“She didn’t know. Couldn’t tell. But there was, she knew something else.  Happiness, she supposed. Whatever that might be. What exactly, she wondered, was happiness. Very positively she wanted it. Yet her conception of it had no tangibility. She couldn’t define it. Isolate it, and contemplate it as she could some other abstract things. Hatred, for instance. Or kindness.”

1. Quicksand
2. By Nella Larsen
3. In this passage it is made clear that Helga becomes plagued with feelings of doubt, insecurity, and alienation once again. Helga, born of a white mother and a black father, has not been able to identify herself as either white or black. Since her sense of self is always censored by society’s restrictions and expectations she does not feel happy. As a result, she is constantly fleeing from place to place in search of a society wherein she can fit in. Because she does not belong to one race completely, she never truly finds a place where she belongs. Helga is questioning her own identity and her connections to the community around her. She can’t even identify her feelings as hatred or kindness.
4. As a half black half white educated women Helga’s inner conflict and peace and her loneliness connects to a larger issue experienced by many biracial people. Race and gender are the forefront of Quicksand. Although it appears that the biracial person may have the best of both worlds, there will always be questions regarding their belonging and acceptance to their environment. Helga did not feel completely as a part of a certain community. She fled from her surroundings every time she thought things didn’t go well for her. Self identity crisis, acceptance issues, and not being able to identify oneself under one group as black or white becomes an issue in this case.

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