As I finished reading part one and finished Passing, I continued to see the underlying themes of the novel and what the novel was really about. Passing is about the monumental cultural changes that took place in America after the first World War. It is about changing definitions of concepts like race and gender, and the complex relationship between whiteness and blackness. It is a meditation on the uneasy dynamic between social obligation and personal freedom. It dramatizes the impossibility of self-invention in a society in which nuance and ambiguity are considered fatal threats to the social order. The novel is an indictment of consumer culture and the dangers it poses to personal integrity. It reveals the power of desire to transform and unhinge us, and the lengths to which we will go to get what we want. Passing is about hypocrisy and fear, secrecy, and betrayal. It is a universal story of the messiness of being human as it is portrayed in the particularly explosive relationship between two black women. Our protagonist Clare and Irene.