66 pages • 2 hours read
Nella LarsenQuicksand
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1928A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 15-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
Helga experiences vague dissatisfaction with life during her second year abroad. She reflects upon whether her inability to find contentment with her “peacock’s life” was due to “some peculiar lack in her” (81). She receives a letter from Anne Gray announcing Anne’s upcoming marriage to Dr. Robert Anderson, and contemplates whether she (Helga) might have married him had she remained in New York. Helga wonders why Anne “who had…more than enough” (82) would want Anderson, as well.
She accompanies her social group to a Copenhagen vaudeville hall one evening, and the audience is captivated by two black American men who perform. Helga responds to the performance negatively, later realizing that the characteristic that her friends admired in the performers was the same that they admired in her: the capacity to be different. She returns frequently to the performance and ponders the conflicts in her life. She considers a return to America.
Axel Olson, the portrait painter, after making a veiled sexual proposition to Helga, ultimately proposes marriage. Helga instantly views him with contempt, and realizes that she dislikes him on many levels: “the shape of his head…the tone of his voice…his irreproachable clothes” (85). Axel describes Helga as having “the warm impulsive nature of the women of Africa…but...the soul of a prostitute. You sell yourself to the highest buyer” (87). Helga emphatically rejects his proposal, and deems his picture of her, “the true Helga Crane” (88) to be a tragedy. Helga hates the portrait, which she perceives as “some disgusting sensual creature with her features” (89).
Chapter 16 Summary
The Dahls are unhappy with Helga’s refusal of Olsen’s marriage proposal. Her uncle presses her regarding the reason for her rejection and she tremulously cites it to be “something…deep down inside of me” (91). Uncle Poul privately assesses her to be “charming…but insufficiently civilized. Impulsive…Selfish” (91). As time passes, it becomes clear to Helga that her aunt and uncle have been disappointed by her rejection of the marriage proposal, although they continue to support her in extravagant financial style. Spring arrives, and Helga has nostalgic thoughts of Harlem and its “gay, dark humanity” (92).
She determines to visit New York, partially to relieve tension in the home, after hearing a rendition of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” (an old African-American spiritual song) at a concert. Helga decides that she is experiencing a sense of incompleteness and decides that “I’m homesick, not for America, but for Negroes. That’s the trouble” (92). She also starts to view the father who abandoned her with sympathy rather than anger. Her sense is that he yearned for the comicalness and optimism of other members of his race, as opposed to the “formal calm” (92) that characterized her Danish mother. She forgives her father as she finds herself surrounded by white, somber faces as opposed to darker, happier ones.
Her aunt and uncle accept her decision to visit America for Anne’s wedding with the understanding that she will return to them in the fall. Although she has been eager to depart, Helga regrets her decision as the ship leaves the pier, again questioning her perennial dissatisfaction.
Chapter 17 Summary
In order to afford newlyweds Anne Gray and Dr. Anderson their privacy, Helga moves to a Harlem hotel. She is somewhat hurt that Anne does not protest her decision. Anne, for her part, recognizes that her new husband is attracted to Helga, and perceives that her friend has become more attractive to men since her stay in Denmark. Helga is glad to be in New York and ignores the return date she had promised her aunt in Copenhagen. In characteristic fashion, she becomes restless and bored as time passes in Harlem, but she is still glad to be surrounded by “dark-eyed brown folk…These were her people” (95), and she feels spiritually tied to them.
Helga also enjoys the euphoric mood of Harlem, compared to the “pretentious stately life in Copenhagen” (96). She realizes that she will leave Harlem at some point, but that she will never be able to stay away for very long. The natural freedom she experiences in Europe is in constant competition with the mystical freedom she knows in America. She is both drawn to and repelled by the black people she meets, particularly those who are “blatantly patriotic” (96) and march in parades.
Despite all this, she has an unidentifiable feeling of insecurity that prompts her to go back to Copenhagen. She blames the artist Axel Olsen, whose marriage proposal she has rejected, for her inability to return there. She is plagued by self-doubt as to why she has not married him, and now feels that she was a fool not to have done so.
Chapters 15-17 Analysis
The timeline of the length of Helga’s happiness in Harlem is repeated in Copenhagen: she becomes restless and less happy in her second year there. Although she wishes to prevent the inevitable outcome of her dissatisfaction, “…she didn’t know how” (81). Anne Grey’s letter announcing her upcoming marriage to Dr. Robert Anderson has the same life-altering impact upon Helga as did her Uncle Peter’s letter containing the funds to allow her to relocate to Copenhagen. Helga, engaging in the mental rumination that is a harbinger of disastrous decision making, reflects that she might have married Anderson had she remained in the prejudiced environment she experienced in New York. Her sense of emotional distress increases when she and friends see black, American performers “cavorting” in a local cabaret; the friends are thrilled at the uniqueness of the musicians, and Helga realizes that she shares that sense of uniqueness. Despite her distaste for the actors, she is drawn to return to the performance on several occasions.
The portrait painter, Olsen, having previously propositioned Helga, follows with a long-awaited marriage proposal. Helga’s response is immediately negative. True to form, her reaction is to disparage and hate any man who expresses serious interest in a long-term marital relationship with her. Olsen accuses her of a form of prostitution, that of selling herself to the “highest buyer” (87). Helga’s emotional response is further complicated by her dislike of the portrait that Olsen has painted of her, which she finds to be “overly sensual” (89). Perhaps unconsciously, Helga is imitating the puritanical sexual attitude displayed by the prudish Miss MacGooden, the Naxos matron who Helga disliked so much.
Helga relocates from Anne Gray’s home to a Harlem hotel after her arrival in New York, to afford the newlyweds privacy. Naïvely enough, she is disappointed in Anne’s lack of protest. For her part, the more pragmatic Anne is aware of her new husband’s attraction to Helga, and seeks to avoid any unnecessary interaction between the two. Helga’s spirits are initially lifted by the vivaciousness of her black companions, although she remains both drawn to and repelled by them. As time passes, she regrets her failure to marry Axel Olsen and engages in lengthy reflection as to her motives. Helga emerges as a character who finds herself to be so inherently dislikable that she is forced to demean others who find her to be desirable.
