Enjeux de classe et de genre dans un contexte de race dans "Roseau" de Toomer et "Sables mouvants" de Larsen

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?" (larsen 1). This poem suggests the reading frame for the rest of the novel-what is the place of the mulatto in a racist U.S 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 follows 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 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 uplift for the American negro; the creation of a new, racial identity of a 'higher class' negro also appropriates a new image to the ideal race-woman. larsen uses color as a context in which to discuss both female sexuality and class. The idea of race and the use of race to frame a discussion about notions of black female sexuality also appears in Jean toomer's narrative collection, Cane. Cane's stories' female charactes, however, often play into this stereotype of the sexualized black female., a contrast to the repressed Helga Crane of Quicksand. Thus, while both larsen and toomer use race to discuss female sexuality, the two texts provide counternarratives of their female figures in order to show the complications and consequences of blackness and black sexuality.