Nella Larsen and the Intertextual Geography of Quicksand

Beautiful White Girlhood?: Daisy Buchanan in Nella Larsen’s Passing

“…When it emerges that her husband is an old school friend of Ralph's, and wishes to become reacquainted with him, Julia summons Ralph by note, confronts him and begs him to keep her past infidelity a secret. Having revealed her indiscretions in making the request, the story ends when Julia realises that the man before her is not Ralph Tyler, that she has "told the wrong man" (9). As Cheryl Wall notes, the Long Island setting of the story "could have come right out of The Great Gatsby, which F. Scott Fitzgerald had published the year before."…”