I found several similarities between Passing and The Auto-biography of an Ex-Coloured Man. One of the passages that I found interesting was on page 102 when Irene is speaking to Clare about mothers are responsible for the security and happiness of their children. Irene says; "Think of what it would mean to your Margery if Mr. Bellew should find out. You'd probably lose her. And even if you didn't, nothing that concerned her would ever be the same again. He'd never forget that she had Negro blood. And if she should learn-Well, I believe that after twelve it is too late to learn a thing like that" (p.102).
In Ex-Coloured Man he found out that he was black, even though it is not stated, about the same age and he was never really the same after that. He never felt like he fit in to either the white or the black race and struggled all of his life to find his place in society and really to find an inner peace. It seems that Irene has a sense of this also, that if one is to find out after years of thinking that they are white and then suddenly are told that they belong to a completely different race, and a race that is looked at negatively, then one really is forced out of their realm of comfort. One is pretty much forced into a limbo between two different lives. At this point in a child's life they have made friends and bonds to different aspects of society and in a sense at this age you are just learning who you are. If Margery were to find out now, her life would most likely be turned upside down and she could very well find her life spent searching for who she truly is just like the narrator in Ex-Coloured Man.
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Angie, I like how you thought of this coversation between Clare and Irene. I agree that Margery's world would be turned upside down. Not only because she would find out that she was a different race completly, which her mother was also a mixed race. She would also have to worry about her life being in danger, she would also have to worry about not having a mother. I'm sure that if it was discovered that Clare was passing surely her mr. Bellew would kill her. He would not only kill his wife but he would kill his daughter also to hide the evidence that he wasa ever involved with a black woman.
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