recurrences of what is real and a dream are also noted in the very ending when Antoinette already locked up in England is unable to distinguish if she was dreaming or not. She then much like Coco and the moths whose end comes with fire grabs a candle and heads out. The implications of these instances of reality and imagination made me recall her comment about death, "There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about"(77). Although Antoinette uses this in response to a question about her mother it applies to all of them and in particular to her who in Jane Eyre will light the house on fire and jump off an image will is similar to that of Coco and the moth.

“Names matter, like when he wouldn’t call me Antoinette, and I saw Antoinette drifting out of the window with her scents, her pretty clothes and her looking-glass. There is no looking-glass here and I don’t know what I am like now. I remember watching myself brush my hair and how my eyes looked back at me. The girl I saw was myself yet not quite myself. Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her. But the glass was between us-- hard cold and misted over with my breath. Now they have taken everything away. what am I doing in this place and who am I?” (Rhys 106-7)

“Qui est la? Qui est la?... Che Coco, Che Coco.” (Rhys 25). 

The first quote above comes very early in part three of Wide Sargasso Sea, and is the beginning of the end of Antoinette “Bertha” Mason. By now in she has shown her insanity in moments where “the madwoman” comes out from within her and she does not recall at all what was the cause (such as when she attacks her brother Robert Mason and does not remember the incident (pg 108)). What we readers see in this later third of the novel, once again being only told from Antoinette’s perspective, is the struggle she has with this internal madwoman, and how Rochester’s treatment of her has intensified the break down of Antoinette. With her confinement she has become increasingly unaware, confused and-- to an extent-- uncaring of her circumstances. She does not believe that she has been in England the whole of her confinement (109). And when remarked upon that she does not know how much time has passed while confined, Antoinette replies “But that does not matter” (109). She has completely lost herself in the attic, and claims that without a looking-glass she can no longer find her identity, asking “who am I?”. This reminded me of the pathetic parrot in the first part of the novel, screeching only “Qui est la? Qui est la?... Che Coco, Che Coco,” calling the question and answering itself. I see Antoinette reflecting Coco, but she needs the looking-glass in order to answer her own question of “who am I?” In her past, when she needed to define herself, she would look to the mirror, saying “myself is not quite myself” but was more comforted by seeing that this other self was there, behind the glass, so even if she could not reach it (as seen in the desire to kiss herself), the “other self” was there. In a way, this could be the reflection of the madwoman that is within her, or, as I see it, the reflection of her sane self, one that she cannot quite reach, but again, she is comforted by it, desiring a looking-glass. Rochester is figuratively putting the final nail in the coffin of Antoinette’s sanity due to the lack of the mirror able to answer Antoinette’s life long search for the question “who am I?” or give her access to her sane self held within the glass. A horrible, mocking, and unfair answer that I feel is being given by both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea is “I’m coocoo, I’m coocoo,” for she is never given an opportunity to prove herself,  unable to defend herself,  rather, always shunned, pushed and locked away. A pretty parrot with clipped wings, falling into a blazing fire. 

During our archiving sessions I kept finding sermons from the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles. There were two in particular which directly related to Watts. “The Crisis in Watts is not Over and A Message for the New Year”. I believe both sermons are by Stephen H. Fritchman who was Reverend at said church until his retirement of 1969. Initially I thought they were sermons from churches in Watts as they spoke directly of the incidents, but in conducting my research discovered that this church wasn’t local but still historically involved with social justice issues. Fritchman speaks to his congregation by presenting an excerpt form Shakespeare and which was interesting as I have never heard churches using literature, other than the bible, during mass. His account of Watts in 1965 reflects much of what we have been trying to bring to light. He claims to resent the description of it as  “riots” saying that is an exonerating word for white Los Angeles. He describes it as complaint and one that will continue if white citizens, if this collective ignorance, continues. His words were puzzling as religion and politics are always considered in such differing spectrums that I never expected such blatancy about the status of society, the failings of the government and its citizens to be the basis of a sermon. Yet my research further revealed that Unitarian Universalists  and Fritchman specially believe they go hand in hand. The purpose of the church is to better not only the he individual, but the collective, to better society as every human has the right to a fruitful life and any and all injustices need to be tended to for serving God means serving man. 

Fritchman was very vocal about his beliefs and I’ve found additional compelling essays by him that speak to the injustices faced by the Black community. The rhetoric in the sermon is also very interesting as he includes himself when discussing the failings of whites- we whites must stop looking for scapegoats- hot weather, lawless hoodlums or advocates of civil disobedience. He then goes on to discuss inadequate wages, poverty and housing. There is a social and political consciousness that I did not expect to find in a sermon, but the Universalist Unitarian Church was very active int the Civil Rights movement. Inclusively, James Reeb, the murdered revered during the Selma to Montgomery march was of this faith. Frichtman himself attends the following march and continuously discusses the words of Black leaders and politicians. There is mention of conferences  and meeting that the church will hold and which he urges the congregation to attend as he believes it is essential to understand the sentiments of the Black community if race relations are to ever improve. There unfortunately was not much on the actual acts and programs the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles participated in, but Fritchman’s sermons give us an idea of how the church intended to participate and organize to aid Watts. Although he recognize the importance of finances and education and rebuilding efforts and policy change he describes it as not enough and I’ll leave you with his comment on what is, “It is far more important for white Los Angeles to learn what it has not yet learned in its pursuit of personal success and the almighty dollar: that people come first…that indifference to social oppression all certainly lead to cyclones of hatred and insurrection such as we have just been through.” The mentality in itself is very compelling and in moving forward I would love to find information on how his participation was received as white involvement was reasonably not free of criticism. I wondered how and why these sermons ended up at the SCL and it is interesting to note that Fritchman was under investigation by the FBI for allegedly being a communist and knowing the history of the SCL I wonder if that is why his sermons wound up there.  

Over the course of this ELP, there was a point when I thought the archiving portion of the project would be its most rewarding feature. I found the work meaningful and challenging, and believe I now have a better understanding of the incredibly complex systems of power that underlie its practice. There was such a preponderance of material to sort through, a lot of which pertained to and informed my understanding of Watts, yes, but also my knowledge about a larger sociopolitical moment in American history – specifically as it pertained to communism, labor unions, and contemporary features of African American life. I particularly enjoyed looking at the ways that the hegemony was being actively subverted and questioned in a large amount of the material that I looked at, a fact that undermined the history curriculum of my primary and secondary education.

This blog post however is not about my larger experience with archiving and the SCL. Instead, I intend to discuss my work on my “Watts” artifact: the August 27th issue of LIFE Magazine (1965). I have always had an active interest in midcentury American literature, particularly the highly stylized depictions of a gritty, seamy Southern California on the cusp of a postwar boom, and resultant from this, I have personally collected about twenty LIFE magazines from this time period. On their matte covers are celebrities, politicians, and debutantes – though by the 1960s, these cover features became less glossy and plasticized: young drafted soldiers in Vietnam and an astronaut in on the Gemini 5 mission bookend the Watts issue. Regardless, in the American psyche, LIFE’s photojournalistic editorials once represented the “best” of American life, or at the very least its “truest” representation. And while I’ve always been able to look critically at their questionable exploitation of female sexuality (in nylon and cigarette advertisements as well as their photo spreads on popular starlets) and the soft-focus Rockwellian portrait of American life they sold to a susceptible public, I don’t think I quite understood how insidious and corrosive LIFE’s influence could be.

In my presentation, I will be making the argument that rather than merely “representing” American life or echoing the already formed opinions of its readership, LIFE (this issue specifically) both invented and subsequently crystallized the language used to describe the Watts uprising for nearly a half-century after its publication. Yes, the word “riot” is used to describe the events of that late August, but more disturbing than this was the prevalence of “war” in the articles and captions that accompanying the photos. My strategy has been to do a rhetorical analysis of the language used throughout the magazine – not only critically assessing the terminology used in the features about Watts, but also the advertisements (a pet interest of mine) that were run alongside these photos and the other stories that were included in that particular issue of LIFE. The magazine, intentionally or inadvertently, has juxtaposed Black and White life in America such radically different terms. Alongside images of fire, corpses, faces contorted with rage, looting, and small children having their mug shots taken, LIFE made the decision to run a spread on the newest child born into the Rockefeller family (at the time, one of the wealthiest families in America). This contrast between one of the poorest, most disenfranchised neighborhoods in the country and its most privileged, wealthiest echelons was at best unsettling and at worst morally reprehensible, though perhaps this did not strike the same note in the minds of contemporary Americans. I will have more analysis to share tomorrow during my presentation, but this is, I think, a fair representation of the type of work I’ve been doing.

Lastly I’d like to discuss an opportunity I may have to reach out to someone featured in one of LIFE’s articles. Stan Sanders was – according to this story – Watts’s pride and joy. He was the president of both his middle and high schools, attended Whittier College, had a “Day” named after him, became a Rhodes scholar and studied at Oxford, before returning home to Watts to be near his family. The journalist ostensibly was meant to cover Stan’s experience during the uprising, but the majority of the article was predicated on “a fascination with the fact that the finest flowers often sprout from the worst dungheaps.” Stan has the opportunity to say very little, it seems, in Shana Alexander’s article “My Friend in Watts” – more than half its paragraphs are devoted to Alexander’s retelling of Stan’s youth, how bright and shining a star he was in what she terms a “dungheap” of a neighborhood, waxing about his “his sober Mayan-mask features exploding often and freely into an amazing Walt Disney smile.” There is a critical edge to her voice when referring to Watts and its rebellion, but the piece concludes on a quote from Stan: “As a riot,” he told me, “it was a masterful performance. I sense a change there now, a buzz, and it tickles. For the first time people in Watts feel a real pride in being black. I remember, when I first went to Whittier, I worried that if I didn’t make it there, if I was rejected, I wouldn’t have a place to go back to. Now I can say: ‘I’m from Watts.’”

Alexander’s audacity in including this quotation and not acknowledging how important this affirmation is, especially coming from someone so prominent and active in the community, is what lead me to research Stan Sanders. Searching through some old LA Times articles and using the Internet Archive (as well as Facebook), I found a contact address for Mr. Sanders – now in his late sixties or early seventies – and plan on contacting him for an interview, regardless of whether or not the ELP has ended. I intend to ask him what he thought about the original LIFE article, what he felt when he was in the thick of the uprising, and what he thinks about Watts today. I won’t pretend that my asking will in any way stand as a corrective to the way he was depicted in the article, but I do hope that my presentation will be enriched by his thoughts and voice and thus better serve those who are just beginning to learn about Watts and its uprising.

-- Sarah Frontiera

I have learned much about Watts, the riots/uprising/rebellion/disturbance (etc.) and how to look outside of the the rhetoric of the representation provided (i.e. “the heat made them crazy,” as one poor explanation). I would recommend that future graduate students that may approach this work we leave behind are given more contextualizing information before they involve themselves in the materials of the archives (such as the Introduction provided by Melanie of “Fire This Time” by Gerald Horne). I have felt like I was constantly playing catch up every time I turned to the materials and this project, having to do twice the amount of work to understand one aspect that may have been answered through more contextualization in the first place. In other words, I am a literature scholar not a historian of Southern California or librarian who could stratify a perception or hierarchy of the material (which is why I constantly had to seek aid and guidance from Melanie, who was a great help). I felt unprepared for the tasks of the Watts Project from the start. What this did allow, however, was a constant need to shift my previous (small) knowledge, preconceptions or perceptions of the events in Watts 1965. This allowed me to question what was passed down to me as a local of SoCal; but I would have benefited and felt more stable with more knowledge up front about the history of the subject to then approach the historical materials. The irony then being that this is exactly why we are doing this engaged learning project powerpoint; to provide people with the spring board of more base knowledge to then dive deep into research. But again, I do not feel qualified as a non-historian or librarian to present this information (especially after looking back to our concerns when discussing power,the archive and how a collection can create an interpretation, something that we have to be aware of in the production of this project). In terms of preparing for tomorrow’s presentation (short as they may be),  I have only really provided background information such as the production of the document, and what it provides. While this has opened minor doors of research, I am concerned and honestly confused about how to proceed from where I am, and am hoping that the other member’s projects could show me where I may begin to tackle this question of “how to provide an open space for creation of questions without providing an interpretation or stepping stones down my path of answers.” We all should be concerned with this issue in production of this project, as stated in the assignment, but the execution of it has become a difficult reality. 

Racial consciousness in The Sargasso Sea is presented post Emancipation. I found the fact that the inequality here is thought of in the context of a family who is excluded from the Black and the White community. Antoinette’s mother was daughter to a slave owner and this creates an interesting dynamic for them where they begin to experience hate from the Black residents. Antoinette tells us “They hates us. They called is white cockroaches” (13). These epithets are internalized by Antoinette and it seems to be something that continuous throughout the story as she is paralyzed by the words. She related the story of a fight with Tia where those notions of inferiority are explained, “ Real white people, they got money…Old time white people nothing, but white nigger now and black nigger better than white nigger ”(14). Antoinette once again describes herself as experiencing a physical reaction to hearing these words. She says, “But he sun couldn’t warm me…”(14). It is interesting to note that racial and economic perception affects her in such a way. The economic factor is ultimately what results in an exclusion from the presumed whiteness and Antoinette's mothers herself is aware of this.

Mr. Mason also contributes to the racial consciousness within the story. His conversations with Annette demonstrate a division in perceptions of Black identity. Annette educates Mr. Mason on the appropriate manner in which to refer to Blacks and she claims he sees neither the good or bad in them which I took to be as an implication of his distorted racial notions. He even states, “ They’re too dam lazy to be dangerous” and this inability to see what Annette called the “other side” leads to her resentment towards him for having them stay (19). Despite her own biases Annette does contend, “ They are more alive than you are, lazy or not, and they can be  dangerous and cruel  for reasons you wouldn’t understand”(19). The reasons he wont understand are what I believe to be the motives for her seeking to leave. She claims an understanding of their situation and in a way seems to justifies that capability for violence. It is interesting to think of this in relation to the death of son as she loses touch with reality largely because of her own internalization of the situation- guilt. Racial consciousness is complicated by the differing perspectives and representations within the story and this made me think what then does it mean that this is a response to Jane Eyre’s novel and racial representation of Bertha?

Judith L. Raiskin elaborates on this line in the footnotes to her edition of Wide Sargasso Sea: she identifies a “metropolitan belief that Creoles were, having been “tropicalized” by their environments, emotionally high-strung, lazy, and sexually excessive” (33, n.1). Rhys engages with this stereotype in the first part of her retelling of Jane Eyre – both participating in it – Antoinette’s mother could politely be descried as “emotionally high strung” – as well as subverting it. Because the entirety of Part One is focalised through and narrated by Antionette, the title quotation is in fact a belief that has internalized by this particular “Creole girl.” It is also a belief that is reinforced by and predicated upon the reader’s familiarity with Brontë’s depiction of Bertha as “the madwoman in the attic,” though it remains unclear at this point whether it is Antoinette’s “tropicalised" nature or the stultifying impressions of English society that will ultimately lead to her “undoing.” From what I’ve read thus far, I would wager that the idea of the sexually excessive, “tropicalised" Creole woman is resultant of an uncertainty about their identity: the place that “Creole” women occupied in English society is a complex and fraught subject. At the time “Creole” meant “natively born in the Caribbean but still wholly ‘white’” – but we are witness to the ways that Annette’s mother (and by extension Annette herself) belongs to neither place, neither race, and neither society: the former slaves who now inhabit the island set their estate on fire in an effort to purge Antoinette and her mother from the land and ancestral home that served as the seat of their oppressor; the gossip and mutterings of the English-born sophisticates – friends and companions of Mason – suggest that Antoinette’s mother is seen as too wild and exotic to fully participate in civilized society. It is in this displacement, this inability to find a stable, coherent identity, that Antoinette’s mother – and perhaps, Antoinette herself – began to embody what the English believed to be the strangeness of “most Creole girls.”

“Then one day, very early, I saw her horse laying down under the frangipani tree. I went up to him but he was not sick, he was dead and his eyes were black with flies. I ran away but did not speak of it for I thought if I told no one it might not be true.” (10) 

This moment in the text allows the reader insight to the narrator, Antoinette Cosway (or Mason). In this scene Antoinette comes face to face with death when she finds her mothers horse presumably resting under a tree. Instead of alerting someone about the horse’s death she internalizes it and hopes that without others knowing it may not be true. The horse’s death was not an accident, as it had been poisoned. This is a foreshadowing of the death of her younger brother which would be at the hand of similar violence against Antoinette’s family. Like the horse, she sees her brother is dead as she notices his lifeless eyes, “his head hung back over her arm as if he had no life at all and his eyes were rolled up so that you only saw the whites” (23). Antoinette acknowledges her brothers death with similar pragmatic detachment as she did the horse. Although she knows right away that Pierre is dead, (23) she does not have any sentimental or emotional outburst the way her mother did nor did she for the horse. Further, Antoinette deals with the death of her mother in a similar way. She states, “She died last year, no one told me how, and I didn’t ask. . . . Christophine cried bitterly but I could not. I prayed but the words fell to the ground meaning nothing” (36). Antoinette has internalized most of the trauma she has endured in the novel thus far and exhibits a detachment that masks the reality of her sorrow. This is especially apparent in the end of part one when she has an unusual meeting with her step-father. She states, “It may have been the way he smiled, but again a feeling of dismay, sadness, loss almost choked me. This time I did not let him see it. It was like that morning when I found the dead horse. Say nothing and it may not be true.” (35) Although it is too early in the novel to tell for sure, I believe that this attempt to control or construct her own reality will be a force that drives Antoinette’s character. 

The language that is used through part one of Wide Sargasso Sea has been interesting to work with as a reader due to the young voice of the narrator which is influenced by the pidgin vernacular which she uses. It is obvious to me due to simply the mastery of this voice why Jean Rhys has become a rich resource as a writer for critical works. "Thats not what she hear, she said. She hear all we poor like beggar. We ate salt fish-- no money for fresh fish...Plenty white people in Jamaica. Real white people, they got gold money. They didn't look at us, nobody see them come near us" (14). The narrator is paraphrasing for us since it is not a direct quote, but she readily adopts the vernacular of the speaker, Tia, and her Jamaican pidgin. And this narrator is quite comfortable to walk between the two dialects of the white and the black. For myself, this language has been difficult to break through and read easily, since it is not my own vernacular, making me pause to really comprehend what has been said. Along with the vernacular, the story is told through the eyes of a young girl, and some of her descriptions are strange such as the characters: "These were all the people in my life- my mother and Pierre, Christophine, and Sass who had left us" (13). For a child, it may be that she does not understand what "left" means for she still includes this person as being "in [her] life." Her young vernacular has been difficult to keep straight, having to refer to the previous text to remind myself of what is happening. (And thankfully this is a critical edition, so the footnotes have been a tremendous aid.) What this vernacular wonderfully sets in motion is a distance from the reader and the narrator. While she is a young girl who is openly telling her story, her language makes her a bit strange, a person with a different background than myself, and what I am used to as a reader. Due to the connection of this novel to Jane Eyre, I know what the outcome of this character will be, and this may be what Rhys is building up through this distance of the narrator, showing the reader that she is already different so that they more readily accept the claim of insanity later. It will be interesting to read the tale from Rochester's point of view to see Antoinette through another set of eyes, and to return to her third part of the novel to hear how she will end the story.

A beautiful song, I think its appropriate for Passing (via Nina Simone: I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free - Video Dailymotion)

The interplay of sex and intimacy in Irene's relationship with Clare is one that, I believe, is more complex than an explicit lesbian subtext. The frisson that exists in the space between them is at once sexually charged and sisterly: desire, affection, and jealousy commingle in their exchanged looks and almost-less-than-chaste kisses. Larsen sets a close and highly suggestive scene in Irene's bedroom - "Clare had come softly into the room without knocking, and before Irene could greet her, had dropped a kiss on her dark curls" (Larsen 45). There is a presumption of intimacy here. The act of entering Irene's room without knocking or announcing her presence and greeting her wordlessly with a mouth pressed to her hair is undeniably erotic, both to the reader as well as Irene who experiences "a sudden inexplicable onrush of affectionate feeling" at the sensation and sight of Clare (46). Clare goes on to detail her sordid trips to the post office and how its staff "were all beginning to think that [she'd] been carrying on an illicit love-affair" (46), a phrase I gloss as ironic: Clare is in many ways doing exactly that. She jilts her husband for the sake of Irene's company and the ease she discovers in Irene's bedroom: almost feline in her preening and posturing, the implied purr as Irene "touched her arm caressingly" (47). It is this feline quality that later comes to repulse Irene - the constant toying and coquetry - but in this moment, she remains under her enchantment, incapable of fully comprehending the extent of Clare's control over her. It is her "attractive weeping" that softens Irene into permitting Clare's jaunts to Harlem, her "groping, and hopeless" look that wins Clare a ticket to N.W.L. dance (51).

This scene foreshadows Irene's ultimate disillusionment about her "friendship" with Clare Kendry: we see flashes of skepticism when Irene "turns away from the caress of Clare's smile" and in her wry comment about Clare being "just a shade too good-looking" (50) but the spell is still in place, and Irene remains enamored with her "exquisite, golden, fragrant, flaunting" figure and the little orbit it takes around Irene's own "dowdy and commonplace" existence (53). So much of our understanding of Clare however is focalized through Irene, complicating both the reader's (and Irene's) relationship with her. Irene studies Clare as an "aesthetic pleasure", often "gazing" or "staring" at the woman, with very little understanding of her interiority. The few attempts that Clare makes to warn Irene about her "having way", Irene dismisses as "nonsense" (58). "I haven’t any proper morals or sense of duty, as you have," she confesses, "Cant you realize that I'm not like you a bit? Why, to get the things I want badly enough, I'd do anything, hurt anybody, throw anything away. Really, 'Rene, I'm not safe" (58). The "beseeching earnestness" in her eyes makes Irene "vaguely uncomfortable" but she still denies Clare's claims and further to this can discover "no reason" for the loud, hot sobs that following that denial (59). I argue that Irene takes pleasure in denying Clare's agency, in casting her as a sort of pet or ceramic doll on which she can lay affection and receive it in turn. Her conviction in Clare's "goodness" or at the very least her ineffectuality allows Irene to pity her and thus calcifies her sense of superiority over her "weaker" but undeniably more "seductive" friend.

Clare's confession here remains ambiguous, as she never quite specifies what those "things [she] wants badly enough" are and how she plans to go about getting them. In light of the rest of the story, it would seem they're referring to Clare's decision to take up with Brian - but I believe another reading is possible here. If we agree that the previous exchanges between the two women were erotically charged and thick with sexual tension, could this not have been an attempt by Clare to make a "pass" at Irene? "Children aren’t everything," she suggests, "There are other things in the world though I admit some people don’t seem to suspect it" (58). And Clare "laughed, more, it seemed, at some secret joke of her own" than at the actual thought of it (58). Irene recognizes that she is more likely than not the butt of this joke and becomes defensive, forcing Clare to attempt another means by which to seduce her. She grew "very sober and sweet" and "reached out and gave Irene's hand an affectionate little squeeze. 'Don't think,' she added, 'whatever happens, that I'll ever forget how good you've been to me.'" (58). To that, Irene can reply with nothing other than "Nonsense!"

This is the last private moment Clare and Irene share. The former, having made one last attempt to force Irene to not only see her but to hear her and fully realize the complex interplay of thought and emotion of which she is capable, takes up with Irene's husband, Brian. I see this both as Clare attempting to get a thing she "wants badly enough", i.e. a glittering social life in Harlem, a Black husband, the life that Irene herself has taken for granted, but also more importantly as an act of displacing her untenable desire for intimacy with Irene. She cannot be with Irene, who will not allow Clare to exist as a fully formed, sentient human being, so she takes the thing Irene holds most dear. Brian is both a conduit for Irene and the means by which Clare can punish Irene for her inability to fully realize Clare's complexity and the depth of her feelings. The penultimate exchange between them is told in elliptical snippets, pleasant but inane: "More tea, Clare?... I haven’t had a minute with you… Yes, it is a nice party" (67). Clare's words are lost. She is to Irene no more than a revenant: all ghostly, ventriloquizing "pish-posh" and disembodied except for a pair of eyes and a pretty pert mouth. "Men like Dave Freeland fell for it," Irene disdains, "And Brian" - not remembering that she too was once subject to that same "trick of sliding down ivory lids over astonishing black eyes and then lifting them suddenly and turning on a caressing smile" (66).

Clare Kendry’s death in Nella Larson’s “Passing” is both shocking and perplexingly ambiguous. Clare falls to her death out the window of a six-story apartment building. The questions of how, why, and who was involved, are left up to interpretation.

In the beginning of the novel Irene’s feelings towards Clare gravitate between fascination and resentment, however in “Part Three: The Finale” her faint interest in Clare is almost completely overridden by intense feelings of hatred and scorn. Though there are many contributing factors to Irene’s growing distaste for Clare, her suspicion that Clare is having an affair with her husband is the thing that pushes her over the edge (ha-ha pun intended). Irene is preparing for tea when she convinces herself that she has lost her husband to Clare, “She shook her head, unable to speak, for there was a choking in her throat and the confusion in her mind was like the beating of wings. Behind her she heard the gentle impact of the door as it closed behind him, and she knew that he had gone. Down to Clare” (63). From this point on Irene’s resentment turned to rage, as her fantasies are violent and at times evil. She wishes for anything that would expedite Clare’s departure, even the death of her child, Margery. (69) She finally realizes that she could “put Clare out of her life” by outing her true identity to her husband, John Bellew. (69) However, when faced with the opportunity, Clare still doesn’t act, and instead made an effort to remain inconspicuous in the situation. (70) In fact, Irene has a change of heart the night of the party when she realizes that what she wants the least is for Clare Kendry to be unmasked and freed of her marriage. She vows that, “she would do anything, risk anything, to prevent him (Bellew) from finding that truth” (77).

All of this leads to the suspicion that Irene was instrumental in the death of Clare Kendry. When John Bellew appears at the party in a rage over the discovery of Clare’s racial identity, it is Irene’s worst fear which has come true. Amidst the chaos Irene observes Clare’s poise, “She seemed unaware of any danger or uncaring. There was even a faint smile on her full, red lips, and shining eyes” (79). Irene is infuriated by “that smile” and rushes over to Clare. There is nothing in the text that explicitly says Irene pushed Clare out the window, it is only written that she, “laid a hand on Clare’s bare arm” (79). However, at this moment the text states, “one thought possessed her. She couldn’t have Clare Kendry cast aside by Bellew. She couldn’t have her free” (79). The text also points to the potential that Irene did participate in some action for which she was responsible as it states that, “Clare wasn’t sorry. She was amazed, incredulous almost” (80). Not only is Clare not sorry but she is also “sobs from thankfulness” (81). Further, as she goes to join the others outside, she has only one paralyzing fear: that Clare is not dead. (81)

Alternatively there is suggestion that there was a force at hand other than Irene. Irene’s mind races as she wonders “What would the others think? That Clare had fallen? That she had deliberately leaned backward? Certainly one or the other. Not - “ (80). She goes on to will herself not to think of “that” and claims, “And, Indeed, Both were true” (80). It is this statement, “both were true,” which is perplexing (81). In a moment of confusion and ambiguity, Irene offers a definitive statement about what was true of Clare’s death. “Both” in the context of the text could mean that Clare both fell, and deliberately leaned backwards. Or it could mean that Clare deliberately leaned backward/fell and was alsopushed by Irene.

Although I’m interested in this final option, that both of the women took part in Clare’s fall, I find it hard to cite any textual evidence that Clare wanted to end her life. In the final scenes Clare seemed calm and almost willful of her potential outing, “If Jack finds out, if our marriage is broken, that lets me out. Does it?” (75). For Clare, the revelation of her true identity means freedom, and It is Clare’s freedom that Irene dreads and fears the most. After all, Irene had been plotting ways to rid herself of Clare ever since that day in Chicago. At the party, Irene is at her peak when it comes to her hatred for Clare. Possibly the most telling point in the text is in an eerie moment of either foreshadowing or premeditation with Irene at the open window, “Irene finished her cigarette and threw it out, watching the tiny spark drop slowly down to the white ground below” (78).  

While reading the second half of Passing I was more actively searching out moments in which the free indirect discourse of Irene would be as wrought with erotic overtones as her first reunion with Clare Kendry.  In the first half of the novel, we see a quite blatant attraction that Irene has for Clare through the free indirect discourse coming through the narrator, such as her obsession with Clare's eyes. "They were Negro eyes!, mysterious and concealing. And set in that ivory face under that bright hair, there was about them something exotic. Yes, Clare Kendry's loveliness was absolute, beyond challenge, thanks to those eyes... Into those eyes there came a smile and over Irene the sense of being petted and caressed" (Larsen 21). There is no denying the erotic and desirous gaze which Irene brings to the descriptions of Clare, one that can imply a homosexual tendency within Irene, yet I also find that she brings to light a jealousy: "She remembered her own little choked exclamation of admiration, when, on coming downstairs... had found Clare there too. Clare, exquisite, golden, fragrant, flaunting,.. her eyes sparkling like dark jewels. Irene... felt dowdy and commonplace. She regretted that she hadn't counseled Clare to wear something ordinary and inconspicuous" (emphasis added, Larsen 53). In this quote, we see the two halves of Irene, one that is seduced by Clare's "flaunting" of which she holds "admiration," and she as an admirer is paying close attention to the little details of Clare, noting her fragrance. And on the other hand, we see Irene's jealousy of Clare, where she feels "dowdy and commonplace" in comparison, and even "regrets" that she did not forestall this beauty's "flaunting" personality. I then find it both foreshadowing and ironic that Irene's first concern after gazing upon this beauty is for Brian's opinion of Clare and her "deliberate courting of attention" (Larsen 53). This irony is reflected upon by Irene after the revelation to Irene of Clare and Brian's possible affair, at the tea party to which Brian invited Clare. "'Isn't she stunning today?' Clare was. Irene couldn't remember ever having seen her look better... Yes, she was stunning" (Larsen 65). The subtext here is not indicative of the jealous Irene, rather here is where she is defeated by the irony of letting this beautiful woman into her and Brian's life because of the woman's caressing eyes, her tinkling laugh and her "stunning" self, all of which were the things that drew Irene back into her life time and again.  And so it is with the surface ambiguity that the life of Clare Kendry ends, with an enraged husband, her own fear of life, or Irene's lover's jealousy the cause, with an unreliable and reluctant narrator (Larsen 79). While the text makes it explicitly known that Irene is in a personal hell and turmoil over the betrayal of Brian and her own loss of control over her life (she would always turn to the structure, almost duty, of Brian needing to care for her and the boys, but never doing it for love and devotion to their marriage), since we also know that Irene is an admirer of Clare's, we could infer that her rage and jealousy surrounding her marriage is not that Clare got Brian, but that Brian got Clare.  I believe that Irene does indeed push Clare out the window at the party, and that Irene killed Clare because of her jealousy of Clare's beauty that drew so many people to her, including Irene. I also believe that there is an undertone to the text in which Irene was punishing Brian with killing Clare, for now he cannot have that which he desired, and by the same token, he would not take from Irene that which she desired, to stay within "the appeal, the caress of (Clare's) eyes" (Larsen 21).

Casting aside the thoughts that the ending is meant to be ambiguous and with questions unanswered I revisited the final pages to attempt to figure out who is responsible for killing Clare. Irene is an unreliable narrator and much of what she relates is tinged with jealousy and resentment towards Clare. Her belief that Clare and Brian are having an affair is definitely a strong enough motivation and not because she’s devastated by the alleged affair necessarily, but because of what it will mean to her established life- the destruction of the security she prides herself on. This is the same reasoning that dissuades her from exposing Clare to Bellows. If Clare is exposed she will be forced to relinquish her existence as a white woman and completely return to being Black. To Irene this signifies a freedom to then pursue her husband Brian and that is something she cannot have. The last few pages are as particularly ambiguous as, “What happened next, Irene never afterwards allowed herself to remember. Never clearly” (79). We are already told that “what happened next” the point after which Irene reaches Clare by the window will remain unclear because our narrator has repressed the memory. We are told that upon John Bellows arrival he is blocked by Felise and the men. Although he does lurch towards Clare it doesn’t seem that he ever reaches her, it at least is not made clear that he does despite Irene later revealing to an officer that she was as close to her as he. I also cannot negate the fact that despite Bellows rampant racism he is described as gasping in horror and agony when Clare falls. I therefore do not believe he is responsible the stakes are much larger for Irene. Clare herself would have no reason to jump, she sought an escape and her being exposed as Black provides it. It is the ability to leave that life behind with little guilt about her daughter Margery. She is the only reason Clare hesitates and Irene knows this. She is aware of what Bellows knowledge of Clare’s race means.

It interesting to note Irene’s description of Clare when Bellows enters the room and confronts her about being Black, “ Clare stood at he window, as composed as if everyone were not staring at her in curiosity and wonder,as if the whole structure of her life were not lying in fragments before her. She seemed unaware of any danger or uncaring. There was even a faint smile on her full red, lips”(79). The reference to a structured life is with noting for we know that structure and security is of major importance only to Irene. At this moment it seems that it is her, Irene’s life, lying in fragments and not Clare’s. I would also venture to say that this is why Irene is so angry, she seems to internalize the smile as a mockery to her, “It was the smile that maddened Irene. She ran across the room, her terror tinged with ferocity, and laid a hand on Clare’s bare arm. One thought possessed her. She couldn’t have Clare Kendry cast aside by Bellow. She couldn’t have her free”(79). Irene’s life is at the verge of coming undone for she knows that this is Clare’s way out of passing, “if Jack finds out, if our marriage is broken, that lets me out doesn’t it” (75). Clare no longer cares for a life of whiteness, but Irene does, at least in regards to living in a structure that reflects it.

Therefore, Irene cannot have Clare “cast aside” by Bellows so she proceeds to do it herself. Clare’s freedom, Irene believes, would lead to a divorce with Bryan and ultimately a destruction of the life and the image she has created for herself. If we revise the beginning of this scene we will see that Irene opens the window claiming it is too warm and “Irene finished her cigarette and threw it out, watching the tiny spark drop slowly down to the white ground below” (78). Is this foreshadowing what happens next? Does Irene cast Clare aside, throw her out, like she did the cigarette? Clare too was described as emitting a light, “One moment Clare had been there, a vital glowing thing, like a flame of red and gold. The next she was gone”(79). Much like the cigarette’s tiny spark that Irene watches fall to the white ground below so does Clare. The white ground in some way representing the whiteness, the passing, which is partially responsible for her death. Ultimately, Irene is highly suspicious as she is the only one who would benefit from, Clare remaining white or Clare being dead. As we know Clare can no longer remain white, the only option, at least the viable one in Irene’s mind is death. Why else does Irene willingly decide to forget the event, we even see her anxiously reflect on it “She hadn't thought of them, of afterwards, of this. She had thought of nothing in that sudden moment of action” (80). The sudden action being the moment the moment in which she pushed Clare? It is all muddled in Irene’s mind and she even questions herself and refuses to allow herself to think that John pushed Clare out. She wonders, “What if Clare was not dead?” and upon being told it was instant “ Irene struggled against a sob of thankfulness that rose in her throat. ”(81). It seems then that Irene was responsible and critics must struggle with this because in reality the story is so ambiguous that it can be read in many ways. Meaning that the representation of Clare’s death and what it must symbolize in regards to race and gender, passing even, is too complex to have all questions answered. There is not one answer and consequently not a correct way in which to think of it all, the ending, Larsen seems to perpetuate that.