Quicksand

Is Helga's motivation purely the desire to be wanted? Admired? Fawned over? Think of it this way: Helga desires to be alone, which seems contradictory to the picture I am trying to paint. However, it isn't really that Helga doesn't desire attention - she does. "Her life in Copenhagen had taught her to EXPECT and accept admiration as her due" (Larsen, 98). It's that she desires attention from a variety of people. She is forever unhappy because she is forever looking for someone who pays her attention for as long as she deems it exciting and new. Once this attention has played it's course, she soon grows bored and longs for another life (or being noticed by another group of people).  

It just so happens that after Helga lives in the white washed Copenhagen for a while that she desires the fun loving Harlem, and as soon as she returns there she receives a lot of attention. It's almost like she uses her ability to blend with both white people and black people as a way to associate herself with the exotic, the different. 

Her marriage to the Reverend and the drastic change in her environment and lifestyle highlights this attention seeking behavior even more. Although I sense that her marriage to him was out of revenge moreso than it was out of a desire to be adored (Larsen, 117), it is a motive based on the reaction of the affect of another person. Also, since Helga was so adamant to not add any more "unwanted, tortured Negros to America" (Larsen, 103), it's ironic that she had three children in such a short span of time. Although I know religion and the stigma of marriage may have motivated her to ignore her once adamant opinion, it doesn't surprise me that Helga becomes a mother. What more attention can a woman receive than from a close knit community when she is expecting? Or from her dependent and loving children?

Maybe I'm too cynical.