Quicksand And Passing By Nella Larsen Summary

Connecticut College

Digital Commons @ Connecticut College
English Honors Papers

English Department

5-1-2006

Constructing Identity: Race, Class, Gender, and
Sexuality in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and Passing
Andrew W. Davis
Connecticut College, [e-mail]

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Recommended Citation
Davis, Andrew W., "Constructing Identity: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and Passing" (2006). English
Honors Papers. Paper 1. http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/enghp/1 This Honors Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the English Department at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. It has been accepted for
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Race, Sexuality and Agency in Quicksand

Larsen’s first novel, Quicksand, explores the contemporary modes of representing African American female identity through Helga’s struggle to find her place in society. Helga struggles to express her sexuality without loosing agency through exploitation, objectification or sexual repression. Through Helga’s search for sexual autonomy the novel exposes the two dichotomous stereotypes of African
American females that prevail throughout literature. Quicksand depicts the limitations both stereotypes hold and their ubiquity throughout the United States and
Europe. The story conveys the pervasiveness of these stereotypes through the constant change of setting; each location Helga lives in threatens to conform her into a stereotype. First, the novel criticizes the reactionary stereotype that “treated sexuality with caution and reticence” in order to counterbalance the “social and literary myths perpetuated throughout history about black women’s libidinousness”
(McDowell xii). Larsen’s text reveals the limitations of this representation in its mocking portrait of Naxos, a rich Southern school where Helga teaches, that is
Here the novel exposes the exploitation of African American culture as appropriated by dominant white culture. Helga fears sexual objectification as an African American woman and so she moves again. Helga’s subsequent

departure to Denmark illustrates another form of exploitation as the Danes try to mold her into a sexualized object based on the stereotypes of the black female exotic figure.
Helga rejects her new white society and returns to Harlem to regain her sexual agency within the black community. Yet Helga’s autonomy is fleeting and ultimately surrendered. By creating limited options for Helga to express her sexuality,
Quicksand depicts the restrictiveness of both stereotypes and their denial of African
American female sexual autonomy.
Quicksand uses the historical stereotypes of African American women to comment upon the opposing movements within the Harlem Renaissance. These contemporary stereotypes of African American women which the novel contests were established and shaped by the earliest constructions of the African female identity in the United States. Critic Rennie Simson summarizes: “The construction of the