Quicksand By Nella La Larsen Analysis

Have you ever blended a chicken Top Ramen flavoring packet into your strawberry smoothie? Do you cut your vegetables with a straw? Just as a chicken, strawberry smoothie is appalling and using a straw as a knife is unacceptable, so was the racial mixing of Nella Larsen’s white mother and black father in the late 1800s. Growing up as a biracial woman during a time of black discrimination from whites, she could never find her place in the world. She never belonged to the persecuted blacks or the persecuting whites. Larsen’s search for identity is expressed in her first novel, Quicksand. The protagonist, Helga Crane, is in constant unrest, because she also has a mixed background. She bounces back and forth between black and white communities trying to find where she belongs, but wherever she goes, she never feels like she belongs because of her varied heritage. Nella Larsen lived in times of racial inequality and grew up as an outcast; therefore, she wrote …show more content…
These women were: “writers, artists, musicians… teachers, editors, collaborators, and activists” (Hebble). They were less recognized, but they carried the same positions as the men. Black women spoke what needed to be said in both the racist and sexist America. Their journey, according to Cheryl A. Wall, “reflect(s) the sense of possibility, disappointment, and perseverance” (qt. in. Griffin). Blacks were already looked down upon during this time, and women, including whites, did not get to vote. A wife and mother, according to society, were the responsibilities placed upon woman. Restricted to their children and husbands, over 100 black women wrote about their misery and anxiety caused by racism, sexism, and lack of identity (Hebble). Black women only found free expression in their writings. Everything they feared speaking aloud they wrote on pages drenched with