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Nella Larsen's Quicksand: A Descent into Racial Identity and Self-Discovery
Are you intrigued by the complexities of racial identity in the early 20th century? Do you crave a novel that challenges societal norms and explores the internal struggles of a young Black woman navigating a world defined by prejudice and limited choices? Then Nella Larsen's Quicksand is a must-read. This in-depth analysis delves into the novel's themes, characters, and lasting impact, providing you with a comprehensive understanding of this powerful and often overlooked masterpiece. We’ll explore the novel's symbolism, its critical reception, and its enduring relevance in contemporary discussions about race and identity.
The Unstable Ground of Helga Crane: Exploring the Central Character
Quicksand centers on Helga Crane, a light-skinned Black woman grappling with a profound sense of displacement and a desperate search for belonging. Unlike many protagonists of her time, Helga is not passively accepting her fate. She actively seeks to define herself, moving between different social and racial environments, each offering a tantalizing glimpse of acceptance but ultimately failing to provide lasting fulfillment. Helga’s journey is one of constant negotiation, a struggle to reconcile her internal sense of self with the external pressures imposed upon her by a society rigidly defined by racial lines.
#### The Weight of Passing: Navigating Racial Ambiguity
Helga's light complexion allows her the option of "passing" as white, a concept Larsen explores with chilling realism. However, Larsen doesn't present this as a simple solution to Helga’s problems. The possibility of passing, instead, becomes a source of profound internal conflict. It exposes the precariousness of identity and the agonizing cost of abandoning one's heritage for social acceptance. The novel masterfully reveals the psychological toll of such a decision, highlighting the inherent instability of an identity built on deception.
#### The Conflicting Pulls of Identity: Marriage, Motherhood, and Education
Helga's journey isn't solely defined by racial ambiguity. Her relationships with men, her experiences with motherhood, and her pursuit of education all contribute to her complex narrative. Each relationship, whether with the charismatic but ultimately unfulfilling Axel Olsen or the deeply religious and restrictive Annear, reveals a different facet of Helga's identity crisis. Her yearning for intellectual stimulation and self-discovery clashes with societal expectations and the constraints placed upon Black women in her era. The novel subtly critiques the limitations placed on Black women's aspirations, both within and outside the confines of marriage and motherhood.
The Power of Symbolism: Quicksand and the Suffocating Reality
The title itself, Quicksand, is a powerful symbol representing the unstable and ultimately unfulfilling nature of Helga's search for identity. The imagery of sinking into the sand powerfully reflects Helga’s feeling of being trapped and overwhelmed by the societal pressures and expectations she faces. Throughout the novel, Larsen utilizes evocative imagery and symbolism to create a rich tapestry of meaning, enriching the reader’s understanding of Helga's internal struggles and the broader social commentary the novel conveys.
#### The Significance of Setting: From Chicago to Denmark to the South
Larsen's strategic use of setting is crucial in shaping Helga's experience. The novel traverses various landscapes—the vibrant but ultimately isolating freedom of Chicago, the oppressive conformity of Denmark, and the suffocating racial hierarchy of the South. Each location represents a different stage in Helga's journey, underscoring the pervasive nature of racial prejudice and the limited options available to a Black woman seeking self-discovery in a racially charged society. These changes in setting mirror the internal shifts within Helga, showcasing the instability of her self-identity.
Reception and Lasting Legacy: A Timeless Exploration of Race and Identity
Upon its initial publication, Quicksand received mixed reviews, with some critics praising its unflinching portrayal of racial complexities and others criticizing its unconventional narrative structure. However, over time, the novel has gained widespread recognition for its powerful exploration of race, gender, and identity. It remains a crucial text in African American literature, offering a nuanced and unflinching look at the challenges faced by Black women in the early 20th century. Its themes of self-discovery, identity formation, and the complexities of race continue to resonate with readers today.
Conclusion
Nella Larsen's Quicksand remains a powerful and relevant work of fiction. Its exploration of racial identity, the complexities of self-discovery, and the suffocating pressures of societal expectations provides a timeless and deeply moving narrative. The novel's enduring impact lies in its unflinching portrayal of a Black woman's struggle to find her place in a world defined by racial prejudice and limited opportunities, a struggle that sadly remains relevant even in today's society.
FAQs
1. What is the main theme of Quicksand? The main themes are racial identity, self-discovery, the limitations placed on Black women, and the complexities of navigating a racially charged society.
2. Is Quicksand considered a feminist novel? While not explicitly labeled as such, Quicksand certainly explores feminist themes through Helga's struggle against societal expectations and limitations placed upon women, particularly Black women, in her era.
3. How does Quicksand differ from Larsen's other novel, Passing? While both explore racial ambiguity, Passing focuses more on the choice to "pass" as white and its consequences, while Quicksand explores a broader range of themes surrounding racial identity and self-discovery.
4. What is the significance of the novel's ending? The ambiguous ending reflects the open-ended nature of Helga's search for identity and suggests that the struggle for self-discovery is a continuous process, rather than a destination.
5. Why should I read Quicksand today? Quicksand offers a powerful and insightful exploration of themes that remain highly relevant today, including racial identity, gender equality, and the ongoing struggle for self-definition in a complex and often oppressive society.
| nella larsen quicksand: Quicksand Nella Larsen, 2022 Harlem Renaissance author Nella Larsen (1891 –1964) published just two novels and three short stories in her lifetime, but achieved lasting literary acclaim. Her classic novel Quicksand first appeared in 1928. |
| nella larsen quicksand: New People Danzy Senna, 2017-08-01 Named a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, VOGUE, TIME MAGAZINE, NPR and THE ROOT [A] cutting take on race and class...part dark comedy, part surreal morality tale. Disturbing and delicious. —People You’ll gulp Senna’s novel in a single sitting—but then mull over it for days.” –Entertainment Weekly From the bestselling author of Caucasia and Colored Television, a subversive and engrossing novel of race, class and manners in contemporary America. As the twentieth century draws to a close, Maria is at the start of a life she never thought possible. She and Khalil, her college sweetheart, are planning their wedding. They are the perfect couple, King and Queen of the Racially Nebulous Prom. Their skin is the same shade of beige. They live together in a black bohemian enclave in Brooklyn, where Khalil is riding the wave of the first dot-com boom and Maria is plugging away at her dissertation, on the Jonestown massacre. They've even landed a starring role in a documentary about new people like them, who are blurring the old boundaries as a brave new era dawns. Everything Maria knows she should want lies before her—yet she can't stop daydreaming about another man, a poet she barely knows. As fantasy escalates to fixation, it dredges up secrets from the past and threatens to unravel not only Maria's perfect new life but her very persona. Heartbreaking and darkly comic, New People is a bold and unfettered page-turner that challenges our every assumption about how we define one another, and ourselves. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Quicksand Nella Larsen, 2017-11-07 Library of America presents one of the masterworks of the Harlem Renaissance, the tragic story of a young woman caught between worlds. Quicksand (1928) turns the techniques of literary naturalism on questions of race, gender, and class, with unforgettable results. Nella Larsen’s immensely stylish debut novel tells the story of sensitive, proud, and beautiful Helga Crane, the daughter (like Larsen herself) of a black West Indian father and a white Danish mother. She has what some would consider a promising career in the South, teaching at “the finest school for Negroes anywhere in the country,” and a respectable fiancé. But she refuses to settle for the loveless future she envisions, hemmed in by petty conformities and the realities of southern racism, black as well as white––and so she sets off in search a happier life, a journey recounted with great feeling and psychological precision in Quicksand. In Chicago, white in-laws disown Helga. Other relatives, in Copenhagen, fête her as a gorgeous exotic, and arrange a relationship with a famous Danish artist, but fail to see her as anything other than a marriageable commodity. Only in cosmopolitan New York, encountering what Larsen describes as “the continuously gorgeous panorama of Harlem,” does she begin to sense that she may have found a place where she might belong. But hers is a fate full of ambivalence, in which even the faith and family to which she turns are forms of entrapment. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Quicksand Nella Larsen, 2020 Noted Harlem Renaissance scholar Carla Kaplan here offers a new edition of Nella Larsen's Quicksand with an acute introduction comprising both biography and critical survey. With its careful scholarly scaffolding, this superbly useful edition will benefit teacher and student alike. --RAFIA ZAFAR, Washington University in Saint Louis |
| nella larsen quicksand: Quicksand Nella Larsen, 1969 |
| nella larsen quicksand: Quicksand and Passing Nella Larsen, 1986-04-01 Quicksand and Passing are novels I will never forget. They open up a whole world of experience and struggle that seemed to me, when I first read them years ago, absolutely absorbing, fascinating, and indispensable.--Alice Walker Discovering Nella Larsen is like finding lost money with no name on it. One can enjoy it with delight and share it without guilt. --Maya Angelou A hugely influential and insightful writer. --The New York Times Larsen's heroines are complex, restless, figures, whose hungers and frustrations will haunt every sensitive reader. Quicksand and Passing are slender novels with huge themes. -- Sarah Waters A tantalizing mix of moral fable and sensuous colorful narrative, exploring female sexuality and racial solidarity.-Women's Studies International Forum Rutgers' all-time bestselling book, Nella Larsen's novels Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) document the historical realities of Harlem in the 1920s and shed a bright light on the social world of the black bourgeoisie. The novels' greatest appeal and achievement, however, is not sociological, but psychological. As noted in the editor's comprehensive introduction, Larsen takes the theme of psychic dualism, so popular in Harlem Renaissance fiction, to a higher and more complex level, displaying a sophisticated understanding and penetrating analysis of black female psychology. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Passing Nella Larsen, 2022 Harlem Renaissance author Nella Larsen (1891 –1964) published just two novels and three short stories in her lifetime, but achieved lasting literary acclaim. Her classic novel Passing first appeared in 1926. |
| nella larsen quicksand: The Drover's Wife Leah Purcell, 2019-12-03 Deep in the heart of Australia’s high country, along an ancient, hidden track, lives Molly Johnson and her four surviving children, another on the way. Husband Joe is away months at a time droving livestock up north, leaving his family in the bush to fend for itself. Molly’s children are her world, and life is hard and precarious with only their dog, Alligator, and a shotgun for protection – but it can be harder when Joe’s around. At just twelve years of age Molly’s eldest son Danny is the true man of the house, determined to see his mother and siblings safe – from raging floodwaters, hunger and intruders, man and reptile. Danny is mature beyond his years, but there are some things no child should see. He knows more than most just what it takes to be a drover’s wife. One night under the moon’s watch, Molly has a visitor of a different kind – a black ‘story keeper’, Yadaka. He’s on the run from authorities in the nearby town, and exchanges kindness for shelter. Both know that justice in this nation caught between two worlds can be as brutal as its landscape. But in their short time together, Yadaka shows Molly a secret truth, and the strength to imagine a different path. Full of fury and power, Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson is a brave reimagining of the Henry Lawson short story that has become an Australian classic. Brilliantly plotted, it is a compelling thriller of our pioneering past that confronts head-on issues of today: race, gender, violence and inheritance. |
| nella larsen quicksand: The Short Fiction of Nella Larsen Nella Larsen, 2013-04-22 Nella Larsen was an important writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance. While she was not prolific her work was powerful and critically acclaimed. Collected here are all three of her published short stories; Freedom, The Wrong Man, and Sanctuary. These stories are about love, loss, mistaken identity, and death. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Nella Larsen Jacquelyn Y. McLendon, 2016-09-01 Nella Larsen's novels Quicksand and Passing, published at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, fell out of print and were thus little known for many years. Now widely available and taught, Quicksand and Passing challenge conventional tragic mulatta and passing narratives. In part 1, Materials, of Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Nella Larsen, the editor surveys the canon of Larsen's writing, evaluates editions of her works, recommends secondary readings, and compiles a list of useful multimedia resources for teaching. The essays in part 2, Approaches, aim to help students better understand attitudes toward women and race during the Harlem Renaissance, the novels' relations to other artistic movements, and legal debates over racial identities in the early twentieth century. In so doing, contributors demonstrate how new and seasoned instructors alike might use Larsen's novels to explore a wide range of topics--including Larsen's short stories and letters, the relation between her writings and her biography, and the novels' discussion of gender and sexuality. |
| nella larsen quicksand: In Search of Nella Larsen George Hutchinson, 2009-07-01 Born to a Danish seamstress and a black West Indian cook in one of the Western Hemisphere's most infamous vice districts, Nella Larsen (1891-1964) lived her life in the shadows of America's racial divide. She wrote about that life, was briefly celebrated in her time, then was lost to later generations--only to be rediscovered and hailed by many as the best black novelist of her generation. In his search for Nella Larsen, the mystery woman of the Harlem Renaissance, George Hutchinson exposes the truths and half-truths surrounding this central figure of modern literary studies, as well as the complex reality they mask and mirror. His book is a cultural biography of the color line as it was lived by one person who truly embodied all of its ambiguities and complexities. Author of a landmark study of the Harlem Renaissance, Hutchinson here produces the definitive account of a life long obscured by misinterpretations, fabrications, and omissions. He brings Larsen to life as an often tormented modernist, from the trauma of her childhood to her emergence as a star of the Harlem Renaissance. Showing the links between her experiences and her writings, Hutchinson illuminates the singularity of her achievement and shatters previous notions of her position in the modernist landscape. Revealing the suppressions and misunderstandings that accompany the effort to separate black from white, his book addresses the vast consequences for all Americans of color-line culture's fundamental rule: race trumps family. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Quicksand & Passing Nella Larsen, 2014-05-22 Now a major motion picture starring Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga and Alexander Skarsgard. A writer of the Harlem Renaissance, Nella Larsen wrote just two novels, published here, and a handful of short stories. Critically acclaimed, both speak powerfully of the contradictions and restrictions experienced by black women at that time. Quicksand, written in 1928, is an autobiographical novel about Helga Crane, a mixed race woman caught between fulfilling her desires and gaining respectability in her middle class neighbourhood. Written a year later, Passing tells the story of two childhood friends, Clare and Irene, both light skinned enough to pass as white. Reconnecting in adulthood, Clare has chosen to live as a white woman, while Irene embraces black culture and has an important role in her community. Nella Larsen's novels are moving, characterful, and important books. She pioneered writing about the conflicts of sexuality, race and the secret suffering of women in the early twentieth century. |
| nella larsen quicksand: The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen Nella Larsen, 2010-09-01 A remarkable volume that brings together the complete fiction of the author of Passing and Quicksand, one of the most gifted writers of the Harlem Renaissance. • An original and hugely insightful writer. —The New York Times Throughout her short but brilliant literary career, Nella Larsen wrote piercing dramas about the black middle class that featured sensitive, spirited heroines struggling to find a place where they belonged. Passing, Larsen’s best-known work, is a disturbing story about the unraveling lives of two childhood friends, one of whom turns her back on her past and marries a white bigot. Just as disquieting is the portrait in Quicksand of Helga Crane, half black and half white, who is unable to escape her loneliness no matter where and with whom she lives. Race and marriage offer few securities here or in the other stories in this compulsively readable collection, rich in psychological complexity and imbued with a sense of place that brings Harlem vibrantly to life. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Quicksand Malin Persson Giolito, 2017-03-07 NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES An incisive courtroom thriller and a drama that raises questions about the nature of love, the disastrous side effects of guilt, and the function of justice. A mass shooting has taken place at a prep school in Stockholm’s wealthiest suburb. Eighteen-year-old Maja Norberg is charged for her involvement in the massacre that left her boyfriend and her best friend dead. She has spent nine months in jail awaiting trial. Now the time has come for her to enter the courtroom. How did Maja—popular, privileged, and a top student—become a cold-blooded killer in the eyes of the public? What did Maja do? Or is it what she failed to do that brought her here? Malin Persson Giolito has written a perceptive portrayal of a teenage girl and a blistering indictment of a society that is coming apart. A work of great literary sensibility, Quicksand touches on wealth, class, immigration, and the games children play among themselves when parents are no longer attuned to their struggles. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Invisible Darkness Charles R. Larson, 1993 Invisible Darkness offers a striking interpretation of the tortured lives of the two major novelists of the Harlem Renaissance: Jean Toomer, author of Cane (1923), and Nella Larsen, author of Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929). Charles R. Larson examines the common belief that both writers disappeared after the Harlem Renaissance and died in obscurity; he dispels the misconception that they vanished into the white world and lived unproductive and unrewarding lives. In clear, jargon-free language, Larson demonstrates the opposing views that both writers had about their work v. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Racism in Nella Larsen's Quicksand Elisabeth Heck, 2011-11 Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Bamberg, language: English, abstract: ... the feeling of smallness which had hedged her [Helga] in, first during her sorry unchildlike childhood among hostile white folk in Chicago, and later during her uncomfortable sojourn among snobbish black folk in Naxos. This quotation demonstrates the complexity of racial issues Nella Larsen deals with in Quicksand. Both, interracial (hostile white folk) and intraracial (snobbish black folk) constructions of racism are considered within the text. The heroine, Helga Crane, moves to several places throughout the novel and in all of these locations she has to face stereotypes which restrain and oppress her. Helga is forced to fight against imposed definitions of blackness and womanhood2 which are inflicted on her by an oppressive white and black society. Consequently, when discussing the topic racism in Quicksand, one must keep in mind the importance of the mutual influence and the coaction between race and gender. |
| nella larsen quicksand: The Nella Larsen Collection; Quicksand, Passing, Freedom, the Wrong Man, Sanctuary Nella Larsen, 2010-08-01 The Nella Larsen Collection is comprised of five Nella Larsen fiction including; Quicksand, Passing, Freedom, The Wrong Man, and Sanctuary. Quicksand, Larsen's first novel, tells the story of Helga Crane who is the lovely and refined daughter of a Danish mother and a West Indian black father who abandons Helga and her mother soon after Helga is born. Unable to feel comfortable with any of her white-skinned relatives, Helga travels America, visits Denmark searching for people she feels at home with. In Passing Clare and Irene are childhood friends who lose touch when Clare's father dies and she moves in with two white aunts. By hiding that Clare was part-black, they allowed her to 'pass' as a white woman and marry a white racist. Irene lives in Harlem, commits herself to racial uplift, and marries a black doctor. Passing centers on the meeting of these childhood friends later in life, and the unfolding of events as each woman is fascinated and seduced by the other's daring lifestyle. Freedom, The Wrong Man, and Sanctuary are three stories about love, loss, mistaken identity, and death. Nellallitea 'Nella' Larsen was an American novelist of the Harlem Renaissance. Though her literary output was scant, what she wrote earned her recognition by her contemporaries and by present-day critics. |
| nella larsen quicksand: The Quest for a Black Female Identity in Nella Larsen's "Quicksand" Rabea Freund, 2009-02-23 Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Seminar für Englische Philologie), course: Jazz in America, language: English, abstract: Nella Larsen’s Quicksand was published to critical acclaim in 1928 and is said to be one of the key texts of the Harlem Renaissance era. Larsen herself was of Danish-Carribean ancestry and was highly interested in issues of racial identity, especially as they relate to being female. For that reason one should not be surprised that Quicksand focuses on the protagonist’s struggles toward selfhood, her attempts to find her place in the world as a woman who is considered neither white nor black. The child of a Danish mother and a black West Indian father, a socalled “mulatto”, Helga Crane finds herself outside of the black as well as the white world, fully comfortable in neither one nor the other. During her unhappy childhood she learns to regard her skin color with hatred and selfloathing, resulting in a deeply rooted sense of insecurity about her blackness and mixed heritage, which continues to be felt all her life. Internalized (white) stereotypes about black womens ́ promiscuous, “primitive” and immoral sexuality lead Helga to fear and repress her sensuality and female desires. As she detests and completely denies these emotions she is incapable of developing an identity as a woman either. In this seminar paper I will argue that Nella Larsen’s Quicksand is about Helga Crane’s search for a black female identity which she will fail to find. Further, my aim is to demonstrate how intimately connected race and gender oppressions are, since imposed definitions of blackness and womanhood complicate Helgas search for her personal identity as a black woman. As Quicksand has a geographical symmetry to it, I will follow this pattern in my analysis. It starts out in the South in Naxos where Helga works as a teacher, then moves on to Chicago and Harlem, from there it shifts to Copenhagen, returns back to Harlem and finally ends in the deep South, in a tiny Alabama town, where Helga’s search ends in tragedy. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Beyond Passing Nella Larsen, 2021-08-31 Nella Larsen's 1929 novel Passing is hailed today as a significant literary work of Harlem Renaissance, though for several decades it, like all of her works, was out of print. As history rights a wrong and recommits Larsen's name to memory, it is beneficial to look at the other writings she published over her short career, collected here in Beyond Passing: The Further Writings of Nella Larsen. Contained within are her autobiographical novel Quicksand, and three short stories Freedom, The Wrong Man, and Sanctuary. With a growing number of titles under its Magna Releases banner, CSRC Storytelling promotes and provides positivity, power and presence in print, restoring literary classics across genres and making them newly accessible to modern readers. This collection of Nella Larsen stories is a CSRC Storytelling Magna Release. |
| nella larsen quicksand: The Bedford Anthology of American Literature, Volume One Susan Belasco, Linck Johnson, 2007-08-01 Prepared by recognized scholars and devoted teachers, The Bedford Anthology of American Literature brings the canon of American literature down to a manageable size. Half the length of other leading anthologies, and offered at a much lower price, the anthology reflects years of firsthand experience in the classroom and extensive research on what instructors are actually teaching in the survey course today. Prepared expressly for students and informed by the new understandings of and approaches to American literature that have emerged during the last 30 years, the anthology is lavishly illustrated and features several pedagogical innovations that help students engage with the literature. |
| nella larsen quicksand: The Femme Fatale in American Literature Ghada Suleiman Sasa, 2008 Characters in the literary tradition of American naturalism are usually perceived as passive, lacking in will, weak, and predetermined. They are constantly seen as the victims of heredity and environment, and their lives are shaped according to these strong forces that operate upon them. This interesting book examines the representation of female characters in American naturalism and argues that women in American naturalism are often represented as femmes fatales. Since heredity and environment are the determining factors in their lives, they are victims who have no control. However, with characters such as Trina Sieppe in Frank Norris's McTeague, Caroline Meeber in Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's The Awakening, and Helga Crane in Nella Larsen's Quicksand, these women victims gradually turn themselves into victimizers in order to conquer both heredity and environment. They consciously and deliberately use the only power they have that can help them overcome the naturalistic world in which they are entrapped--the power of the feminine. The book explains who exactly the femme fatale that has been born out of American naturalism is, and explores images of women in American realism who precede the femme fatale of American naturalism. This study examines characters like Trina Sieppe, Caroline Meeber, Edna Pontellier, and Helga Crane. It analyzes these women's backgrounds, their demeanors, their temperaments, their experiences, and their settings, and explains how and when each woman decides to use her sexuality. There is also a brief discussion of other femmes fatales in American naturalism, such as Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Although the perception of women in nineteenth-century American literature has always had its place in discussions of literary texts, this book is unique in its argument that women in American naturalism are neither weak nor passive, but rather are strong and daring women who try diligently to find a means of fighting back. This book is an important addition to collections in literature and Women's studies. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Nella Larsen, Novelist of the Harlem Renaissance Thadious M. Davis, 1996-05-01 Nella Larsen (1891–1964) is recognized as one of the most influential, and certainly one of the most enigmatic, writers of the Harlem Renaissance. With the instant success of her two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929), she became a bright light in New York’s literary firmament. But her meteoric rise was followed by a surprising fall: In 1930 she was accused of plagiarizing a short story, and after 1933 she disappeared from both the literary and African-American worlds of New York. She lived the rest of her life—more than three decades—out of the public eye, working primarily as a nurse. In a remarkable achievement, Thadious Davis has penetrated the fog of mystery that has surrounded Larsen to present a detailed and fascinating account of the life and work of this gifted, determined, yet vulnerable artist. In addition to unraveling the details of Larsen’s personal life, Davis deftly situates the writer within the broader politics and aesthetics of the Harlem Renaissance and analyzes her life and work in terms of the current literature on race and gender. This book, with the prodigious amount of new material and insights that Davis provides, is a landmark in African-American literary history and criticism. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Communal Modernisms E. Hinnov, L. Rosenblum, L. Harris, 2013-05-07 Drawing from recent research that seeks to expand our understanding of modernism, this volume offers practical pedagogical approaches for teaching modernist literature and culture in the twenty-first century classroom. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Every Light in the House Burnin' Andrea Levy, 2010-06-24 The remarkable, emotional debut novel, both funny and moving, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, from the critically aclaimed Andrea Levy, author of the Orange Prize winning SMALL ISLAND and the Man Booker shortlisted THE LONG SONG. 'Better opportunity' - that's why Angela's dad sailed to England from America in 1948 on the Empire Windrush. Six months later her mum joined him in his one room in Earl's Court... ...Twenty years and four children later, Mr Jacob has become seriously ill and starts to move unsteadily through the care of the National Health Service. As Angela, his youngest, tries to help her mother through this ordeal, she finds herself reliving her childhood years, spent on a council estate in Highbury. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Prove It On Me Erin D. Chapman, 2012-03-27 In the wake of the Great Migration of thousands of African Americans from the scattered hamlets and farms of the rural South to the nation's burgeoning cities, a New Negro ethos of modernist cultural expression and potent self-determination arose to challenge white supremacy and create opportunities for racial advancement. In Prove It On Me, Erin D. Chapman explores the gender and sexual politics of this modern racial ethos and reveals the constraining and exploitative underside of the New Negro era's vaunted liberation and opportunities. Chapman's cultural history documents the effects on black women of the intersection of primitivism, New Negro patriarchal aspirations, and the early twentieth-century consumer culture. As U.S. society invested in the New Negroes, turning their expressions and race politics into entertaining commodities in a sexualized, primitivist popular culture, the New Negroes invested in the idea of black womanhood as a pillar of stability against the unsettling forces of myriad social and racial transformations. And both groups used black women's bodies and identities to prove their own modern notions and new identities. Chapman's analysis brings together advertisements selling the blueswoman to black and white consumers in a sex-race marketplace, the didactic preachments of New Negro reformers advocating a conservative gender politics of race motherhood, and the words of the New Negro women authors and migrants who boldly or implicitly challenged these dehumanizing discourses. Prove It On Me investigates the uses made of black women's bodies in 1920s popular culture and racial politics and black women's opportunities to assert their own modern, racial identities. |
| nella larsen quicksand: The Complete and Unabridged Fiction of Nella Larsen Nella Larsen, 2024-03-26 Nella Larsen was an important writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance. While she was not prolific her work was powerful and critically acclaimed. Collected here are both of her novels Passing and Quicksand as well as all three of her published short stories; Freedom The Wrong Man and Sanctuary. Quicksand was autobiographical in nature and examined a woman's need for sexual fulfilment balanced against respectability and acceptance amid a deeply religious society. The novel is deeply pessimistic and ends as the protagonist is sucked into a life that is at odds with all that she desired. Passing confronts the reality of racial passing. The novel focuses on two childhood friends Clare and Irene both of whom are light skinned enough to pass as white who have reconnected with one another after many years apart. Clare has chosen to pass while Irene has embraced her racial heritage and become an important member of her community. The Novel examines how people pass on many different levels and in many different ways. Some forms of passing are perfectly acceptable while others can lead to disaster. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Quicksand by Nella Larsen Nella Larsen, 2011-04-30 |
| nella larsen quicksand: Big Blonde Dorothy Parker, 2021-11-08T14:41:00Z Short story, winner of the 1929 O. Henry Award. The big blonde in question is Hazel Morse, who, when we meet her, is a model in a wholesale dress establishment, whose thoughts are largely devoted to men. Then she meets Herbie Morse, an attractive man and a heavy drinker. Where will events now take her? |
| nella larsen quicksand: Ferris Beach Jill McCorkle, 2009-09-22 BONUS! Read a preview of Jill McCorkle's new novel, HIEROGLYPHICS, in the Ferris Beach e-book. An amazing novel.— Sarah Dessen Ferris Beach is a place where excitement and magic coexist. Or so Mary Katherine Katie Burns, the only child of middle-aged Fred and Cleva Burns, believes. Shy and self-conscious, she daydreams about Ferris Beach, where her beautiful cousin, Angela, leads a romantic, mysterious life. It is the early 1970s, and when the land across the road from the Burns's historic house is sold to developers, Misty Rhodes—also from Ferris Beach—and her flamboyant parents move into the nearest newly built split-level. In contrast to Katie’s composed, reserved, practical mother, Misty and her mother are everything Katie wants to be: daring, outrageous, fun. The two girls become inseparable, sharing every secret, every dream—until one fateful Fourth of July, when their lives change in a way they could never have imagined. In this classic McCorkle novel, the author's shrewd grasp of human nature creates characters that resonate with truth and emotion, and a story perfect for mothers and daughters to share and cherish. |
| nella larsen quicksand: A Man's Place Annie Ernaux, 2012-05-29 WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE A New York Times Notable Book Annie Ernaux's father died exactly two months after she passed her practical examination for a teaching certificate. Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labor, Ernaux's father had grown into a hard, practical man who showed his family little affection. Narrating his slow ascent towards material comfort, Ernaux's cold observation reveals the shame that haunted her father throughout his life. She scrutinizes the importance he attributed to manners and language that came so unnaturally to him as he struggled to provide for his family with a grocery store and cafe in rural France. Over the course of the book, Ernaux grows up to become the uncompromising observer now familiar to the world, while her father matures into old age with a staid appreciation for life as it is and for a daughter he cautiously, even reluctantly admires. A Man's Place is the companion book to her critically acclaimed memoir about her mother, A Woman's Story. |
| nella larsen quicksand: African American Atheists and Political Liberation Michael Lackey, 2008 This study of atheist African American writers poses a substantive challenge to those who see atheism in despairing and nihilistic terms. Lackey argues that while most white atheists mourn the loss of faith, many black atheists--believing the God-concept spawns racism and oppression--consider the death of God a cause for personal and political hope. Focusing on a little-discussed aspect of African American literature, this full-length analysis of African American atheists' treatment of God fills a huge gap in studies that consistently ignore their contributions. Examining how a belief in God and His chosen people necessitates a politics of superiority and inferiority, Lackey implicitly considers the degree to which religious faith is responsible for justifying oppression, even acts of physical and psychological violence. In their secular vision of social and political justice, black atheists argue that only when the culture adopts and internalizes a truly atheist politics--one based on pluralism, tolerance, and freedom--will radical democracy be achieved. Of primary interest to scholars of African American studies, this volume also will appeal to religious scholars, philosophers, anthropologists, freethinkers, and religious and secular humanists. A recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, Michael Lackey is an associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris. |
| nella larsen quicksand: The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man James Weldon Johnson, 2021-01-01 First published in the year 1912, 'The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man' by James Weldon Johnson is the fictional account of a young biracial man, referred to as the Ex-Colored Man, living in post-Reconstruction era America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. |
| nella larsen quicksand: The House Behind the Cedars Charles W. Chesnutt, 2012-03-20 Originally published in 1900, this groundbreaking novel by a distinguished African-American author recounts the drama of a brother and sister who pass for white during the dangerous days of Reconstruction. |
| nella larsen quicksand: The Suffering Will Not Be Televised Rebecca Wanzo, 2015-05-11 Explores how the suffering of African American women has been minimized and obscured in U.S. culture. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Arrogant Beggar Anzia Yezierska, 1996-02-08 The target of intense critical comment when it was first published in 1927, Arrogant Beggar’s scathing attack on charity-run boardinghouses remains one of Anzia Yezierska’s most devastating works of social criticism. The novel follows the fortunes of its young Jewish narrator, Adele Lindner, as she leaves the impoverished conditions of New York’s Lower East Side and tries to rise in the world. Portraying Adele’s experiences at the Hellman Home for Working Girls, the first half of the novel exposes the “sickening farce” of institutionalized charity while portraying the class tensions that divided affluent German American Jews from more recently arrived Russian American Jews. The second half of the novel takes Adele back to her ghetto origins as she explores an alternative model of philanthropy by opening a restaurant that combines the communitarian ideals of Old World shtetl tradition with the contingencies of New World capitalism. Within the context of this radical message, Yezierska revisits the themes that have made her work famous, confronting complex questions of ethnic identity, assimilation, and female self-realization. Katherine Stubbs’s introduction provides a comprehensive and compelling historical, social, and literary context for this extraordinary novel and discusses the critical reaction to its publication in light of Yezierska’s biography and the once much-publicized and mythologized version of her life story. Unavailable for over sixty years, Arrogant Beggar will be enjoyed by general readers of fiction and be of crucial importance for feminist critics, students of ethnic literature. It will also prove an exciting and richly rewarding text for students and scholars of Jewish studies, immigrant literature, women’s writing, American history, and working-class fiction. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Saltwater in the Blood Easkey Britton, 2021-09-28 Powerful feminist nature writing by the pioneer of women's big-wave surfing in Ireland. Easkey Britton provides a rare female perspective on surfing, exploring the mental skills it fosters, and the need to recognize the value of the ocean and of nature's cycles in our lives. This is an incredibly inspiring exploration of the sea's role in the wellness of people and the planet, beautifully written by Easkey Britton – surfer, scientist and social activist. She offers a powerful female perspective on the sea and surfing, explaining what it’s like to be a woman in a man's world and how she promoted the sport to women in Iran, surfing while wearing a hijab. She speaks of the undiscussed taboo around entering the water while menstruating – and of how she has come to celebrate her own bodily cycles. She has developed her own approach to surfing, which instead of seeking to dominate the waves, works in tune with the natural cycles of her body, the moon and the seasons. In a society that rewards busyness, she believes that understanding the influence of cycles becomes even more important – and we all have them, men and women. For Easkey, the sea is a source of mental and physical wellbeing. She explores the mental toughness needed in big-wave surfing, and presents surfing as an embodied mindfulness practice in which we can find flow and connect with the movement of the waves. She stresses the need to recognize the ocean as our most powerful ally when addressing our greatest global challenge: the climate crisis. Above all, Easkey’s relationship to the sea has taught her about the need to meet life and evolve with it, rather than seeking to control it. By such wisdom our planet might just survive and thrive. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Nella Larsen - African-American Artist of the Harlem Renaissance Kathrin Haubold, 2003-08-27 Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1 (A), University of Frankfurt (Main) (Institute for England and American Studies), course: Harlem Renaissance, language: English, abstract: This seminar paper will sketch some of the elements of the cultural “Zeitgeist” that shaped and was reflected in Nella Larsen’s writings. But it will concentrate on the novels that she left behind: Quicksand and Passing. An important topic Larsen is dealing with is race-identity. Larsen assimilates these themes in her two novels, not by representing the lower-class problem, but more by focusing on the life and problems of middle-class females. It is more the psychological than the sociological side she portrays. This paper demonstrates that race identity and race dualism reflects Larsen’s own life story. First I will give an introduction on the Harlem Renaissance era. Then I will focus on Nella Larsen’s life. I will examine her two novels Quicksand and Passing to find out how race identity and race dualism is assimilated in her novels. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Harlem Renaissance Novels Rafia Zafar, 2011 Presents classic novels from the 1920s and 1930s that offer insight into the cultural dynamics of the Harlem Renaissance era and celebrate the period's diverse literary styles. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Blood Moon Lucy Cuthew, 2020-10-06 This powerful, timely novel in verse exposes provocative truths about periods, sex, shame, and going viral for all the wrong reasons. After school one day, Frankie, a lover of physics and astronomy, has her first sexual experience with quiet and gorgeous Benjamin—and gets her period. It’s only blood, they agree. But soon a gruesome meme goes viral, turning an intimate, affectionate afternoon into something sordid, mortifying, and damaging. In the time it takes to swipe a screen, Frankie’s universe implodes. Who can she trust? Not Harriet, her suddenly cruel best friend, and certainly not Benjamin, the only one who knows about the incident. As the online shaming takes on a horrifying life of its own, Frankie begins to wonder: is her real life over? Author Lucy Cuthew vividly portrays what it is to be a teen today with this fearless and ultimately uplifting novel in verse. Brimming with emotion, the story captures the intensity of friendships, first love, and female desire, while unflinchingly exploring the culture of online and menstrual shaming. Sure to be a conversation starter, Blood Moon is the unforgettable portrait of one girl’s fight to reclaim her reputation and to stand up against a culture that says periods are dirty. |
| nella larsen quicksand: Good Morning, Midnight Lily Brooks-Dalton, 2016-08-09 “A remarkable and gifted debut novel” (Colson Whitehead) about two outsiders—a lonely scientist in the Arctic and an astronaut trying to return to Earth—as they grapple with love, regret, and survival in a world transformed. THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NETFLIX ORIGINAL FILM THE MIDNIGHT SKY, DIRECTED BY AND STARRING GEORGE CLOONEY Augustine, a brilliant, aging astronomer, is consumed by the stars. For years he has lived in remote outposts, studying the sky for evidence of how the universe began. At his latest posting, in a research center in the Arctic, news of a catastrophic event arrives. The scientists are forced to evacuate, but Augustine stubbornly refuses to abandon his work. Shortly after the others have gone, Augustine discovers a mysterious child, Iris, and realizes that the airwaves have gone silent. They are alone. At the same time, Mission Specialist Sullivan is aboard the Aether on its return flight from Jupiter. The astronauts are the first human beings to delve this deep into space, and Sully has made peace with the sacrifices required of her: a daughter left behind, a marriage ended. So far the journey has been a success. But when Mission Control falls inexplicably silent, Sully and her crewmates are forced to wonder if they will ever get home. As Augustine and Sully each face an uncertain future against forbidding yet beautiful landscapes, their stories gradually intertwine in a profound and unexpected conclusion. In crystalline prose, Good Morning, Midnight poses the most important questions: What endures at the end of the world? How do we make sense of our lives? Lily Brooks-Dalton’s captivating debut is a meditation on the power of love and the bravery of the human heart. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SHELF AWARENESS AND THE CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS “Stunningly gorgeous . . . The book contemplates the biggest questions—What is left at the end of the world? What is the impact of a life’s work?”—Portland Mercury “A beautifully written, sparse post-apocalyptic novel that explores memory, loss and identity . . . Fans of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven and Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora will appreciate the Brooks-Dalton’s exquisite exploration of relationships in extreme environments.”—The Washington Post |
Quicksand - Archive.org
Quicksand is a 1928 novel by Nella Larsen, a writer of the Harlem Renaissance. It focuses on Helga Crane, a mixed-race woman who is a schoolteacher in the American south. As the …
Constructing Identity: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in …
Nella Larsen’s two novels, Quicksand and Passing. It examines the textual representations of race, class, gender and sexuality and how these representations speak to the stereotypes of …
Passing - Archive.org
PASSING therewithherlipspressedtogether,herthin armsfoldedacrosshernarrowchest,staring downatthefamiliarpasty-whitefaceofher parentwithasortofdisdaininherslanting ...
Indiana State University
Nella Larsen's Quicksand: Untangling the Webs of Exoticism n 1925, when Josephine Baker went to Paris to perform in the LRevue Negre, she drew attention for her comic faces and the ways …
Quicksand And Passing Nella Larsen - Washington Trails …
The first chapter shows the Quicksand And Passing Nella Larsen Larsen (PDF) ... bestselling book, Nella Larsen's novels Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) document the historical …
PASSING - Kennesaw State University
NELLA LARSEN. Nella Larsen, one of the most promising if enigmatic writers of the Harlem Renaissance, was born in Chicago of interracial parentage on April 13, 1891. Her father, who …
The Aesthetics of Race and Gender in Nella Larsen's …
In Quick- sand the story's emphasis on aesthetics focuses on overlapping concerns of race, gender, and artistic creation. Larsen makes readers pause and question whether skin color is …
Desires Trespassing Identities in Nella Larsen's Passing By …
Nella Larsen's Quicksand and Passing" that now serves as an introduction to many editions of Larsen's two novellas, Deborah McDowell made the important claim that the relatively "safe …
“Things. Things. Things”: Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and the …
“Things. Things. Things”: Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and the Beauty of Magazine Culture1 Lauren M. Rosenblum Nella Larsen’s novel Quicksand (1928) opens with an epigraph from Langston …
A Plea for Color Quicksand - DiVA portal
contrastive color imagery in Nella Larsen’s novel Quicksand. A focal point of the analysis is to show how Larsen thematizes the ability to benefit from bright colors and how color choice …
Nella Larsen Reconsidered: The Trouble with Desire in …
Nella Larsen Reconsidered: The Trouble with Desire in Quicksand and Passing Rafael Walker University of Pennsylvania The fictions of Neila Larsen have long been understood as daring …
Quicksand And Passing Nella Larsen - resources.caih.jhu.edu
Quicksand And Passing Nella Larsen / M Carnoy (PDF) wiki ... WEBPassing, Larsen’s best-known work, is a disturbing story about the unraveling lives of two childhood friends, one of …
NELLA LARSEN'S 'QUICKSAND': A NARRATIVE OF DIFFERENCE …
NELLA LARSEN'S QUICKSAND : A NARRATIVE OF DIFFERENCE By Yves W. A. Clemmen At the end of Nella Larsen's Quicksand the reader is smothered, along with the protagonist, by …
(UN) Fitting: Revisiting Jessie Fauset’s Plum Bun Larsen’s …
In this paper, I focus on Nella Larsen’ Quicksand (1928) and Jessie Fauset’s Plum Bun A Novel without a Moral (1928) showing how they demonstrate the intersectionality (Crenshaw) of …
In Nella Larsen’s 1928 novel Quicksand flâneur Quicksand
Thinking Matters transcript. In Nella Larsen’s 1928 novel Quicksand, the main character Helga Crane is characterized by her liminality and mobility, two things which allow her to move …
Nella Larsen and the Intertextual Geography of Quicksand
Quicksand. oward the middle of her 1928 novel Quicksand, Nella Larsen thematizes her authorial relation to the literary past in a scene that uncannily adumbrates the future demise of her …
SEXISM AS QUAGMIRE: NELLA LARSEN'S 'QUICKSAND' - JSTOR
SEXISM AS QUAGMIRE: NELLA LARSEN'S QUICKSAND * By Hortense E. Thornton Nella Larsen represents one of several unlaureled Black women who contributed greatly to the …
Essence and the Mulatto Traveler: Europe as Embodiment in …
When Nella Larsen's novel Quicksand appeared in 1928, in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance, its enthusiastic reception was due in part to the alterna- tive it seemed to offer to the trend of …
The New Negro Flâneuse in Nella Larsen's 'Quicksand' - JSTOR
Here, I examine how Nella Larsen situates her characters in urban, rural, and transnational terrains in order to explore how women's experience of modernity is shaped by negotiating …
A Plea for Color Quicksand - DiVA portal
Title: “A Plea for Color”: Color as a Path to Freedom in Nella Larsen’s Novel Quicksand Växjö University, June 2008 Supervisor: Piia Posti Examiner: Maria Olaussen The aim of the study is to investigate how double-consciousness operates through contrastive color imagery in Nella Larsen’s novel Quicksand. A focal point of the analysis is
UC Santa Barbara - eScholarship
Quicksand JEFFREY GRAY When Nella Larsen's novel Quicksand appeared in 1928, in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance, its enthusiastic reception was due in part to the alterna- tive it seemed to offer to the trend of "primitivism" embodied by such books as Claude McKay's Home to Harlem, which had come out the same year, and ...
BLACKNESS, BETRAYAL, AND CHILDHOOD: RACE AND …
AND IDENTITY IN NELLA LARSEN'S PASSING By Merrill Horton Charles R. Larson has written that "the primary theme" of Nella Larsen's Passing (1929) "is not race . . . but mari-tal stability."1 For Claudia Tate, "racial issues . . . are at best peripheral to the story"; for Tate, "the real impetus" of Passing is the protagonist's "emotional turbulence"
Breaking Down Creative Democracy: A Pragmatist Reading of …
in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand Gregory Alan Phipps University of Oxford 1 Although accusations that Larsen committed plagiarism in her short story “Sanctuary” (1930) would harm her standing in Harlem and effectively end her literary career, critics …
By Gregory J. Hampton - JSTOR
Nella Larsen's Quicksand 165 despite the supposedly different social environment. Con-sequently, this suggests that race works the same way in any social environment regardless of physical appearance. Race is a variable of difference that has an arbitrary rela-
Passing, Segregation, and Assimilation: How Nella Larsen …
In 1929, Nella Larsen wrote Passing, a novel that delves into the lives of two African-American women living in segregated society. Passing portrays the reunion of two childhood friends, Clare Kendry and Irene Westover. The two had lost touch when Clare’s father died and
Nella Larsen's Passing and the Fading Subject - JSTOR
Larsen's earlier Quicksand, hints at the subject's disappearance in the narrative, or the possibility of aphanisis, which Jacques Lacan ... Nella Larsen's life was shrouded in silence; not even the year of her birth was cer-tain.2 Davis's project was "to remove the aura of mystery" from Larsen's life (xix), an aura that often resulted in ...
Begging to Differ: Nella Larsen's Quicksand and - JSTOR
BEGGING TO DIFFER: NELLA LARSEN'S QUICKSAND AND ANZIA YEZIERSKA'S ARROGANT BEGGAR 89. Yezierska clearly positions her protagonist on the margins of US society: Adele is a poor Jewish woman struggling to make ends meet. Yet Adele consis-tently repudiates the identity of beggar, which she- like Helga- understands to ...
NELLA LARSEN - Kennesaw State University
Nella Larsen, one of the most acclaimed and influential writers of the Harlem Renaissance, was born Nellie Walker on April 13, ... and published her first novel, Quicksand, in 1928. Passing came out the following year. Larsen was awarded a William E. Harmon Bronze Award for Distinguished Achievement Among Negroes and a Guggenheim fellowship ...
Quicksand And Passing Nella Larsen - resources.caih.jhu.edu
Aug 15, 2023 · The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand ... Passing, Larsen’s best-known work, is a disturbing story about the unraveling lives of two childhood friends, one of whom turns her back on her past and marries a … Quicksand And Passing Nella Larsen _ Roman Wölfel Copy … Quicksand, Larsen's first novel, tells the
Unsettled intimacies: revisiting Edith Wharton’s The Custom of …
of the Country through Nella Larsen’s Quicksand Kedon Willis Kedon Willis is a PhD candidate at the University of Florida. His research focuses on the intersection of queer
Quicksand And Passing Nella Larsen - resources.caih.jhu.edu
Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand ... WEBPassing, Larsen’s best-known work, is a disturbing story about the unraveling lives of two childhood friends, one of whom turns her back on her past and marries a white bigot. Quicksand
“Too high a price” - JSTOR
Oct 1, 2009 · reveal a new knowledge of history and culture through Larsen’s writing. The author argues that Nella Larsen and her novel Quicksand are emblematic of Ann Douglass’s vision of the intricately fused Harlem Renaissance/white modernist literary movement of the 1920s as expressed in her 1995 study, Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the ...
'No Home Here': Female Space and the Modernist Aesthetic …
Nella Larsen’s . Quicksand (1928) and Sylvia Plath’s . The Bell Jar (1963). The respective protagonists of . Quicksand. and . The Bell Jar, Helga Crane and Esther Greenwood, each undertake journeys to obtain spaces that are purely their …
Nella Larsen, Passing, novel, 1929, Ch. 3, excerpts
Nella Larsen, 1928 _____PASSING . Novel, 1929 * Ch. 3 . Set in Chicago, Passing . examines the diverging lives and chance reunions of two light-skinned women, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry Bellew. This chapter presents a frank discussion of the social and economic advantages and disadvan-tages associated with racial passing. N TUESDAY MORNING
The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand …
Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand And The Stories has revolutionized the way we consume written content. Whether you are a student looking for course material, an avid … The complete fiction of nella larsen passing quicksand and … complete fiction of nella larsen passing quicksand and the stories within the digital shelves.
THE MIXED-RACE GIRL’S GUIDE TO THE ART OF PASSING: …
Helga Crane from Nella Larsen’s Quicksand to construct their mixed race identities. Birdie Lee’s childhood home is the place where she develops a mixed race identity. When she leaves that home, she is forced to take on simulacra in order to pass for white. Without a stable childhood or adult home, Helga Crane’s wardrobe becomes the space
The Symbolics of Prostitution in Nella Larsen's Quicksand …
The Symbolics of Prostitution in Nella Larsen's Quicksand and Claude McKay's Home to Harlem Kimberley Roberts University of Virginia Untrained herself, bereft of home influence, with an ancestry that sometimes cries out her parents' weakness in …
P A S S I N G NELLA LARSEN - Kennesaw State University
in Nella Larsen's Quicksand.1' In Genevieve Fabre and Michel Feith, Temples for Tomorrow: Looking Back at the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Kawash, Samira. Dislocating the Color Line: Identity, Hybridity, and Singu larity in African American Narrative. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Larsen, Nella.
Foreign Exotic or Domestic Drudge? The African American …
Nella Larsen, born in 1981 to a Danish mother and black West In-dian father, had her own racial demons to sort out in Quicksand. Her father died when she was young and her mother remarried a white man who did not accept his dark stepchild. Feeling ambivalent about who she was, Larsen moved from one social milieu to another. There
Nella Larsen Quicksand Pdf (book)
The Quest for a Black Female Identity in Nella Larsen's "Quicksand" Rabea Freund,2009-02-23 Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject American Studies Literature grade 1 0 Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Seminar f r Englische Philologie course Jazz in
'No Home Here': Female Space and the Modernist Aesthetic …
Nella Larsen’s Quicksand (1928) and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (1963). The respective protagonists of Quicksand and The Bell Jar, Helga Crane and Esther Greenwood, each undertake journeys to obtain spaces that are purely their own. However, this thesis positions each space that
The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand …
Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand And The Stories has revolutionized the way we consume written content. Whether you are a student looking for course material, an avid reader searching for your next favorite book, or a professional seeking research papers, the option to download The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen ...
A Plea for Color Quicksand - DiVA
The primary source of this essay is Nella Larsen’s novel Quicksand. The novel is included in an edition called The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen, originally titled An Intimation of Things Distant. The setting is the Harlem Renaissance (1918-1937), which is described by
QUESTIONING MULATTO WOMAN’S IDENTITY: RACE, …
Nella Larsen wrote during 1920s when Harlem Renaissance was at its peak. This ABSTRACT article makes an attempt to read Larsen [s Quicksand (1928) as an exploration of African American Zbiracial / Zmulatto [ women in White Anglo Saxon Protestant America and their quest for an identity within the confines of race, gender, sexuality
The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand …
Feb 26, 2024 · The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand And The Stories Nella Larsen, Novelist of the Harlem Renaissance 1996-05-01 Thadious M. Davis Nella Larsen (1891–1964) is recognized as one of the most influential, and certainly one of the most enigmatic, writers of the Harlem Renaissance. With the instant success of her two
“Though years have flown by”: A Letter from Nella Larsen to …
Nella Larsen, and the Quicksand of Intertextuality.” Abito e identità. Ricerche di storia letteraria e culturale. Ed. Cristina Giorcelli. Vol. 12. Palermo: Ila Palma, 2012. 155-99. Fleming, Robert E. “The Influence of Main Street on Nella Larsen’s Quicksand.” Modern Fiction Studies 31 (1985): 547-53. Giorcelli, Cristina.
By Gregory J. Hampton - JSTOR
Nella Larsen's Quicksand 165 despite the supposedly different social environment. Con-sequently, this suggests that race works the same way in any social environment regardless of physical appearance. Race is a variable of difference that has an arbitrary rela-
The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand …
Mar 5, 2024 · Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Nella Larsen 2016-09-01 Jacquelyn Y. McLendon Nella Larsen's novels Quicksand and Passing, published at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, fell out of print and were thus little known for many years. Now widely available and taught, Quicksand and Passing
Nella Larsen Reconsidered: The Trouble with Desire in …
"The New Negro Flâneuse in Nella Larsen's Quicksand ' (2008).1 I mention but a few of the many examples of the critical tendency to take for granted that Larsen was chiefly concerned with black women, but they suffice to reveal what strikes me as an …
Quicksand And Passing Nella Larsen - resources.caih.jhu.edu
Nella Larsen's Quicksand the reader is smothered, along with the protagonist, by the abrupt ne-gation of all hope condensed. 2 in the simple phrase: "when she began to have her fifth child" (135). At that point we might wonder where the book has taken us and why. The New Negro Flâneuse in Nella Larsen's 'Quicksand' Helga Crane and Irene ...
NELLA LARSEN: AN UNTOLD STORY OF RACE THROUGH …
NELLA LARSEN: AN UNTOLD STORY OF RACE THROUGH LITERATURE by Bria Michelle Stephens ... biographical paragraph on the inside cover of Larsen’s novel Quicksand, a similar bio in another one of her early works, and from the only interview she gave during her lifetime (Larson 185). He says “all of the remaining personal information appears on ...
Nella Larsen and the Veil of Race - JSTOR
veal that Marie Larsen took her daughters to her native country when Nella was six or younger and returned when Nella was seven on the Scandinavian-American Line, the line mentioned in Larsen's novel Quicksand. Peter Larsen was not with them (Direct-emigration lists 326).3 On the passenger list filled out
Quicksand And Passing Nella Larsen - treca.org
Quicksand And Passing Nella Larsen - goodrich.k12.nd.us Quicksand And Passing Nella Larsen (book) WEBQuicksand & Passing Nella Larsen,2013-04-29 Nella Larsen's novels Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) document the historical realities of Harlem in the 1920s and shed a bright light on the social world of the black bourgeoisie. P A S S I N G NELLA
The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand …
Aug 20, 2023 · Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand And The Stories has revolutionized the way we consume written content. Whether you are a student looking for course material, an avid … The complete fiction of nella larsen passing quicksand and … complete fiction of nella larsen passing quicksand and the stories within the digital shelves.
The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand …
Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand … complete fiction of the author of Passing and Quicksand, one of the most gifted writers of the Harlem Renaissance. • An original and hugely insightful writer. The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand … Passing, Larsen’s best-known work, is a disturbing story about the unraveling lives of ...
The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand …
The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand … Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand … complete fiction of the author of Passing and Quicksand, one of the most gifted writers of the Harlem Renaissance. • An original and hugely insightful writer. The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand … The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen
The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand …
Quicksand And Passing Nella Larsen - resources.caih.jhu.edu The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand … Passing, Larsen’s best-known work, is a disturbing story about the unraveling lives of two childhood friends, one of whom
Quicksand And Passing Nella Larsen (Download Only)
B. Reflecting on the Legacy of Nella Larsen C. Re-examining Our Own Perspectives on Race and Identity D. The Enduring Power of Literature to Challenge and Transform---Quicksand & Passing: Nella Larsen's Dualities Nella Larsen, a celebrated author of the Harlem Renaissance, etched her name in literary history with her impactful novels
Self-Delusion and Self-Sacrifice in Nella Larsen's Quicksand
Quicksand, both of which were pub-lished in 1928, claims Larsen's work for his side of the debate. While admiring elements of Home to Harlem, Du Bois condemns McKay for becoming a tour guide for voyeuristic white readers: SELF-DELUSION AND SELF-SACRIFICE IN NELLA LARSEN'S QUICKSAND 25
04-13-1891 Nella Larsen - Mystic Stamp Learning Center
Harlem Renaissance novelist Nellallitea “Nella” Walker Larsen was born on April 13, 1891, in Chicago, Illinois. Though her writing career was brief, Larsen produced some of the first groundbreaking works to focus on mixed race identity and the feeling of not belonging. Larsen’s mother was a Danish immigrant and her father a multiracial Afro-
Nella Larsen's Passing: A Problem of Interpretation - JSTOR
Nella Larsen's Passing (1929) has been frequently described as a novel depicting the tragic plight of the mulatto.' In fact, the passage on the cover of the 1971 Collier edition refers to the work as "the tragic story of a beautiful light-skinned mulatto passing for white in
Nella Larsen, Passing, novel, 1929, Ch. 3, excerpts
Nella Larsen, 1928 _____PASSING . Novel, 1929 * Ch. 3 . Set in Chicago, Passing . examines the diverging lives and chance reunions of two light-skinned women, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry Bellew. This chapter presents a frank discussion of the social and economic advantages and disadvan-tages associated with racial passing. N TUESDAY MORNING
Passing - Internet Archive
PASSING therewithherlipspressedtogether,herthin armsfoldedacrosshernarrowchest,staring downatthefamiliarpasty-whitefaceofher parentwithasortofdisdaininherslanting ...
The Complete Fiction Of Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand …
Apr 11, 2023 · Nella Larsen Passing Quicksand And The Stories is a crucial topic that must be grasped by everyone, from students and scholars to the general public. This book will furnish comprehensive and in-depth insights into The Complete Fiction Of Nella
'That Unreasonable Restless Feeling': The Homosexual …
sexual Subtexts of Nella Larsen's Passing he title of Nella Larsen's Passing points to the novel's central. metaphor, one that occurs at a surprisingly wide variety of levels. Ostensibly the story of Clare Kendry's "passing" for white, the novel in fact depicts a complex of duplicities. Underneath a ve-neer of middle-class respectability, its ...
Nella Larsen, Novelist of the Harlem Renaissance: A Woman's …
of the tensions in Larsen's life are played out in her two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929). Davis presents an insightful analysis of Quicksand, illuminated by rev elations about Larsen's own life. In 1930, Larsen's last published story, "Sanctuary," ap peared, and led to charges of plagiarism, de nied by Larsen. The once-acclaimed ...
Nella Larsen’s Sanctuary - WILLIAMS' WORLD: MIAMI …
Nella Larsen was an American novelist and short story writer famously associated with the Harlem Renaissance era, which one writer has ... including Quicksand which was her first novel and appeared in 1928, and Passing, her second novel which appeared in 1929. Both novels depict bits and pieces of Larsen's life; they involve
