Irene’s boys are her foundation and she loves them enough to protect them rom the dangers of hat th world has to offer. As a housewife, her responsibility is caring for both her husband and children and she took that job seriously, due to not having anything else to fall back on. In the quote she cries to her husband Brian that she cares enormously about the happiness of her children. Children the novel, especially Irene’s are treated differently than how Clare treats he child. The novel shows how essential children are to their parents and how each one treats them differently. Clare for example is portrayed or discussed much in the novel, but Irene’s children are brought up many times, to show how she cares for them very much. She goes on to explain that the future happiness of her children are substantial to her because it is a result or reflection of how good of a mother she was. Nella Larsen shows in her novel that children are an 

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