passing_project.m4a |
Words:
Now you see me. Now I see me. For I can’t see me if it’s not in your eyes. I broke the mirror and all of my ties to my world to my people, didn’t know it’d be fatal. I thought I could escape and find a new landscape for an easier life to forget all the strife for I know as your wife I wouldn’t fall under your knife. But now I err indefinitely, in your stare permanently imprisoned in the way you condition the array of emotions I portray and the words I can say and I’m not myself, put my heart on the shelf, it got lost in the dust bunnies, nor white nor black it’s not funny, I crave I crave my family I pray I pray that they’ll see me, I’m gray I’m gray I’m not okay, not yours nor theirs just a display. I’m pretty I smile I’m pretty I smile I’m empty I’m vile I’m plenty defiled. A traitor to both, a liar under oath, I hid my nature, lived as an imposter. I lost my way back, I fell through the crack.
Bellew see, I’m not scared, that you’re angry, I’m prepared. The structure of my life is not lying at my feet, it is just finally returning to when it was complete. Now that I’m free from my life with you, it may seem that I’ll be lost anew, but now that nothing ties me back to white I can finally return to find my black light.
I’m lonely so lonely, my darling, my ‘Rene. I’m yearning for your friendship, I know you don’t want it, but only your acceptance will bring the end of my sentence. I never wanted your husband but if you see me as a threat and you’re ready to kill, my blackness is real.
Thank you for knowing that this is what I wanted, Thank you for releasing me I’m no longer haunted.
I know that you pushed me, now I know that you see me. Thank you ‘Rene, now I see me.
Analytical Component:
Clare Kendry is the narrator of this poem. She addresses her husband Bellew in most of the poem and finishes it addressing Irene. The first stanza/paragraph expresses how Clare sees herself through the eyes of others “for I can’t see me if it’s not in your eyes.” She explains how she passed, fleeing the fight between black and white that segregation constantly imposed on her as a black woman. She thought that as Bellew’s wife she would have a better life and feel safe because though she was aware of his racism, it was not directed at her. In the following sentences, the poem reflects Clare’s desperation in the book, how she feels completely distanced from her identity and from her roots. She realizes that she misses her black culture and although she is pretty, the poem suggests that she sees herself as vile. The word “defiled” here symbolizes the loss of her dignity.
All this questioning is present and visible in the book principally in Clare’s letters to Irene, and the way she speaks to her. Clare’s constant expression of her loneliness with “not close to a single soul. Never really anyone to talk to” (Passing, 47). Clare’s inability to be close to a soul is due to the fact that none of them share or even are aware of her identity. Therefore, she needs Irene to see and respect her identity as a black woman in order to feel whole again. This is not the case as we hear Irene criticizing Clare’s betrayal of her race many times.
This poem aims to represent this deep need in Clare’s character and offers an interpretation of the ending of the book. In the book, we do not truly know how Clare dies: if she fell, or jumped or if Irene pushed her. When Bellew walked into the room and discovered she was black, Clare’s only reaction was a “faint smile”. This poem takes this to mean that she sees her prison finally breaking before her eyes. She does not see “the whole structure of her life […] lying in fragments under her” (Passing, 79), instead, she sees her life finally becoming whole again.
Irene sees this reaction in Clare, freedom from her white prison releasing her to come live in the black world, and she sees it as a threat. Clare’s faint smile maddens her. In the Part Three of the book, Irene shares her worries with the reader about her husband Brian developing feelings for Clare. This poem therefore argues that Irene pushed Clare to her death out of jealousy and racial loyalty – which is a theme that is constant throughout the book – and that Clare is overjoyed by this action. Clare understands that if Irene sees her as a real threat to her marriage, to the point where she is ready to kill, it means that she finally recognizes Clare’s blackness in full. This acceptance is all Clare has ever longed for because through the acceptance of her people, she can finally recognize herself and accept her own identity. She belongs. Irene’s acceptance brings the end of Claire’s “sentence”, her life sentence, so she can finally die at peace, the sentence she was serving for being a “liar under oath” as she denied her nature and herself under the eyes of those that mattered to her, which are the eyes that judge us, and whose judgments we value. “I know that you pushed me, now I know that you see me. Thank you ‘Rene, now I see me.” Clare never wanted Brian, she just wanted to come home.
Clare’s death ensures that she will die happy in the blackness, not caught in the fight between black and white that she had been trying to escape her whole life. It seems that Irene understands this, and releases Clare from her fight. She sees that Clare is finally at her place, and although this realization is accompanied by jealousy and hatred, there is also a sentiment of racial loyalty, protecting Clare from this racial fight she has run away from for so long, by finally releasing her from it right at the moment when she is exactly where she needs to be with regards to herself. She’s black, everybody knows it, so she’s finally free; it’s her time. Irene sees this, and releases Clare, and that is the greatest gift Clare ever received.