Helga's Problem With Commitment in Nella Larsen's Quicksand Essay

Hawthorne’s characterization of Hester throughout the novel shows strong sympathy for the specific Romantic ideals of individualism and non-conformity, but Hawthorne also clearly wants the reader to be offended by the extreme and irrational rules of Puritanism. Through Hester, Hawthorne illustrates the words of Emerson, “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist... Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world” (“Self-Reliance”). Hester is first introduced as a young woman who comes to America to start a new life without her husband around the 1650s. These facts

Unlike Abelard, Heloise never wrote a unified and comprehensive piece of work. Instead we have to gather her philosophy from her few letters’ and our understanding of her from Abelard’s responses. From her writing Heloise seems conflicted in both major relationships of her life, both Abelard and with God. With Abelard she is upset that after everything she did for him, he does nothing for her “Tell me one thing, if you can. Why, after our entry into religion, which was your decision alone, have I been so neglected and forgotten by you that you neither speak to me when you are here nor write to me when you are absent?”(1) This portrays an interesting image of Heloise living a life pursuing God in the nunnery but not for Him, and not for herself but for Abelard, because he wanted her to. In doing this she puts Abelard’s interests before not only her own, but even God’s “I can expect no reward for this from God, for it is certain that I have done nothing as yet for love of him”(2). It is in this way that we can learn Heloise’s philosophy, of furthering the interests of others rather than your own. It is this motive that Heloise finds to be good, action performed for the best

Hulga showed that she is a strong female character by being a highly educated woman. She obtained a doctorate in Philosophy, a field that is not common chosen by women. Although her mother may disagree, Hulga’s career choice shows that she does not adhere to society’s idea of an educated woman. O’Connor’s decision to

‘The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance.” and “She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it through off the sunshine…” (4). While managing to face her realities, Hester accepts her “sin” and fate with dignity.

Because of her failure to uphold her commitment to her husband, Hester’s skills are suppressed and she can not create the beautiful wedding dresses that she longs to

Hester’s initial sacrifice for love is highlighted during her decision to commit the affair with Arthur Dimmesdale. Although she was fully aware of the consequences that accompanied the affair, she considered love to be more valuable than her reputation among other individuals in the community. Yet again, Hester was met with another option to further sacrifice the reputation that had already been abandoned, when she exclaimed “that I might endure his agony, as well as mine” (Hawthorne 58). She held the identity of her affair a mystery to the outside world, which not only provided the man with protection, but it also defined Hester’s idolization of love and endearment. Due to Hester’s reputational sacrifice, Nathaniel Hawthorne used her forbidden relationship to characterize the rigid and punitive Puritan community of the colonial

Haunted by the scarlet letter, Hester circles her life around its existence; it lights its way into her every passage, becoming a great fragment of her persona, shaping her every move, touch and…. sight. “A” warps a route into Hester’s life, to an extent where it’s

In Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, a biracial woman by the name of Helga Crane faces a number of trials and tribulations that challenge her social and cultural identity. Throughout the novel, Helga is challenged with socially, culturally, and sexually misplaced while living among social elites and the bourgeois, which ironically leads her to a place of isolation. Her dissatisfaction with her life, onset by her sense of displacement, causes her to take flight in many situations she faces. Despite the fact that all three challenges prove to be a combined force in Helga’s downfall, it is reasonable to conclude that her social displacement provides the most detrimental impact to the success of her character in the novel.

An objection to this detrimental view of Hedwig’s external support is that it gave her control over a part of her life for a short period of time. The wig and Luther were both methods of disguising her feelings about

Towards the end of the novel, Hester gets the break in life she’s been waiting for. She put up with seven years of shame and guilt, to finally be the person she used to be. Her rekindled love with Arthur makes her happy again, and everything just seems right for them. She’s filled with hope that her life will finally turn back to normal again. She feels redeemed, and the guilt is no longer on her shoulders. She’s now ready to take on the world, and start her life over to the way it was before the “A” entered her life. Having the courage to show her face in the colony again is just a sign of her bravery.

The characterisation of Hester reinforces this reading, as although she is established to be repressed emotionally and displays a disinterest in romantic relationships, readers see in chapter 4 that this was not always the case. As a child, Hester’s hopeful and romantic expectations are shown through her relationship with Hilde, and it is described that the two ‘washed their necks every day with cold water so that it would be beautiful to receive…the necklaces and pendants and jewels some man would want to cherish her with’ (pg. 70). This implies that the idea of marriage and romantic relationships once appealed to Hester when she was a child. Although she has forgone any attempts at romance in her adulthood, Hester still displays a desire for companionship, and achieves this through her relationship with Kathy. Her desperation to keep Kathy as a companion is reinforced through her extravagant spending, spoiling Kathy with ‘clothes, foods, furniture, cassette players and transistors’ as ‘there was no end to their wishes and to their shopping’. This text may therefore be read as a comment on the nature of human beings, as it naturalises the human need for companionship through Hester’s past and present desires for a

Hedda arouses sympathy from the readers through her own personal conflicts. She is a woman trapped by herself in a loveless marriage to an “ingenuous creature” (52 Ibsen) named George Tesman. Tesman is a simple soul with very little to offer. Not only is he an entire social class below Hedda, but he is oblivious, insecure due to his own banalities, and overly reliant on his Aunts’, despite being thirty-three-years-old. Hedda married George due to a “bond of sympathy. . .” (31 Ibsen) formed between them and she “took pity. . .” (31 Ibsen) on George. This brings a sense of sincerity to Hedda that was not turned to such a high magnitude preceding this discussion between Judge Brack and herself. Hedda is a lonely, yet independent, soul that wants sexual freedom without

The reflection of women in literature during the late eighteen-hundreds often features a submissive and less complex character than the usual male counterpart, however Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler features a women who confines herself to the conformities that women were to endure during that time period but separates herself from other female characters by using her intelligence and overall deviousness to manipulate the men in her life and take a dominant presence throughout the play. Hedda challenges the normal female identity of the time period by leaving the stereotype of the “quiet, subservient housewife” through her snide and condescending remarks as well as her overall spoiled aristocratic demeanor.

These feminists aimed to defend their silenced voices. One motive for the dissent of inequality could have resulted from the strict government regulation of conformity. Everyone was trained to evade individualistic thinking, which in turn, led to the questioning of leaders. “It was an age in which the human intellect had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before,” (149). This quote illustrates the possibility of a change in people’s mind regarding the injustice towards women. Hester represents the story’s population that thinks freely. She is not content with fulfilling the pre-determined destiny of a silent wife under Christ, and demonstrates it by challenging that role and attempting to reorganize the archaic system in which she lives. The women of the town are outraged by her actions, demonstrating that they are afraid that if women start acting out of passion, the entire structure they depend on would dilapidate. Hester made it clear that it is possible to survive outside of prejudice, which is still exemplified today. She displays that the idea of feminism and the reasons leading up to it have not changed for decades.

Upon returning from their honeymoon, however, Hedda begins to realize the folly of her plan when she learns that Tesman cannot bring to fruition her ambition of climbing the social ladder. Having endured what was for her a painstakingly dull six months abroad with Tesman, Hedda must now endure the fate of a bored housewife bound in a union she dare not break for fear of impropriety.