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Chapter 20
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
Helga is walking back to her hotel, escorted by the “fattish yellow man” who sat next to her. He introduces himself as the Reverend Mr. Pleasant Green. Helga can tell that he’s attracted to her, and wonders if she should dare to act on it. She realizes that nothing and nobody is holding her back. Her mind suddenly feels clear, and she wonders if a spiritual life is really what she needed all along. Helga stops herself from thinking and looks at the Reverend, trying to remember his name.
Helga’s feeling of ease and calm prompt her to consider a religious life as a way to ease her troubled mind and internal anguish. Despite Helga’s intentions to address her emotions, she continues to mishandle her romantic affairs, and considers a spontaneous marriage to the Reverend: a man whom she doesn’t know, doesn’t find attractive, and whose name she can’t even remember.
Themes
The next morning, Helga is pensive, wondering if religion is responsible for her calm mood. She feels bitter as she realizes the calm will dissipate, leaving her small life of mere things in which “happiness and serenity” evades her. Helga decides that she needs something more, and if she can handle the price of marrying the Reverend to get it. She reasons that it’s a chance at stability and happiness, and she’s lost so many chances already that she’s resolved to take this one. Helga also thinks about God, and decides it’s practical to take care of the God business and the marriage business in one fell swoop.
Helga solidifies her plan to launch herself into the next phase of her life. Although she has started to fall into place in Harlem, has met more likeminded people, and discovered interracial social contexts where she isn’t an outsider, Helga decides to run away yet again. This time, she tells herself she’s running toward something: her feeling of “happiness and serenity” that she found at the church. She convinces herself that marrying the Reverend is a smart move, but it’s clear that her approach to romantic affairs is still not in tune with her actual emotions.
Themes
Helga’s mind wanders to Robert Anderson and she thinks gleefully about how her marriage to the Reverend will be her revenge. She feels elated as she thinks about how much it will hurt him. Suddenly, Helga feels compelled to act on her impulse immediately, before the chance escapes her. She’s sure the Reverend won’t be able to resist her. She just needs to lock it down, and quickly.
Although Helga convinces herself she’s running toward happiness, she’s really running away from her feelings for Robert Anderson, as her comments about revenge indicate. Once again, Helga represses her feelings by running headfirst into a new situation, instead of processing her pain.
Themes
