Themes: Race

Helga Crane is well suited to evaluate the elements of both black and white cultures. As a biracial woman, she possesses insights into both societies. Seeking to establish her racial identity, Helga moves back and forth in both societies, discovering each's values and exposing each's prejudices. Helga’s internal struggle is as difficult as her external struggle to fit in because for most of the novel, she is confused by the racial hypocrisies she...

Themes: Class

Race is a major theme in Quicksand, but it is not Helga’s only conflict. Helga’s mulatto complexion allows her to move freely between black and white cultures, but it is her education and refinement that allow her access to the black middle-class environments of Naxos and Harlem and the white upper-class society of Denmark. Helga fails to establish a social identity in any of these environments, however, and ultimately descends into a social...

Themes: Gender

Dr. Hazel V. Carby, a pioneering critic in the field of black feminist literature, has called Helga Crane “the first truly sexual black female protagonist in Afro-American fiction." Prior to the publication of Quicksand, most black authors avoided representing black female sexuality rather than risk portraying it in its familiar and insulting stereotypical fashion. Critic Kimberly Monda says that Quicksandis a criticism of “the ways in which...

Themes: Religion

Nella Larsen presents religion as another force that oppresses black women. Helga experiences a seething anger toward a visiting white preacher who compliments the “Naxos Negroes” for knowing their place and then asking “his God’s blessing upon them”—the white God. In Chicago, Helga admits that she is not religious, “taking nothing on trust,” yet she attends the “very fashionable” Negro Episcopal Church hoping that someone will reach out to her....

Themes: Cultural and Racial Critique

Quicksandis more than a novel about a person’s search for identity. It offers a critical commentary on diverse cultural and racial societies—their oppressive institutions, outmoded traditions, false values, and distorted ways of perceiving reality. Because the protagonist is a woman of mixed racial heritage, Nella Larsen can easily shift her character from one different community to the next. Furthermore, because Helga’s less-than-full commitment...

Themes: Oppressive Institutions and False Values

Larsen communicates many important ideas to readers through Helga’s central consciousness in the novel. The Naxos school is a black middle-class training ground where new ideas are not tolerated and individual freedom is discouraged. The name “Naxos” is probably used by Larsen as an anagram for “Saxon,” to denote the school’s obedience to the dominant Anglo-Saxon society. This kind of life is in contrast to the free and joyous existence of the...

Themes: Hypocrisy and False Attitudes in Denmark

Again seeking refuge, Helga lives in the white society of Denmark, but once more she encounters hypocrisy and false attitudes. The Danes pride themselves on their nonracist ideas, but they are oblivious to the fact that they see Helga as a stereotypical black woman rather than as an individual person. Finally, living in a rural community in Alabama, Helga thinks that she has at last found her identity and a sense of belonging with these simple...

Themes: Emotional Turmoil and Gender Roles

Helga is also tossed around in her emotional life. The men she knows are for the most part self-centered, shallow-thinking, and, in the case of Robert Anderson, too restrained to give fulfillment to Helga’s life. Some of the blame for their actions...