The Departure from the Feminine; Helga’s Journey of Deconstruction

        Helga’s identity as a mixed race woman has been troubled since the start of the book. She starts off in Naxos, teaching in an all black school which attempts to teach their students how to assimilate into white society. Due to this and various other factors like gender and upbringing, she finds herself identifying more with her white mother. This feminine power in her life shaping her into who she is. However as she finds herself following the path of the Great Migration, and identifying with independent black people outside of the Jim Crow south, her identity as the daughter of a white woman is challenged. She then finds herself tearing apart her identity and rebuilding it to find acceptance in her new environment.

The first stage of her departure takes both a physical and metaphorical presence. She confronts Dr. Anderson about wanting to leave Naxos, but is talked out of it as Dr. Anderson points out how her dissenting opinions are valuable to change. However, Dr. Anderson then calls attention to the fact that Helga is a lady, which sets her off as she’s reminded of the oppressive system, some teachers in Naxos pressuring students to be more “lady-like”, by white standards. Additionally, the idea of being a lady implies that she has a family, which she doesn’t. This decision to leave Naxos, unintentionally reinforced by Dr. Anderson, shows a literal departure from being seen as a lady, and leaving the traditionally feminine (at the time) role of being an English teacher.

In leaving Naxos, she leaves behind remnants of her old life too, without a warning or a goodbye. This includes her fiancee James Vayle, a black man with a higher social standing. She was never really accepted by his family, as she had none of her own, which I think is a driving factor of her already strained relationship with him. She mentions how leaving him would be akin to “social suicide” in Naxos, but proceeds to leave anyway. She mentions as she leaves about how “she had not loved James, but she had wanted to,” (23) and she shuts down this desire, once again shutting down femininity. This rejection of her fiancee represents the departure of another traditionally feminine role, being a wife, instead choosing to go off on her own and be independent.

Lastly, and most symbolic, is her uncle’s abandonment. Her uncle Peter is a white man, the brother of her mom, who supported her in her early childhood when her mom died. He raised her, and when she went off he married another woman. When Helga reaches out to Peter for support after leaving Naxos, she’s instead met by his wife, who disowns her and cuts her off from that side of her family, the white side, her mother’s side. This final and official severing from her mother’s side of the family, no longer in contact with any mother figures in her life, completes the departure from the feminine. Upon this last connection being cut, she moves to Harlem with the help of Mrs. Hayes-Rore, where she has to completely suppress her mixed identity and embrace her identity as a black woman.