Brian's hoped-for Brazil
Passing (Nella Larsen Edition)Brian's hoped-for Brazil is a destination imagined rather than visited, but its persistent place in Brian Redfield's thoughts makes it a force in his marriage to Irene Redfield. Associated with his desire to leave the United States and his dissatisfaction with his profession, the prospect exposes a conflict between his wish to depart and Irene's determination to preserve the life they have built in New York City.
A Destination of Departure
Irene identifies South America as what attracts Brian, while her private thoughts specify his idea of going to Brazil. The distinction in scale does not make the destination concrete: the narrative offers no journey or account of life there. Instead, the place exists as the direction of Brian's unfulfilled desire to leave his country and the profession he dislikes.
That desire is not new. Irene recalls opposing it years earlier, during a period of severe conflict, and presenting its practical impossibility and likely consequences for herself and their boys. She had even hinted that she might dissolve the marriage if Brian persisted. Although the couple did not return to the argument for years, Irene understood his dissatisfaction as continuing beneath the silence.
A Recurring Marital Conflict
When Brian's discontent surfaces again, Irene experiences the prospect of departure as a threat to the security and permanence she has arranged for the family. She fears that he may again pursue the idea she had believed she could contain. His wish therefore remains consequential even when he is not actively arguing for it: its persistence unsettles her confidence that their shared life is stable.
Irene also questions her own interpretation of her husband. She has assured herself that she understands him exceptionally well and that this understanding helped make their marriage succeed; the return of his discontent raises the possibility that she misjudged him. Still, she reassures herself that the desire will eventually fade and that she can guide him back toward the course she considers right. Her effort to manage the wish is not the same as its disappearance.
South America in Racialized Conversation
At a gathering, John Bellew responds to Irene's mention of Brian's attraction to South America with a racist remark: he treats the region's prospects as dependent on removing its Black population. The comment gives the destination a racialized context without showing what Brian himself thinks of that context. The contrast is pointed: Brian imagines departure from a country and profession he dislikes, while John speaks of South America through a white-supremacist assumption about who should be allowed to live there.
The destination's narrative significance lies in this unresolved tension. Brian's hoped-for Brazil is never represented as an actual place of arrival; it remains an alternative to the life Irene works to keep intact. Its continuing presence in Brian's thoughts, and Irene's fear of what acting on it would mean for the family, make an unrealized journey an enduring source of marital unease.
