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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Part 2, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Bank the Blaze:
There are several points in Passing where Irene reflects on the threat to her marriage posed by Brian's discontent with their life and his desire to move to Brazil. To illustrate the seriousness of this threat, Larsen uses a metaphor equating Brian's dissatisfaction with a fire that Irene must suppress:
[I]n her there was no slackening of the agitation, of the alarms, which Brian’s expression of discontent had raised [...] Yes, it would die, as long ago she had made up her mind that it should. But in the meantime, while it was still living and still had the power to flare up and alarm her, it would have to be banked, smothered, and something offered in its stead.
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Part 3, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Walled Off:
Irene senses a change in Brian's demeanor that fills her with anxiety that he’s being unfaithful to her. Larsen uses a metaphor to illustrate this uncomfortable realization:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It was the knowledge that, for all her watching, all her patient study, the reason for his humour still eluded her which filled her with foreboding dread. That guarded reserve of his seemed to her unjust, inconsiderate, and alarming. It was as if he had stepped out beyond her reach into some section, strange and walled, where she could not get at him.
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Explanation and Analysis—Beautiful and Caressing:
Irene watches Clare as she sees her across the room at a party she throws, talking to Brian. She uses the metaphor of a mask as she observes Clare’s carefully unmoving expression and Brian's responses:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Clare’s ivory face was what it always was, beautiful and caressing. Or maybe today a little masked. Unrevealing. Unaltered and undisturbed by any emotion within or without. Brian’s seemed to Irene to be pitiably bare. Or was it too as it always was? That half-effaced seeking look, did he always have that? Queer, that now she didn’t know, couldn’t recall.
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Part 3, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Became a Mask:
Irene is startled and reacts instinctively when she runs into Clare's husband, Jack, while walking with Felise in Harlem. The author uses a metaphor to depict Irene's snap decision to double down when Jack recognizes her as a Black woman:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Instinctively, in the first glance of recognition, her face had become a mask. Now she turned on him a totally uncomprehending look, a bit questioning.
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Part 3, Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Irene the American:
In this passage, Nella Larsen uses metaphor to illustrate Irene's newfound sense of identity and determination. Irene thinks about her future after realizing that Clare and Brian are definitely sleeping together, and she comes to a decision that she’ll say nothing. She uses a metaphor that aligns her with a growing plant to drive this message home:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Now that she had relieved herself of what was almost like a guilty knowledge, admitted that which by some sixth sense she had long known, she could again reach out for plans [...] She belonged in this land of rising towers. She was an American. She grew from this soil, and she would not be uprooted.
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