Throughout Part I of the novel we see only the soft side of Irene. We read about her husband, her children, and what she did from day to day. These things paint her as a quiet, happy, and self-sufficient woman. In fact, there is hardly a mention of the fact that Irene is of mixed race.
In Part II of the novel we see a shift in the way Irene is portrayed. She is more worldly than one would have first thought, always wanting for herself and not thinking of others first. We see this as she tells about her feeling towards the idea of moving. Irene takes pride in the fact that her husband is a physician, but gives him almost no credit for it. It also seems to me that Irene is proud of who she is and what she had accomplished, but she is also quick to blame those around her for her disappointments in life. For instance, she blames Clare when she is having a bad morning when it clearly a fluke happening. There is tension in all of the relationships seen in the novel, but these things were not seen until we got a glimpse into the harder and self-centered side of Irene.
Overall, I think Part II of this novel just opens a whole new side of Irene that we were not privy to during Part I. In a way I like knowing that Irene has faults. It make her much more human than the soft and put together - Passing as White - Irene from Part I.
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