Search of Racial Identity in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand

Abstract

The novelQuicksandby Nella Larsen depicts search of racial identity vividly. In the novel, the protagonist Helga Crane showing her complicity towards the author sets herself into endless struggle of searching herself. I have depicted gender, psychological condition etc. of black people Helga Crane under racial theory to analyze the novel in the wake of searching identity.The more she searches herself, the more new kind of different troubles disturb her which makes her discoverysuspended. Helga crane flees from Naxos to Chicago, Harlem, Denmark and again returns back to the USA, however, she does not find herself satisfactorily. She even changes her suits from James Vayle toDr. Anderson, Axel Olsen and Mr. Green, nevertheless, she still remains dissatisfactory. She goes to live with her black fellows and with white relatives, nonetheless, she does not find her adjustment. She is born in a Chicago slum as a biracial daughter of a Danish white mother and a West Indian black father.This background sets her into the finding of better homely settlement related to self-pride. The more she sets herself into the adventurous exploration of herself, the more she gets entangled into different trouble. Hence, the novel ends with Helga’s utterdifficulty of racial identity’s settlement.