Harlem Renaissance and “Quicksand”

            Nella Larsen’s works fit into the Harlem Renaissance movement. The Harlem Renaissance was the birth of new literature, education, movement, and music by African Americans. This took place in Harlem, which could be called the “capital of the black world (Wall).” Some people wanted to call the Harlem Renaissance the “New Negro” instead because it brought out that African Americans had more to them than just the color of their skin and were in fact educated and able to think and understand. This was a huge change because African American’s didn’t have anything before but slavery, and this was a coming of age for them. Something other than slavery could now unite the African Americans struggling to succeed in a society that doesn’t want them to. Black Americans came from all over to join this new “black capital” in Harlem. It was the “new thing,” and it allowed them (Black Americans) to come together and form a new identity (Wall).

            However, it wasn’t all glitter and gold. Many women struggled with self-identity. Nella Larsen’s work fits into this because her story “Quicksand” described a woman, Helga Crane, who was going through life in the Harlem Renaissance struggling to find identity. This story easily relates and describes black women’s struggles of that time. Helga Crane was an educated woman herself (Loeffelholz), and throughout most of the story was economically fairly comfortable. “Quicksand” captured the hardship in finding self-identity for this not-white-yet-not-black woman Helga Crane. Crane seemed to always be after something and never fully satisfied. Helga could fit into a mold society and people wanted for her, but doing so led her to be internally unsatisfied so she would find a way to leave and move on to another change in life (Loeffelholz, Wall). For instance, Helga Crane taught at Naxos. There, she fit into the same mold of hypocrisy that the administrators and teachers had. But, she was unhappy with it and couldn’t tolerate it, therefore she left, and leaving included leaving her fiancé. This is a major change in life (Bloom). This story fits into the Harlem Renaissance because many women at that time faced the same struggles as Helga Crane. The story reflects to the reader the hardships they had to overcome.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. Black American Prose Writers Of the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, n.d. Print.

Loeffelholz, . The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7thth ed. New York: Norton & Company, 2007. Print.

Wall, Cheryl A. Women of the Harlem Renaissance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. Print.