Abstract
A poem by Langston Hughes precedes the body of Larsen's text, 'Quicksand', which asks: 'My old man died in a fine big house/ My ma died in a shack/ I wonder where I'm going to die/ Being neither white nor black?'. This poem suggests the reading frame of the rest of the novel, what is the place of the mulatto in a racist US society? The child of a Danish girl and a West Indian black man, Helga's character is the product of a miscegenation taboo. Larsen's novel is the narrative of young Helga Crane from her initial job as a Naxos professor to her travel to Denmark, Harlem and the Deep South. As Helga moves from home to home, she finds that she is never fully comfortable in the long term, because she is uncomfortable with herself. Larsen employs the use of the concept of this tragic mulatta, and this material homelessness, in order to better explore the idea of both the ontological homelessness of the mulatto in a racially-polarized social politic. However , the idea of race often shadows another interesting theme in the novel that arises through the femininity of the protagonist. Larsen addresses not just the idea of identity ambivalence for the mulatto, but specifically the issue of race as it pertains to sexuality. This holds special significance in the conversation about racial upliftment of the American blacks; the creation of a new, racial identity of higher class blacks. Larsen uses color as a context to discuss both female sexuality and class.
