"Quicksand" and "Passing" by Nella Larsen Analytical Essay by jackinbox

This paper examines how the stories "Quicksand" and "Passing" illustrate the profound pressures felt by Nella Larsen as a female writer in the male dominated Harlem Renaissance. It looks at how Larsen grapples with the conflicting demands of her racial and sexual identities and the contradictory nature of a black and feminine aesthetic. It attempts to show that while Larsen's literature appears to project feminist concessions to the dominant ideology of romance, marriage and motherhood, it can equally be interpreted as a radical and original critique of female sexual experience, repressed in both literary terms and in Larsen's own contemporary society.