Double Consciousness in Quicksand

W. E. B. Du Bois' concept of the double consciousness of African Americans is a prevalent motif throughout Nella Larsen's novella, Quicksand. Double consciousness, Du Bois argues, is the idea that one does not have any sense of "true self consciousness" (Du Bois 9), rather one sees him or herself through "the eyes of the world" (9). It is through this phenomenon that African Americans do not see their heritage bonding with their citizenship, causing them to forever "feel[ their] two-ness, -an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unrecoiled strivings; two working ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder" (9). This duality of identity and self consciousness is, Du Bois holds, a fundamental aspect of an African American experience, for accepting that one 's self is solely an American would be to abandon one's African heritage, and the uniqueness that is brought on by being a black individual within a predominantly white society would then be lost.

Helga Crane, Larsen's main character, embodies Du Bois' theory completely. Born to a Swedish immigrant mother and an African American father, Helga's physical body, being part white and part black, exemplifies not only the duality of her genetic heritage and physical appearance, but also represents the clash of the two cultures that she belongs to. This duality of race permeates into all aspects of Helga's life and is a determining factor in her actions and decisions. Despite the even split of her race, Helga rarely, if ever, fully identifies herself as a white person and always considers herself to be black. Even though she primarily views herself as an African American, Helga tends to be more comfortable when she is among white people. For example, Helga feels as an outcast in the beginning and end of the novel, when she is completely submerged in a black society, but she begins to become a more comfortable and complete character when she is with white people. Because in both situations she is aware that she is racially different from her company, she becomes overly self conscious and increasingly aware of the duality of her being.

The story of Quicksand begins at Naxos, a small academy in the south for African American students. Helga, after teaching at the school for several years, decides to leave the school in search of finding work in an environment in which she feels that she better fits in. Although she mentions that she has not, in the past, felt at home among white people, she explains that her Caucasian heritage makes her feel as though she is an outcast while among the purely black faculty and student population of Naxos. Although she is among people that respect her and wish for her to stay, Helga cannot help but see herself as she believes her students and coworkers see her, as somebody who is different from them and therefore does not deserve to be among them. Naxos as an entity contributes to an increased level of double consciousness, as it tries to impose the white ideals of education upon black students by using a format of school common to most western academies and universities. The name of the school itself, Naxos, is simply Saxon written backwards. As the Saxons were a northern European people, from which many European nationalities descend, this name is significant on multiple levels. First, the name is indicative of the culture that the school exists within; society at the time of the novel was highly dictated by whites and then impressed upon black culture, just as the school is run in the fashion of a traditional Caucasian institution. Also, the backwards nature of the name can be representative of how African American's were viewed by the majority of society: not as their own ethnicity and not as equals to other ethnicities, but simply as being the opposite of and backwards from whites. Because of the nature of the school, Helga would not only be conscious of how people saw her because she was an African American, but she would be conscious of the fact that people would see her as an African American making an attempt to assimilate to white culture and standards.

Helga is met in Copenhagen with an unexpected level of love and adoration from her aunt and uncle. They welcome her into their lives and social circle, and do not appreciate her any less for her ethnicity. Her aunt even comments on the beauty of her dark skin, explaining to her niece that she should embrace her skin color and wear brightly colored outfits to accentuate her features. At this point, Helga begins to see herself as less of an outcast and more of a uniquely exotic individual. This attitude, which is shared by her relatives, eventually overshadows the confidence that it brings Helga, and she becomes a novelty to her aunt and uncle and their social network in Denmark. To add to her exoticism, Axel Olsen propositions her for a romantic relationship, largely because of her ethnicity; first, he attempts to convince her to have a strictly sexual relationship, and then, upon refusal, asks for her hand in marriage. This causes Helga to be more acutely aware of her dual race than she was in America. Additionally, as one of the only black people in Copenhagen, Helga begins to lose her sense of and contact with black culture, and decides to return to her native country where she may feel that she is closer to people that are more like her, even if she is further away from the people that she is actually related to.

When Helga returns to America, she is somewhat satisfied to be among the people that she deems her own, but it isn't long before she longs for her aunt and uncle and the attention that she got in Copenhagen. It is then that she contemplates returning to Denmark, but ultimately decides not to. It is because of her "double consciousness" of two different circumstances, essentially two different worlds and two different lives, that she is unable to see the benefits of one without the flaws of the other. When she is in America, she longs for the extensive social life that she held in Denmark, where people would look at her with amazement and awe, but when she is in Copenhagen, she misses seeing the people that she relates to and is constantly reminded that while she may be accepted as an African American in Europe, many African Americans are still being mistreated and discriminated against in the United States.

Helga's personal life is the aspect of her character that is most obviously affected by her double consciousness. She takes her mixed heritage as a lifelong sentence of loneliness. She refuses to marry Axel Olsen on the grounds that their children will be a black and white mix and have to live as an outcast, as she herself had been forced to do. Her reasoning against marrying James Vayle also had to do with race, but was slightly different. She feels that their children would be considered black and be forced to live as subordinates to the whites that ultimately have the power in America. Her logic is flawed in that respect, as a child produced with James Vayle would be seventy five percent black and twenty five percent white, no less mixed than the children she might have with Axel Olsen, who would end up being seventy five percent white and twenty five percent black. In either case, the children would be mixed, but would likely be so heavily saturated with one race's genes that they would appear as either black or white and not mixed. Helga, at any rate, sees that any pain inflicted on her by her dual ethnicity would passed along to her children and, in turn, make them the outcasts that she feels herself to be.

Eventually, Helga does marry an African American preacher, Pleasant Green, who is the exact opposite of both James Vayle and Axel Olsen. While Vayle and Olsen are both prestigious men in their own circles, Pleasant Green is only known, much less respected, within the small church that he operates. Vayle and Olsen both seem to be interested in Helga romantically, and are even possibly in love with her. Green looks at her as a sort of necessity, somebody to bear him children, keep his house, and prepare his meals while he takes little interest in her and is often out with other women from the congregation. By the end of the novel, Helga has become completely immersed in an African American community and puts a spin on Du Bois' examination of the double consciousness, not by losing her black heritage and culture, but by all but losing the elements of her Caucasian culture and contact with her family in Copenhagen. In doing so, she produces the mostly black children, as she was afraid of doing with James Vayle; these children are numerous and seem to know little of the white world and will have to live their lives subordinate to the whites that control their nation

Throughout the novel, Helga's double consciousness holds her back from progressing forwards in her career, from marrying the men she might have otherwise considered marrying, from being connected to her family, from staying in one location, from making and keeping good friends, and from living her life without fear of being treated differently. It is ultimately her double consciousness that leads to her final demise, when she becomes the very person that she worked so hard to not become. In the final pages of the novel, as Helga struggles for her life, planning to escape, and ends up being weighed down by another pregnancy, her double consciousness is at its peak: she becomes fully self conscious of the life she has with the reverend as well as fully conscious of the life that she had planned on for herself, two conflicting consciousnesses that together make up a sort of human double conscious that supersedes race and allows for all to see that life is unpredictable and our plans for ourselves are often not fulfilled.

Works Cited

Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Fine Creative Media, Inc. New York, NY: 2003.

Larsen, Nella. Quicksand and Passing. Rutgers University Press. United States: 2005.