Quest for Status

"Street Life" by William H. Johnson

Nella Larsen's writings emerged at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, a period during the 1920s and '30s when African Americans were encouraged to move to Harlem and write about their life experiences. 


The Harlem Renaissance fit right in with the Modernist movement of the same era which was characterized by releasing traditional forms of literary and artistic expression and embracing progressive ideas.


As a writer, Larsen was certainly in step with the modernist movement because her writings challenged the traditional views of black Americans, particularly black women in society. She was a product of so many different aspects of the American landscape. 


During that time in history, the role of women and blacks in America as subservient and/or unintelligent was being challenged. In Quicksand, Larsen gave readers a glimpse of an intellectual black women. Also, black women were often viewed as highly sexual 'creatures'. Larsen challenged that view, as well, through the development of thoughtful, intelligent and sensitive protagonists like Helga Crane.


Economic status was also a facet of culture that was explored during that period. Black Americans were beginning to explore the idea of wealth and capitalism. The fact that Larsen incorporated her mixed-race heritage into her writings made her viewpoint even more compelling. She saw society through four distinctive lenses: a poor, working-class white family; the wealthy, global elitist white; the lens of the progressive, educated "new negro"; and the lens of the historically poor, subjugated black. 


As a product and recipient of each of those distinctions at various stages of her life, Larsen's writings made it painfully clear that to be white and affluent was still the modernist standard, and the goal of the Harlem Renaissance's new negro.  


Sources:


Dawahare, Anthony. "The Gold Standard of Racial Identity in Nella Larsen's "Quicksand"..."Twentieth Century Literature (Vol.52, No.1). Spring 2006: 22-41. SIRS Renaissance. Web. 24 Apr2012.


"Harlem Renaissance" The Hutchinson Dictionary of the Arts. 2004: n.p. SIRS Renaissance. Web. 24 Apr 2012.


"Modernism (Literature)." SIRS Renaissance. 1998: n.p. SIRS Renaissance. Web. 24 Apr 2012.