Character Analysis of Helga Crane in Nella Larsen´s Quicksand

The entertainment of a Harlem cabaret hypnotizes Helga Crane, the protagonist of Nella Larsens Quicksand. She loses herself in the sudden streaming rhythm and delights in the sexually suggestive moves of the dancers. Helga is blown out, ripped out, beaten out by the joyous, wild, murky orchestra in a moment suggestive of a sexual climax. But when the music fades, Helga returns to reality and asserts that she wasnt, she told herself, a jungle creature. Helga feels this struggle between sexual freedom and restraint throughout the novel. As Larsen shows in the cabaret, black women of the early twentieth century repressed their sexual desires so that white America would perceive them as respectable. In its fight for equality, the black social elite wanted women to emulate the conventions of mainstream society. Maintaining a good image was intended not only to produce change within the race, but also to combat white stereotypes that caused discrimination against black people. Thus, descri bed as primitive and promiscuous since slavery, black women hid their sexuality under socially accepted behavior. But, as Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham refers to it, this politics of respectability had profound consequences. The politics of respectability shifted the blame for racist stereotypes from whites to blacks. Instead of stopping whites from unfairly labeling black women, the ideology of racial uplift forced black women to change their behavior in response to stereotypes. As Kevin