The ‘Eye of the Storm’ Stage of Quicksand

The ‘Eye of the Storm’ Stage of Quicksand

Victoria Lynn Schmidt’s Heroine’s Journey is a 9-step template for stories with a female main character going through a change in perspective, identity, or understanding. In Quicksand, this template follows Helga’s journey finding her place in the world as a biracial woman with no family. She has never felt support or security, and this often led to her isolating herself when she had the opportunity to join social situations in the past. But in the middle of Quicksand, Helga takes a jump into the unknown and surrenders herself to new, shiny opportunities. She has a good job in Harlem and a support system, she finally begins to feel like she belongs. Helga’s journey through the ‘Eye of the Storm’ in Schmidt’s Heroine’s Journey is an important part of the book that shows Helga’s naivety and ignorance to her own actions. 

Helga’s ‘Eye of the Storm’ moment first happens when she comes to Harlem for a job. Despite still being a little uncomfortable about the people around her, she finally finds a sense of community. She is supported by a rich, influential woman named Mrs. Hayes-Rore; she lives with her new friend Anne; and she has a decent job that she enjoys. At the beginning of her time in Harlem, she talked about how she enjoyed the sophistication, the hate of Naxos, and her living situation, showing how excited she felt about her new life surrounded by friends and happiness, especially since she’d never felt as secure before (Larson 40). Her satisfaction with her life doesn’t last long though, as the problems in the back of her mind earlier push their way forward now. Helga realizes she can’t feel fully comfortable in this environment as a biracial woman because of the racism in the black community towards white people. She feels conflicted between her two sides, especially since she wants to show both sides of her identity. This disillusionment leaves Helga confused and lonely, and when she receives money from her Uncle Peter, she decides to leave Harlem for Denmark in hope of a better life with her aunt and uncle.

Helga starts her second round of ‘Eye of the Storm’ when she goes to Denmark. Again, this time, she is enamored with everything around her after a quick adjustment period. She loves the food, the fashion, and how interesting she is to other people. She even doesn’t mind the stares she gets as the only biracial person in that area. She notices that “men bent over her hand… with compliments in their eyes…[and] women were too kind. [She] was the mysterious niece of the Dahls ” (Larson 65). She is relieved to get away from the questions of racial identity she faced in Harlem and enjoys the attention that she is receiving despite its racist roots. She begins to love it in Denmark, but as soon as these feelings seem certain, she meets a man named Axel Olsen, an artist who is interested in her for her “exoticness”. He loves her because she is special and weird in his eyes and they date for a while. When he eventually asks her to marry him, she realizes she can’t run away from her racial identity and declines because of his ignorance about her race and her struggles. She promptly runs back to America, thus ending her second round of the ‘Eye of the Storm’.

The last few chapters of Quicksand could be seen as another repetition of the ‘Eye of the Storm’ stage, as she naively accepts the illusion of a perfect life and suddenly realizes her ignorance, but unfortunately, she is unable to run away from her marriage. In the past, she was able to escape when she became disillusioned with the environment around her, which  encouraged her to stay in an endless cycle of the ‘Eye of the Storm’. After marrying Reverend Pleasant Green and realizing she’s stuck in a terrible situation though, she must stay in her current life instead of looking for something new. She has an obligation to her marriage and her children to stay despite feeling stuck and being depressed. I think the ‘Eye of the Storm’ stage of the Heroine’s Journey in Quicksand is interesting because it allows the reader to see how Helga reacts repeatedly in scary situations. It’s also incredibly important to see her change at the end of the book when she is unable to leave because it leads her to a deeper understanding of herself and the world around her. The ‘Eye of the Storm’ in Quicksand presents differently than other media’s ‘Eye of the Storm’ stages due to its repetition even towards the end of the book, allowing readers to watch Helga’s forced character arc after being unable to run to another illusion.

Work Cited

Larson, Nella. Quicksand. New York City, Dover Publications, 2006.