Quicksand is a novel written by Nella Larsen who was a novelist during the Harlem Renaissance. She relates her issues of growing up with problems of race and sexual identity into this short story. The story is a satire of the movie Rosenwald. Rosenwald is about a white man who is placed inside many black schools located in the American South. Quicksand begins with a mixed race woman teaching in a black school in the south. These two stories both show what happens when race, wealth, and power all come together to test humanity and society of the people in the early nineteen century. Quicksand begins by a woman named Helga Crane sitting in a dark room alone. This sets the mood for the rest of the story. Helga is not a happy person and enjoys
…show more content…
In Greece, Naxos is a place people worship God. This God is actually has the meaning God of pleasure. This relates back to Quicksand because Naxos is set up like a military school. Looking at both of these meanings, it’s clear that these definitions are opposite of each other. Naxos means pleasure but the school is not a place the students feel comfortable at. This could symbolize that there still may be racism in the South by naming it after the God of pleasure but not treating them like it. It could have given hope to the Negro community who finally had education for their kids, but the treatment is still not …show more content…
She felt that since she could not fix the system that she was a failure and wanted to leave. She compares herself to how the Negros was being treated. She agreed that the Negros lived in a complicated world but she had also came from the same thing. Helga says, “if you couldn’t prove your ancestor and connections, you were tolerated, but you didn’t belong” (8). She is talking about the white society and coming up as a nobody. Helga was someone who people never heard of, which made her feel insecure, uncomfortable, and always out of place. Especially since her fiancé was in a family everyone knew. Their marriage was unacceptable in his family’s eyes, but Helga wanted the social background. After living in that world for a while Helga did not realize how difficult it was and she thought this was the perfect time to get
In Greece, Naxos is a place people worship God. This God is actually has the meaning God of pleasure. This relates back to Quicksand because Naxos is set up like a military school. Looking at both of these meanings, it’s clear that these definitions are opposite of each other. Naxos means pleasure but the school is not a place the students feel comfortable at. This could symbolize that there still may be racism in the South by naming it after the God of pleasure but not treating them like it. It could have given hope to the Negro community who finally had education for their kids, but the treatment is still not …show more content…
She felt that since she could not fix the system that she was a failure and wanted to leave. She compares herself to how the Negros was being treated. She agreed that the Negros lived in a complicated world but she had also came from the same thing. Helga says, “if you couldn’t prove your ancestor and connections, you were tolerated, but you didn’t belong” (8). She is talking about the white society and coming up as a nobody. Helga was someone who people never heard of, which made her feel insecure, uncomfortable, and always out of place. Especially since her fiancé was in a family everyone knew. Their marriage was unacceptable in his family’s eyes, but Helga wanted the social background. After living in that world for a while Helga did not realize how difficult it was and she thought this was the perfect time to get