The act of passing is for someone of a particular group of people acting as if they are a part of another group. The most common use of this act is racial passing. This happens when a person of one race, usually a minority group, most commonly African American, passes as another race, most commonly Caucasian. The lighter the skin of the person the easier this is to accomplish. Race is not the only way to pass however. People pass whenever they attempt to fit into a group in which they do not belong. This can be with class, gender, sexuality or cultural. Nella Larson’s Passing highlights this concept of passing as another when the main character’s friend, Clare, passes as white in her everyday life. In fact, she is even married to a white man that does not know that she is African American. For Clare, this could be very dangerous due to the fact that, if found out, she and her daughter would both be severely punished. This concept is mentioned when the real life Rhinelander case is mentioned, where a man finds out her father was partially African American, leading him to take her to court in order to divorce her under grounds that she lied about her race. This creates the need to decide if it is worth the risk to pass. Passing often happens to…show more content… In Jack London’s South of the Slot, the main character Freddie was a sociology professor and wanted to do a study of the working class people, but because of his appearance and mannerisms of his upper-class personality, he was not able to study the people up close, since they did not trust him. He became a different person, Bill. By passing as a person of a lower class, he was able to be accepted into the life and study the people up close. He began to enjoy the freedom that he had in this life to be loud and dirty. Unfortunately, he became addicted to the freedom of the lower-class life. This would become difficult for him, as he cannot live in both
