Standing Up to a Culture of Hierarchy, Helga Crane in Naxos

In Quicksand, Helga Crane's disillusionment with and departure from Naxos represent a "departure from the feminine" as described in Murdock's mode of the heroine's journey. Crucially, the "toxic femininity" that Helga rebels against has an aspect of productive and supportive labor, but it is also that which has been subjugated and commodified for the benefit of those at the top of various gender, racial, and class hierarchies.

The environment of Naxos is one in which Helga seeks to offer support, in fact, an idealized version of it in hopes of serving her community as a teacher, a typically feminine role. However, Helga’s service is constrained by the presence of a number of hierarchies. The school follows the model of Booker T. Washington, a Black reformer who championed the education of Black people in industrial trades, so that they could develop themselves economically without threatening the racial hierarchy of the South. A sermon given by a White preacher at Naxos that particularly disturbs Helga shows how such ideas have been perverted in service of the White ruling class. He praises how the school encourages Black people to know “enough to stay in their places” and be content with serving White people while avoiding the trap of becoming “avaricious and grasping. . .thinking of only adding to their earthly goods” (Larsen 3). The preacher certainly echoes Washington’s ideas that Black people should be content serving White people in a variety of occupations, but he spits in the face of Washington’s hopes of wealth accumulation with his emphasis on divinely sanctioned austerity.  Helga’s contribution of her own “feminine” labor to Naxos contributes to an order in the school based on the “feminization” of Black people where they are taught to view themselves solely as tools in the hands of White people.

Ideas that Black people need to be “feminized” and their labor subjugated are not just the sentiments of White preachers but essential elements of Naxos’ disciplinary regime that shocks Helga. She realizes that the children’s “smiling submissiveness covered many poignant heartaches and perhaps much secret contempt for their instructors” but laments that such a climate is difficult if not impossible to change because the students are conditioned to view their teachers as a “condescending authority” (Larsen 5). Such an authoritarian and uncompromising method of instruction, wherein the teacher is loath to recognize the student’s agency and humanity should do well to prepare them for service to a White elite that considers them “happy to serve” at best and “savage” at the worst. A remarkable scene that shows this emphasis on discipline and obedience to authority is Helga’s observation of the morning procession for the students. The youths are assembled into “neat phalanxes,” and the importance of the faculty members is demonstrated by their “prancing and strutting” in regalia while pausing occasionally to “jerk offending or negligent students into the proper attitude or place” (Larsen 12). Students who are late are locked out of the lecture halls and do not get to eat until lunchtime. Overall, Naxos teaches students that justice is equivalent to an exploitative form of industrial discipline. 

 

 

Employee monitoring software for remote workers (An example of "industrial discipline" in our digital age) 

This enforcement of authoritarian discipline is the product of a double consciousness that Naxos creates in both its students and faculty. The White preacher mentions how the quality of education in the school disproves any Northern notions that “the Southerner mistreated “[Black people]” (Larsen 3). Southern society and Naxos by proxy is intent on having Black students view themselves towards the lens of White society, a perspective that insists that their indoctrination into industrial servitude is a good thing for them, instead of through their own experiences. Most of the middle class faculty of Naxos have fully internalized that Black people benefit from learning how to serve White people and have reified their economically privileged position with the idea that they constitute an enlightened few among their race that are worthy of education solely to instruct other members of their community in subservience; even if they have framed such discourse as gradually civilizing and advancing their people. An example of this hierarchical system can be seen in the way the school’s leadership is intent on policing all aspects of Blackness that do not fit into the mold of internalizing White subjugation. Helga notes that, “[the faculty] yapped loudly of race, of race consciousness, of race pride, and yet suppressed its most delightful manifestations, love of color, joy of rhythmic motion, naïve, spontaneous laughter” (Larsen 17). The faculty's underlying insecurity has caused them to crack down on these aspects of Black expression. Helga describes that she hates the “backbiting, and sneaking, and petty jealousy” of the faculty and these vices result from members of the Black middle class competing to demonstrate their superiority and “civilization.

Helga eventually tires of the hierarchical system of Naxos and decides to announce her departure from the institute to the principal, Dr. Anderson, who seems to be one of the classically self-serving members of the Black middle class. Helga notes that “he was so frequently away on publicity and money-raising tours,” but of course, these seem to more so be efforts at enhancing the Naxos leadership’s image as skilled directors of their race than actually improving the welfare of the students, as she also mentions that “yet he had made few and slight changes in the running of the school” (Larsen 15). Naturally, Dr. Anderson attempts to charm her with this very same paternalistic self-assurance. Commenting on her youthful age, he expresses that “lies, injustice, and hypocrisy are a party of every ordinary community” and that such blemishes only show because those at Naxo are “trying to do such a big thing, to aim so high” (Larsen 19). Such rhetoric initially is enough to sway Helga until Dr. Anderson comments that Helga can be so idealistic and perspective because she is “a lady” with “dignity and breeding.” Such rhetoric insinuates the belief that Helga is one of the Black middle class, who the faculty at Naxos believe are among the few members of their community with the capabilities for intellectual expression. Helga resents this and notes that she “was born in a Chicago” slum, but Dr. Anderson only states that, “financial, economic circumstances can’t destroy tendencies inherited from good stock,” attributing Helga’s intellect to superior genetics (Larsen 20). Both of these examples evince Anderson’s belief that there must be hierarchies that commodify the labor of those below, whether it is the Black middle class gaining social prestige from students in industrial schools or those same students being taught how to best serve a White ruling class. Helga is incensed and rebukes Dr. Anderson by announcing her departure along with the fact that her father gambled and deserted her mother, who was White, and even fabulates that they possibly never married. This scene marks a turning point in Helga’s narrative where she rejects toxically feminine hierarchies that insist the subjugation of productive labor is a “natural” thing.

Helga is clearly angered by the fact that only those with some inherent privilege can express themselves and that the rest of society lacks agency due the “feminized” subjugation and dependency they experience. It seems that at this point the book, Helga has fully moved away from feminine dependency and servitude and idealized the masculine in her new mentors, independently wealthy Black women who are free to pursue their goals. However, these women fail to meaningfully “support” the Black community and in fact exploit them to some degree through getting paid for speaking and activism that has very little material impact. Ultimately, Helga will have to reach a balance where she uses the feminine aspect of support to make it so that everyone can pursue their goals in a more egalitarian fashion.