From the first paragraph, Quicksand by Nella Larsen inspires the feeling of solitude. The way the setting is described and the fact that there’s a lack of other people around the main character, Helga Crane, create a feeling of emptiness and darkness. It’s possible to understand that Helga gets comfort from that lonely setup, where she isolates herself from the outside world, as described here: “It was a comfortable room, furnished with rare and intensely personal taste, flooded with Southern sun in the day, but shadowy just then with the drawn curtains and single shaded light. Large, too.” (362) Even while describing something dear to Helga, her room, the narrator goes on to explain how Crane was unhappy.
The main character is not pleased with her job, where she feels she doesn’t fit in well. That develops into a greater journey of self-acceptance where she tries to find a place to call home. She later decides to move to different places, trying to settle down somewhere. Her struggle, thought, is within herself. Her race and her background seem to always play a castrating role in her life, very clear in the following passage: “You see, I couldn’t marry a white man. I simply couldn’t. It isn’t just you, not just personal, you understand. It’s deeper, broader than that. It’s racial. Someday maybe you’ll be glad. We can’t tell, you know; if we were married, you might come to be ashamed of me, to hate me, to hate all dark people. My mother did that.” (415) She just can’t accept that she is anything beyond skin color. Her pain is way too deep.
Your reading of the first scene is a great start for us–the setting is so important to how we begin to see Helga. Please hold off, though, on writing about the part of the novel that wasn’t assigned for this week–we want to be able to understand those passages in context, and to experience the plot as it unfolds. If you really can’t wait to include something like that, please include the now popular SPOILER ALERT caution!
Oh, sorry! I didn’t realize I couldn’t mention the rest of the story. I’ll edit the title.
I agree. The word I have been seeing used a lot is solitude and lonely. I think Helga was, from the beginning in solitude. I feel that Though she was young Helga was gaining the feeling that she had sore out her welcome in Naxos. Maybe that, or Naxos may have worn out their welcome in her heart and mind. I feel that her being unique and having brain power and intelligence grew her apart from those around her quickly.
I agree with you about the self acceptance. However back in that time do you think it was easier to accept yourself as it is today? In my opinion I think that our society is more accepting we like to think we are more progressive… Which we are I mean it is 2014. I just feel like since it took such a long time to get here… What I am trying to say is maybe Helga was self accepting at the time, or considered to be. I know we think that it’s silly, because our society is so accepting today. But she might have been looked at differently if she did.
You mentioned how she just can’t accept that she is anything beyond skin color and her pain was way too deep. I believe that Helga envisioned an idealistic world where nothing and nobody was characterized by race, but became increasingly disenchanted when she found that even moving to New York, race was in some way an issue. Now she is planning to move to Copenhagen, I want to know if that’s going to make her feel any different which I doubt; because as you also mentioned her struggle is within herself.
(Late comment)
I agree because I realized that Helga wanted to be alone a lot at the beginning. I think its interesting that you think she likes to be alone. I do believe that she likes to be alone also to isolate herself from the world because her life was just not going the way that she planned at the beginning of the novel. Its interesting that you said that the author creates a feeling of emptiness and darkness because I agree. I didn’t notice at first, but as you continue to read, it makes a lot of sense. She moves from place to place because she never feels like she belongs and that’s very sad.