Essay Questions

What significance does quicksand have with the actual narrative of the novel bearing that title?

Larsen’s original working title for her novel was “Cloudy Amber” which is fundamentally less appropriate as it at least obliquely indicates identity. The imagery is suggestive of the exact hue of the protagonist’s mixed-race skin pigmentation. Since the entire novel is about the anxiety of that heroine—Helga Crane—to find out where and how she fits into society, the title does not work nearly as well as the imagery provided by quicksand. Quicksand immediately connotes images of an individual being sucked down into the morass, of struggle to maintain equilibrium, of the lack of empowerment to control the forces around one and of being dragged back into danger just when escape seems possible. All of this symbolically describes Helga Crane’s anxiety as she grapples to establish a firm sense of self-identity not provided by mythical genetic purity demanded by society.

What is the meaning of the persistent references to the color red in Larsen’s novel Passing?

References to red pop up throughout the novel, most persistently, of course, with every mention of one character’s full name, Irene Redfield. Naturally, then, it would logically make sense that the pervasive redness in the book relates to Irene, but that is not the case. Most of the direct references actually related to Clare, not Irene, just as Irene relates to Clare. The very first mention is Clare’s characterization of new dress intended for a Sunday school picnic as “pathetic little red frock.” Shortly thereafter, it is on Irene olive cheeks that “brilliant red patches flame,” but this physical manifestation of inflamed passion is stimulated by reading a letter from Clare. A little further into the narrative and Clare is described as looking at Irene as if knowing the secrets of her thoughts and mocking her to which she responds with a “sly, ironical smile…on her full red lips.” Not each and every single mention of the color red corresponds to the repressed raged and anger wanting to flower into fully expressed violence going on inside Clare, but for the most part the manifestation of the color is like Clare herself, “ a vital glowing, like a flame of red and gold. The next she was gone.”

“She had told the wrong man.” What is troubling and ironic about this closing line of Larsen’s short story?

Julia Romley is a troubling character. Not all that much information is given about her, which is perhaps to be expected in such a short work. Nevertheless, she is the focal point and what is known about her is all one can go on. One is known is that she has been deceiving her husband through an act of omission of information for at least five years. What is also known is that she is almost at the level of obsessive-compulsive to draw Ralph Tyler into this web of deceit. That she is rather rash and impulsive can be gleaned from the rapidity with which she launches into her confessional plea to the man she thinks is Ralph under the veil of dim light without checking to make sure that he is indeed the man she thinks. Sometime is not quite right about Julia when it comes to men. It is quite clear that Ralph did not turn out to be Mr. Right, but despite earning the nickname “the everlasting lovers” from their friends, serious questions must be raised about whether Jim Romley is the right man, either. The final line of the story seems to affirmatively implicate the stranger in the darkness as the titular character, but a closer reading suggests the ironic truth: Julia Romley has a history of picking the wrong man.