Quicksand and Passing Summary
Nella Larsen

Quicksand and Passing Summary

In Quicksand, Helga Crane, a young Mulatto teacher in a Negro school in Naxos, Georgia, is born of a white mother and black father. Deeply lonely as a child, she has not been able to identify herself as either white or black. Quicksand opens with Helga's decision to leave Naxos and move to Chicago because she is tired of the racial politics of the school. She announces her resignation to the school's principal, Dr. Anderson, to whom she is very attracted, breaks her engagement to a teacher named James Vayle, and leaves Naxos, relieved.

In Chicago, her formerly-reliable white Uncle Peter has a new wife, who rejects Helga due to her mixed race. Helga, alone and broke, finds work with an educated, wealthy woman named Mrs. Hayes-Rore, who asks Helga to edit her speeches on racial equality. Helga travels with her... View more of the Quicksand and Passing Summary