Quicksand

“Well! Even if every last one of you did come from homes where you weren’t taught any manners, you might at least try to pretend that you’re capable of learning here, now that you have the opportunity.” 

Miss MacGooden, a matron who supervises a children’s dormitory at the Naxos school, utters this statement to her young charges. Many aspects of racism are analyzed by means of the characters’ dialogue in this novel, and the words of a theoretically-nurturing staff member are ironic in their tone. One of Helga’s legitimate complaints about the school is the acquiescence of the faculty and students to prejudicial philosophies and language being espoused on their own campus; for example, the visiting Southern minister who is met with applause after he praises the Naxos students for knowing their place. 

“Perhaps I can best explain it by the use of that trite phrase, ‘You’re a lady.’ You have dignity and breeding.” 

Dr. Robert Anderson, principal of Naxos school, compliments Helga when she visits him to tender her resignation. Immediately prior to this comment, Helga is convinced that her decision to resign was wrong, and resolves to remain at the school. Anderson’s praise releases anger on her part as she advises him that she is biracial was probably an illegitimate birth.This is the beginning of a cyclical pattern on Helga’s part: shame over her lineage results in her animosity toward others.

“That second marriage, to a man of her own race, but not of her own kind—so passionately, so instinctively resented by Helga even at the trivial age of six—she now understood as a grievous necessity.” 

Helga reflects upon her mother’s marriage to a white man who never accepted the idea of a biracial child. More globally, this thought extrapolates to cause introspection upon all inequities in society. While Helga never overtly voices feminist theory, her independence is in keeping with a generation that produced Suffragettes who fought for the women’s vote. Maturity enables her to realize that her mother conceived her during a passionate love affair; however, her marriage to a white man was predicated upon economic pragmatism.

“And please remember that my husband is not your uncle. No indeed! Why, that, that would make me your aunt! He’s not-“ 

Mrs. Nilssen, Uncle Peter’s wife, is horrified upon meeting Helga, concerned that others will think that she is related to an individual of color. Peter is the only American relative left to Helga, and he has always been kind to her. The emotional numbness that Helga experiences as a result serves to remove her further from societal interaction. Deserted in various ways by all family members, Helga is truly isolated and rootless as a result of racial inequality.

“This frightened her a little, this and the fact that she had spent money, too much money, for a book and a tapestry purse, things which she wanted, but did not need and certainly could not afford.” 

Helga flounders while trying to secure employment in Chicago, and consoles herself by shopping. Material possessions are meaningful to Helga, although she comes to associate them with the white society that rejects her. She has a sense of entitlement to fine things, most of which are provided for her by others over the course of the story.  

“And, by the way, I wouldn’t mention that my people are white, if I were you. Colored people won’t understand it, and after all it’s your own business.” 

Mrs. Hayes-Rore is the wealthy, light-skinned widow who arranges employment for Helga in New York. Pragmatic, well-connected and essentially humanitarian, her advice synthesizes a societal lesson put forth in this book: the tendency to ostracize others who are of different lineage is found in all races and ethnicities. This knowledge merely serves to isolate Helga further.

“Sinister folk, she considered them, who had stolen her birthright.” 

At the beginning of her first stay in Harlem, Helga identifies entirely with the black population. Her attitude toward whites becomes intolerant. She views whites as having abandoned her. Eventually, indifference toward this race becomes one of anger.

“She recoiled in aversion from the sight of the grinning faces and from the sound of the easy laughter of all these people who strolled, aimlessly now, it seemed, up and down the avenues.” 

As is her pattern with all relationships, Helga’s enchantment with Harlem’s black residents is short-lived. The characteristics of optimism and amiability that she had found to be appealing become a source of irritation. This annoyance comes to include the well-educated, financially-successful people of color who are her friends.

“She was a little conscience-stricken, so she wanted to be particularly nice to Anne, who had been so kind to her when she first came to New York, a forlorn friendless creature.” 

Upon the receipt of her Uncle Peter’s letter that included funds for her trip to Copenhagen, Helga resolves to leave immediately. She has passing guilt about leaving Anne Gray’s home without warning, but overcomes them. This characterizes her pattern of abruptly ending relationships.

“She wasn’t, she told herself, a jungle creature.” 

Helga visits a Harlem cabaret with friends and is transported by jazz music. She is appalled by her response and swiftly reverts to more inhibited behavior, in direct conflict with her innermost desire to be more impulsive and free.

“She wasn’t, she couldn’t be, in love with the man.” 

Helga often experiences thoughts of Dr. Robert Anderson and had been jealous of a woman whom he dated. She responds with annoyance when he enters her thoughts unexpectedly. Helga dislikes lack of control and resists the impulsive nature of romantic love.

“Hitherto all her efforts had been toward similarity to those around her.” 

Helga’s uniqueness is an asset in Denmark. She is popular and men find her attractive. Her family seeks to accentuate, rather than hide, her difference.

“For those early desolate years she now felt recompensed.” 

Helga’s Danish family shower her with elaborate, unusual clothing to wear to numerous social functions. She is the object of attention and flattery, and finally feels that the emotional deprivation of her childhood is being paid back with love and material goods.

“Was it really this man that she had thought, even wished, she could marry?” 

Helga’s happiness in Denmark is ending. When Olsen finally proposes marriage, her attraction to him changes to revulsion. This pattern persists in all her relationships with men.

“I’m homesick, not for America, but for Negroes. That’s the trouble.”

Aunt Katarina and her husband are disappointed that Helga rejects Olsen’s marriage proposal. Helga reconsiders her refusal to return home for Anne Gray’s wedding and will now do so. She convinces herself that her malaise is caused by the fact that there are no Negroes, who so recently annoyed her in Harlem, in her Danish social circle.

“She intended that her husband should be happy.” 

When Helga relocates to a Harlem hotel, Anne Gray offers no resistance due to her awareness that her new husband is attracted to Helga. Ambivalent regarding her own sexual impulses, Helga seems nonetheless to have a magnetic appeal to men. She is aware of this on some level, and she enjoys this feeling of power.

“Well, Helga, you were always a little different, a little dissatisfied, though I don’t pretend to understand you at all.” 

James Vayle, Helga’s former fiancé, alludes to her lifelong tendency toward unhappiness in this statement. Essentially, this sense of dissatisfaction characterizes all of Helga’s relationships with others. Her difference is not limited to unconventional political views; she has an inherent inability to maintain virtually any relationship over the long term.

“She felt that he had belittled and ridiculed her.” 

Helga is interested in a sexual relationship with a male, and Robert Anderson’s married status renders him a safe prospect, as he will not insist upon long-term commitment from her. When he apologizes for having kissed her and attributes his behavior to alcohol, Helga is humiliated. She had anticipated the start of a love affair with the husband of her best friend, whose well-being never enters her mind, while Anderson had made it clear that he was not interested in a continued relationship with Helga.

“A miraculous calm came upon her.” 

Following her rejection by Anderson, Helga wanders the streets and happens into a revival meeting. She eventually joins the congregants, whom she previously would have viewed with contempt, and becomes a believer. A consummate survivor, Helga uses religion as a lifeline when she is at a perilous emotional juncture.

“And she meant, if she could manage it, to be married today.” 

Having seduced the Rev. Mr. Pleasant Green, Helga decides to manipulate him into marriage. She reinvents herself from the sophisticated Harlem socialite who has resided in Europe to a prototypical minister’s wife. Having failed to achieve happiness in more urbane circles, Helga comes to emulate the lifestyles of black women who have not been afforded her advantages.

“Herself, Helga had come to look upon as a finicky, showy thing of unnecessary prejudices and fripperies.” 

Helga follows her husband to rural Alabama and exhibits chameleon-like tendencies to adopt his views. She comes to view her former self as superficial and materialistic and strives to engage in idealistic activities to help the women of the local congregation. In doing so, she unconsciously maintains the same superior attitude which has caused her lifelong lack of emotional engagement with others.

“So, though with growing yearning she longed for the great ordinary things of life hunger, sleep, freedom from pain, she resigned herself to the doing without them.” 

Helga immerses herself in her attempts at domesticity and child-rearing. She uses her newfound religious beliefs to develop a philosophical resignation to difficult circumstances; in doing so, she creates a persona entirely unlike her true self. Her manic devotion to hearth and home is as extreme as her efforts at increased popularity and socializing have been in the past.

“It was even more disagreeable to feel his moist hand on hers.” 

When Helga emerges from a nearly-comatose state following the difficult delivery of her fourth child, she starts to return to her former worldview. Her husband, whose foibles she tolerates until this point, now repulse her. She reneges all religious beliefs and, once again, starts to dislike all those around her.