On The Construction Of Subjectivity Of African American Female In Quicksand

As the first African American female writer to win Guggenheim Fellowship for creative writing, Nella Larsen is one of the most influential figures in Harlem Renaissance. Larsen’s works paid close attention to the living conditions of the female mulattos who are born of mixed heritage of black and white, as well as their fighting experiences. In her representative novelette Quicksand, Larsen exposes the white dominant culture’s distortion of the African American females’ image. She attacks the damaging influence exerted on African American woman from the layers of white culture’s erosion, race discrimination, gender discrimination and also the damaging family dynamics. From the layers mentioned above, Larsen exposes the awakening consciousness of the black females both as a black and as a black woman, and also the pressures and oppression they faces when constructing their subjectivity. Due to their double ethnic identity, they could not identify themselves for their black heritage incurs the discrimination of white racists while they could not fit in with the black community either. No sense of belonging and not fitting in anywhere make it hard for them to establish their subjectivity. The thesis attempts to analyze the image of the protagonist from the perspective of subjectivity through Larsen’s depiction on layers of race, gender and class. By exploring the protagonist’s awakening of the consciousness of a black and of a black woman, the construction of her subjectivity and the causations of her loss of subjectivity, the thesis hopes to bring in a new vision on the study of Quicksand.The thesis is divided into the following four parts;Chapter One is a brief introduction to the author Nella Larsen, the novelette Quicksand, the studies which have been done at home and abroad and also the layout of the thesis.Chapter Two analyzes the awakening of the consciousness of African American women’s subjectivity, which consists of the awakening of the consciousness of being black and that of being a black woman in face of multiple oppressions. By building a connection with the black community, representing her sexuality and fighting against the dressing code which is distorted by the white culture, the protagonist’s consciousness of subjectivity is thus awakened. Chapter Three dwells on African American women’s failure of the construction of their subjectivity. The white culture’s erosion, the racist oppression, the gender oppression as well as the damaging family dynamics all count for it.Chapter Four gives a summary of the whole thesis. By pointing out the causations which lead to African American woman’s failure in constructing her subjectivity, I further argue that the ultimate source of the contradiction lies in her racial insecurity which is brought by the double ethnic heritage.