Quicksand - Chapters Ten and Eleven Summary

Depressed, Helga has begun to see other Negroes as fools. When she receives a polite letter and $5,000 from her Uncle Peter, along with his apologies for ending their relationship, she realizes that she has been "yoked" to black people, and she feels a certain sense of alienation from their culture. She feels that it was not simply skin color that makes people kin, but something deeper. Helga decides to go to Copenhagen to visit her white Aunt Katrina, who had begged to have custody of Helga when she was a troubled child. Helga feels she will be approved of and admired in Copenhagen and looks forward to another change.

In Chapter Eleven, the night of the welcome-home dinner party for Anne is hot and sultry. Helga goes with a group of friends to...