Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Quicksand, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race, Segregation, and Society
Mixed-Race Identity
Racial Shame and Emotional Repression
Race, Beauty, and Exoticism
Religion, Poverty, and Oppression
Summary
Analysis
Fru Dahl and Herr Dahl have arranged for Axel Olsen to paint Helga’s portrait, and for him to come out shopping with them to pick out new clothes for Helga. She’s a little intimidated by his arrogance, and it starts to dawn on her that to this community, she is nothing but “A decoration. A curio. A peacock.” Helga looks over the exotic, colorful, and extravagant clothing that has been purchased for her. At first, she’s a little put off, but this feeling is soon replaced with pleasure at having such lovely clothes. Helga knows she’s being dressed and schooled to make a “voluptuous impression” but she goes along with it, as it makes her feel important.
As implied at the party, Fru Dahl, Herr Dahl, and now Axel Olsen all want to dress Helga up like an exotic sexual object. As more and more people expose that they see her this way, Helga’s initial perception of herself as a fellow Danish person among her family becomes replaced with the perception imposed on her by others. Helga is seen as an exotic possession, which she acknowledges by referring to herself in objectifying terms as a “decoration,” “curio,” and “peacock.”
Themes
Helga doesn’t think about America much, except to reflect that people of color don’t try to celebrate difference as her family does here. Instead, they try to subdue themselves and be like “their white overlords.” She realizes she was stupid to imagine she could have had children in a country where “every dark child was handicapped at the start” by indignity, by lynching, and by hatred. Helga feels so humiliated and disturbed when she thinks of America that she distracts herself with thoughts about how happy she is in her luxurious new life.
Helga’s growing awareness of how her difference is being emphasized as something of value makes her critical of the ways in which many Americans of color (like Anne and the community at Naxos) attempt to imitate white culture. For Helga, mimicry of white cultural practices does nothing more than bolster the idea of white superiority. Through Helga’s worry about having children, Larsen shows that although slavery has ended, people of color are far from emancipated in the American society of her time.
Themes
Helga leans into her life as an “accepted curiosity” in a quaint and picturesque Denmark. In the countryside, people are shocked by her well-dressed appearance and golden skin, having assumed that “Negros were black and had woolly hair.” Although she misses dancing, Helga enjoys her busy social life of spirited dinner parties and cultural excursions. Mostly, however, her mind is preoccupied with the worldly and eccentric Axel Olsen. She has been posing for him often, as he is painting her portrait. Helga knows he likes her but wonders why he doesn’t make a move. She wonders if it is because of her race.
The people in the Danish countryside encapsulate some of the simplified (or reductive) perceptions of people of color (as “black” with “woolly hair”) that Larsen challenges with her own descriptions of the story’s characters as both diverse and beautiful. Helga’s curiosity about Axel’s feelings shows that even though she is entrenched in Copenhagen’s society, she still doesn’t quite feel like she is one of them due to her racial difference.
Themes
One afternoon, at the Hotel Vivili, Fru Dahl casually suggests that Helga should think about “making a good marriage,” and lists a number of well-established potential suitors. Helga is shocked, and protests that she doesn’t believe in mixed marriages, reflecting on her own “bitter” childhood. Fru Dahl thinks this over and says that Helga only feels that way because Helga’s mother was silly to remarry instead of returning to Denmark with Helga, where she would have been loved. She warns Helga not to be a fool herself, before suggesting Herr Olsen would be ideal husband material, especially since he likes Helga. Helga feels exposed, outraged, and fearful all at the same time, and pretends she doesn’t know what Fru Dahl is talking about.
Fru Dahl’s intentions for Helga are made explicit here: she has been dressing Helga up as exotic and voluptuous to attract a husband for Helga. Fru Dahl’s list of suitors shows that she is a social climber, interested in securing wealth and social status for Helga—and, by extension, for herself. Helga exposes her racial shame by talking about the bitterness of her childhood and her reluctance to marry. Once again, when romantic matters are at stake, Helga feels a mixture of shame, anger, and fear, which makes her push her feelings away.
Themes
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