SPOILER ALERT for Quicksand: A Vicious Cycle

     So, after all of Helga's whining and sulking about, she ends up perpetuating the very cycle she was most adamant about avoiding.  How fitting that she, not knowing what identity to assume, falls right back into the things she hated about her childhood.   When Mary said that the ending was going to be shocking, I did not anticipate this.  I anticipated suicide, maybe, but not religiosity and 5 children.  No. No. No.  
      In any case, while it was utterly disappointing that Helga never found more than a trace of happiness,  Nella Larsen disturbingly highlights the ways in which identity and race trap a person indefinitely.   Extreme perhaps, but as we discussed a bit in class today, Larsen herself contained a lot of rage and confusion over her own identity, much like Helga.  I feel that the end of the story almost highlights the futility of Helga's attempts to find a single, definite identity.  When she finally feels that she has found this absolute self within Christianity, she discovers too late that an absolute identity is also an absolute trap.  Her singular, Christian self is a powerful illusion from which there is no escape unless she chooses to inflict the same pain on her children as her mother and father inflicted upon her.  Thus the cycle continues, a pattern of unhappiness, insecurity, and misery that is unbroken despite many attempts to break it.  
      I have a few questions from the end of the novel that we could discuss in class on Friday:
1.) How realistic do you feel this "vicious cycle" of Helga's life is, in comparison with the "real life" of African-Americans and those of mixed race? 
2.) Does her narrative offer any advice to modern readers?  If so, what?
3.) If there was a sequel to Quicksand, do you think that Helga would ever be able to break out of her cycle of unhappiness?   Would she leave her children?  Do you think that Larsen means to imply that Helga's children will also suffer the same identity crises that she did?
4.) What do you make of Anderson? Do you think that he was serious when he told Helga that he only kissed her as a result of "bad cocktails?" Or is he, too, the part of a "vicious cycle" akin to that of Helga's?  Why does she not address her true feelings?  Is she, perhaps, afraid of actual happiness?