[There Is Confusion] is significant because it is the first work of fiction to come from the pen of a colored woman in these United States. It is evidence that we can with assurance look forward in the near future to having our fiction dealing with life among the Negroes written by the Negroes themselves….

Having as its motif the futility that must not arrest the conquering progress of the Negroes, Miss Fauset's There Is Confusion, however, is not really "younger generation Negro" stuff. Toomer's insouciant "Cane" in this respect is miles beyond it. Indeed, it is a sort of bridge between the old and the new Negro generations. For the literature of these strident neophytes is of a shockingly esoteric nature—full of beauty and passion and blackly steering clear of the inferiority complex. Mediocre, a work of puny, painstaking labor, There Is Confusion is not meant...