Biracial Female Heroes of the Harlem Renaissance: Identity, Repression and Exoticism in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and Passing

This thesis explores the portrayal of biracial female protagonists in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) within the cultural context of the Harlem Renaissance. It examines how Larsen’s heroines navigate the complex intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class while resisting the constraints imposed by both Black and white communities. The first chapter situates Larsen’s work in the broader framework of the Harlem Renaissance, highlighting how African-American women writers redefined Black female identity in a literary landscape traditionally dominated by men and white writers. It analyzes the emergence of the “New Negro Woman” and the subversion of the “tragic mulatto” stereotype through atypical protagonists. The second chapter investigates themes of identity, double consciousness, and the search for autonomy through Nella Larsen’s two novels. It focuses on the inner conflicts of Helga Crane, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry as they struggle with repression, racial passing, and the contradictions of desire and respectability. The chapter addresses the tragic consequences of their attempts to assert agency within rigid social boundaries. It also explores internalized racism and the psychological cost of passing, revealing how Larsen exposes the fragility of constructed identities. The unresolved endings of her novels express how her characters’ ambiguous fates reflect the enduring complexities of biracial identity in early twentieth-century America. The third chapter examines racial fetishism and the exoticization of biracial women, particularly in Quicksand. It explores how the primitivist ideology influenced the perception of people of color, especially how Black women were sexualized because of perpetuated stereotypes. By centering biracial female heroes, Larsen’s fiction invites a deeper understanding of race, gender, and identity in the Harlem Renaissance.