The Tragic Fate of an Unrequited Childhood in Quicksand by Nella Larsen
In reading Quicksand written by Nella Larsen one may come to the end of the book with a reaction much like…’what!’” Then, in frustration, throw the book down, lean an aggravated head back, and continue to ponder the books in its entirety. One may wonder how a promising life could end in such a sad way. Where did Helga Crane go wrong? What could she have done differently? Along with these questions, a reader may feel strongly enough to condemn Helga to her fate. Others may be sympathetic. Either way, close analysis will show that Helga Crane courageously through her actions and opinions tries to listen to her true self, but unfortunately, a rocky childhood mixed with her complex personality combine to, in the end, make her a tragic heroine.
In the very beginning Helga makes choices that are aligned with her true self. In Naxos, she is not happy. She feels like it is a place that is distasteful to her personality because of “its air of self-rightness and intolerant dislike of difference” (262). So, she decides to leave. This is the mark of an individual who is confident enough to realize when a situation in her life is no longer suitable. Although her decision happens quickly, it is not without merit. So, she decides to go see the dean of the school to resign the following day.
It is in his office where the reader begins to recognize the personality flaw that taints her life. She goes in with great intentions—to quit a situation that is causing her pain and then find an environment less stifled and more suited to her own ideals. However, after explaining to Robert Anderson her reasons for leaving, Anderson then explains to her some ve...
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...ars before her appalled vision” (340). After this realization, she basically throws her life into the sketchy Rev. Pleasant Greene in a life more oppressed than any she had chosen before.
Her childhood continually haunts her. In every situation she is reminded of her feeling of not belonging and her discontent. Her mother was white and her father black. Her father left her mother, and Helga lived her childhood in a place where nobody cared to include her. Her stepfather and siblings despised her. All this proved too much for her to handle. She could not see love (Anderson) when it was there because her fear was much to pervasive in her life. Thus, when anything uncomfortable occurred around her, she ran away. In the end, it was her downfall. She was doomed to live her life in the thresholds of the oppressive South with many children and empty religion.
Miss Hancock, her personality and beliefs were contrasted entirely by her character foil, Charlotte’s mother, “this civilized, this clean, this disciplined woman.” All through Charlotte’s life, her mother dictated her every move. A “small child [was] a terrible test to that cool and orderly spirit.” Her mother was “lovely to look at, with her dark-blond hair, her flawless figure, her smooth hands. She never acted frazzled or rushed or angry, and her forehead was unmarked by age lines or worry. Even her appearance differed greatly to Miss Hancock, who she described as,” overdone, too much enthusiasm. Flamboyant. Orange hair.” The discrepancy between the characters couldn’t escape Charlotte’s writing, her metaphors. Her seemingly perfect mother was “a flawless, modern building, created of glass and the smoothest of pale concrete. Inside are business offices furnished with beige carpets and gleaming chromium. In every room there are machines – computers, typewriters, intricate copiers. They are buzzing and clicking way, absorbing and spitting out information with the speed of sound. Downstairs, at ground level, people walk in and out, tracking mud and dirt over the steel-grey tiles, marring the cool perfection of the building. There are no comfortable chairs in the lobby.” By description, her mother is fully based on ideals and manners, aloof, running her life with “sure and perfect control.” Miss
In the beginning of the written story the author reveals Hester to be a cold-hearted mother. "She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them"(75). In public she is thought of as the perfect mother, but in private she and her children know her true feelings. "Everyone else said of her: 'She is such a good mother. She adores her children.' Only she herself, and her children themselves, knew it was not so. They read it in each other's eyes"(75). Heste...
...s because Helga has not experienced inner happiness. Helga uses her ethnicity as a crutch of why her life has not panned out as it should and she indulges in her own self-pity that only fires her negative defiance. This personal factor has an effect on her outlook and attitude on life and causes her to make selfish and irrational decisions further more leaving her in sorrow and self-pity. When Helga taught at Naxo, she built inside of her a rage of anger and instead of using her disapproval as momentum in changing the world; she used it to fire her thoughts of unfairness and resentment, which she brings her to spiritual and physical defeat in the end.
Naxos is the first place Helga leaves to flee from commitments. Her engagement to James Vayle makes Helga feel both “shame” and “power,” so she expects to feel “relief” upon canceling the plans (1533). Only once she has left Naxos does Helga realize that “she couldn't have married him...Certainly she had never loved him,” (1543) confirming her earlier speculation. In contrast to her desire to escape the institution of marriage, Helga waivers in deciding to leave Naxos: after Dr. Anderson responds to her announcement, Helga felt “an insistent need to be a part of [his plans] spr[i]ng in her...[w]ith compunction tweaking at her heart for even having entertained the notion of deserting him” (1540). Her reaction could be motivated by aspirations of educating and improving the students of Naxos, but is more likely evoked by the “mystifying yearning” (1540) she experiences while listening to Dr. Anderson. Therefore Helga does not abscond her job, as she had resolved to stay (1541), but the exploration of her feelings; later, Helga even denotes her impulse to leave “illogical” (1541). In any case, Helga can not bear the future she sees for herself at Naxos, as she thinks, “To remain seemed too hard” (1534).
In “The Awakening,'; the conflicting directions of oppression versus free will illuminate the meanings of social awakening and overcoming tyranny. Awakening from the slumber of patriarchal social convention, Edna must rouse herself from the life of dullness she has always lived.
One of Hester’s greatest qualities is her unrelenting selflessness. Despite her constant mental anguish due to her sin, the constant stares and rude comments, and the
In Chapter 13, “Another View of Hester,” Hawthorne opens a window through which we glimpse Hester’s internal conflict. She has long been contemplating the “dark question” (144.25) of whether or not “existence [is] worth accepting” (144.26), and she has concluded that it is not. The image of our heroine here is troubling as it seems she has lost all semblance of hope in the possibility of triumph over the scorn and humiliation the public has inflicted on her. Her depression is so strong that she wonders if would be better “to send Pearl at once to Heaven” (145.14). Furthermore, she has not only lost hope for her own life and optimism for her daughter’s future, but she has also lost faith in society in general, especially regarding the place of women. She feels the whole system is beyond repair and that the only way to mend the cracks in the foundation is to have the entire structure “torn down and built anew” (144.32-33). Only after such a drastic reordering takes place can women take a more fair position in the world. This middle portion of Hester’s story represents a definitive low-point; her misery here certainly rivals and likely surpasses that which she felt while standing in front her peers on the scaffold in the beginning
according to the plot of her own play. Hedda finds a “way out” after the internal conflict
When we first meet Helga in the beginning of Quicksand we right away get the sense that she is unhappy where she is in her life. Helga very quickly decides to leave her teaching job at Naxos to move to Chicago. Continually all through most of the rest of the novella, Helga makes impulsive choices just like this one and moves somewhere else to try to find something that she can never find. She always believes that the next place will bring her happiness and the feeling of truly belonging that she longs for. Larsen explains Helga’s feelings of discontent with her life:
The first encounter with Helga Crane, Nella Larsen’s protagonist in the novel Quicksand, introduces the heroine unwinding after a day of work in a dimly lit room. She is alone. And while no one else is present in the room, Helga is accompanied by her own thoughts, feelings, and her worrisome perceptions of the world around her. Throughout the novel, it becomes clear that most of Helga’s concerns revolve around two issues- race and sex. Even though there are many human character antagonists that play a significant role in the novel and in the story of Helga Crane, such as her friends, coworkers, relatives, and ultimately even her own children, her race and her sexuality become Helga’s biggest challenges. These two taxing antagonists appear throughout the novel in many subtle forms. It becomes obvious that racial confusion and sexual repression are a substantial source of Helga’s apprehensions and eventually lead to her tragic demise.
The definition of home is: the place where one lives permanently. Home is a place where one feels accepted, loved, and comfortable enough to be themselves completely. In Nella Larsen’s “Quicksand”, main character Helga is a bi-racial woman in the 1920’s who struggles internally with where she feels she belongs and where she can call home. Throughout the entire novel Helga moves to many different places to try and feel at home. In the society that Helga is cursed to have to live in, biracial people are not common and rarely accepted in many communities. Personally I don’t feel like Helga would have ever found a place to call her real home, using the definition where home is a permanent place to comfortably live, where she would chose to stay
Her role as a wife and a mother starts to become her daily routine, and she is not satisfied with it. She tries her best to satiate herself. She starts making efforts to achieve different approaches to satisfy these efforts but still “she does not get pleasure in her duties” (Goodwin 39), and this is the reason why she always get dissatisfaction in her life. Her dissatisfaction with this role in life also leads the narrator protagonist to try on other roles. Though she tries on many, none of these seem to satisfy her either; she "tried these personalities on like costumes, then discarded them" (Goodwin 38). Her inability to find any role that satisfies her probably contributes to her general sense of helplessness, and continues to withdraw from her family. Since she cannot find any particular role that suits her, she attempts not to have any role at all; the coldness and isolation of the undecorated white room make it seem that she is trying to empty herself of her previous life.
Hedda married Tesman, an academic student who supposed to have a potential success, not because she loves him, but just because as she said “It was a great deal more than any of my other admirers were offering”. In this quote she is showing her real feelings meaning that she never loves him and she just married him because he was the best option among the
Hedda was born to a great, wonderful, highly regarded and respected general, General Gabler. Because she was his daughter people would show great respect and loyalty towards her. She was used to people listening and obeying her; she just loved having power over others. When Hedda and her husband, George Tesman got back from their honeymoon George’s aunt, MissTesman was telling the maid how particular Hedda is after growing up as General Gablers Daughter, “Well of course. General Gabler’s daughter. What a life she had in the General’s day! Remember seeing her out with her father-how she’d go galloping past in that long black riding outfit, with a feather in her hat." Now that her father is gone she has seemed to lost the power she once had. The only thing she has left is a large portrait of him that hangs over the coach in the inner room and a set of pistols her father left her. Hedda tries time after time to gain the attention and control she once had until she shot herself under the stress of this unbeatable battle.
When her past wit LØvborg is brought up the reader sees a different side of Hedda. We can see that with LØvborg she feels comfortable and therefor confident. This can be seen by her willingness to discuss her thought of herself being a coward seen when LØvborg says, “Yes, Hedda, you are a coward at heart. And Hedda replies, ”A terrible coward.” This shows that she think of herself as a coward. She thinks she has no power over anyone and is poor because of her choice to comply with society. She is able to show LØvborg this side of her because he knew her before the change in her life. She knows that he still thinks of her for who she was before Tesman and this is why the audience is shown Hedda’s coward side with LØvborg.