Counter Protester with her daughters at civil liberties rally by black people, Bogalusa, Louisiana, 1965

In the image above it is portrayed that the use of the N-Word is used as an offensive term and is regularly used to make black people feel less than whites. They condemned them and called them this word to show how different they are from white individuals.

The N word is a racial slur that is used against African Americans in this novel to make them feel inferior amounts whites. Irene tries to conceal her sons from the racism that surrounds them in America, but it’s difficult because they cannot escape the bigotry around them. Because she is passing for white, Irene lacks the understanding of being black and being called the n-word because she hasn’t experienced it, especially when compared to her black husband. Her son Junior, who was called a “nigger” didn’t understand the seriousness of the word when he was called it. Irene and Brian had differences on what they should teach their son based on what they have gone through. Irene thought that she should not tell her son what the word meant and Brian wanted to do the opposite. 

In Donavan L. Roman’s article titled, “You’re Neither One Thing (N) or the other”: Nella Larsen, Phillip Roth, and The Passing Trope, he discusses the lack of consciousness that Irene and Brian’s son Junior has when it comes to race. He states in the article that, “Brian Redfield Junior’s childhood similarly lacks racial consciousness, which he begins to comprehend in school” and he also includes that for children at the time they will be exposed to racism at school most because they are the “scenes of race learning” and not in a positive way. Irene’s protection of her children’s innocence is understandable for a mother who wants to safeguard her children from the hate that she knows will hurt them.  

Source Citation

Ramon, D. (2012). “You’re Neither One Thing (N)or The Other”: Nella Larsen, Philip Roth, and The Passing Trope. Philip Roth Studies, 8(1), 45-61.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.