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Passing (Paperback) - 『패싱』원서
넬라 라르센 / Penguin Books Ltd / 2020년 10월
평점 :
Fool. Fool.
That instinctive loyalty to race. Why couldn’t she get free of it?
Irene, who is African-American, living in New York as middle class is suffering from two social discriminations. One is racial discrimination and the other one is sexual discrimination. The latter may not that obvious compared to the former but I find this is the one that boosted the whole tragedy, that drove Irene nervous and anxious enough to blow her mind at the end.
The first one, racial discrimination is quite obvious. Actually the title itself shows the word where it is rooted from because if there was no discrimination according to race, then there would be no such word like “passing”. It was quite impressive when I’ve first found out that even in the place like the U.S.A., people still stick together with their same race. At least according to their outer appearance. After that I thought like, as long as we have eyes to see, it would be impossible for humans to just mingle altogether.
It also quite interesting that the individual who has a mixed cultural background, identify themselves as a colored one. Not only individual himself but also the society treats him as a colored one and to become a white, you should be 100 percent white. Even the slightest amount of colored blood would construct a strict barrier on the way to become the member of the white society. And I guess this rule is particularly strictly applied to the African-Americans. I can’t imagine how African-Americans would live in America with their ambivalent feelings because even a several decades of colonization of Japanese empire has disrupted Korean’s minds and left a lot of unsolved lingering issues.
Speaking of the second one, sexual discrimination, this part is not that obvious as racial thing but you can see from the book that the whole tragedy would not happened if Irene simply just can afford her life by herself. Her attitude as a mother, eagerness for security, and her feelings toward Brian, is all quite similar to the ones that married women in modern society eventually get through – especially the one who does not have a job and just turn a blind eye on her husband’s affair. This may a bit off the story but I think Irene’s case shows the importance of having a job, of earning money, for women. If she could have afford her own life, if she could get a job at the time, the there would be no need for her to marry someone that she do not love that much. Also there would be no need for her to be alarmed and nervous all the time worrying what Brian would have in his mind. Well maybe in the first place, there would be no need for Clare to marry a racist and conceal her race all the time, repressing her eagerness for her ethnicity. Well though, this whole tragedy wouldn’t happened then.
Always impressive to find out that the novel written in several decades ago is still very thought provoking.
Fool. Fool. That instinctive loyalty to a race. Why couldn‘t she get free of it? - P99
Now that she had relieved herself of what was almost like a guilty knowledge, admitted that which by some sixth sence she had long known, she could again reach out for plans. Could think again of ways to keep Brian by her side, and in New York. For she would not go to Brazil. She belonged in this land of rising towers. She was an American. She grew from this soil, and she would not be uprooted. Not even because of Clare Kendry, or a husband Clare Kendrys. - P107
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