A Socioeconomic View vs. a Racial View

817 Words4 Pages
A Socioeconomic View vs. A Racial View In the article The Racial Freak in Nella Larsen’s Quiksand by Jessica Williams, the author opens by introducing the idea of “Freaks”. A freak is a person with an unusual physical abnormality, in which the main three types were: Freaks of “disability, gender, and race”. However, in Quicksand, the type of freak that relates more to this story is the “racial or ethnographic freak”. The ethnographic freak is a person of a different race but mostly associated with a different color. Williams goes in to depth of the actual history of the ethnographic freak, quoting Rachel Adams saying the first ethnographic freaks were “the case studies of the Ota Benga, an “African Savage” who was displayed in the Monkey House at the Bronx Zoo in 1906, and Ishi, “The Last Wild Indian” who was advertised in 1911 as being the last of its kind”. (Williams 2) Williams believes there is some type of connection between the ethnographic freak and Quicksand’s main character Helga Crane. Helga Crane is a young woman, who was born in to two different races, her mother was white and her father was black, and the setting of the story makes it hard for her to identify with either race. The story takes place in 1928, during the Harlem Renaissance, and black people were finally establishing a voice in society. Her light brown, pale skin, put her in an awkward position when it came to fitting in with other groups of people. The white people looked at her as if she was too dark and black people looked at her as if she were too light, causing her to feel unwanted around anyone she encountered 50 percent of the time. Helga moved numerous times trying to find a sense of stability within herself and her race. However, no matter where Helga goes she is brought out to still be an outcast, which in facts Williams thesis to be true, “Her search for
Open Document