Asterisk denotes entries on real places.
Naxos.
Naxos takes its name from the largest Greek island in the Cyclades, which was famed in ancient times as a center of the worship of Dionysus, the god of wine.
*Chicago. Great midwestern city in which Helga grew up and to which she flees after leaving Naxos. However, to her dismay, she finds no comfort there on her return. The grayness and coldness of the city only underscore her sad remembrances of the miserable childhood that she spent as a mixed-race child in a white family. This misery is compounded by the fact that her black father abandoned her and that she had been sent to school at Nashville so that she would learn how to live with her “own kind.” Moreover, Helga has difficulty finding a job that suits her training and expectations and is rebuffed by her maternal uncle’s white wife, who wants nothing to do with his half-black niece. Fortunately for Helga, she soon lands a job as an assistant with Mrs. Jeanette Hayes-Rore, a well-to-do black matron with whom she travels to New York.
*Harlem. African American neighborhood of the northern portion of New York City’s Manhattan Island. There, Helga finds herself among African Americans of all walks of life, from prosperous socialites and those concerned with “Negro Uplift,” to the club and cabaret set, and to the poor and downtrodden masses. She is alternately pleased to be among such a vibrant group and repulsed by the vulgarity of some. Soon the old feelings of ambivalence and discontent engulf her, and she resolves to flee New York in favor of some other place. The arrival of a check for five thousand dollars from her Uncle Peter in Chicago, accompanied by the suggestion that she visit her mother’s sister in Denmark provides her with the wherewithal for another escape, which she undertakes at once.
After returning to New York later, Helga discovers that she is still not satisfied. After an encounter with Dr. Robert Anderson, her former boss and now her best friend’s husband, Helga has what amounts to an emotional crisis and finds herself in a storefront church where she is rescued, spiritually and sexually, by the Reverend Mr. Pleasant Green.
*Copenhagen. Capital city of Denmark, where Helga arrives with great relief after escaping the tawdriness of Harlem and the insult of being considered a member of African American classes to which she feels she does not belong. Although her initial stay with her Aunt Katrina and Uncle Poul in Copenhagen is pleasant, she soon develops a distaste for being constantly on display as a dark object in the midst of a predominantly blonde-haired white society. She is particularly offended by the advances of the painter Axel Olsen, whom she dismisses angrily. Interestingly, Helga realizes that not only does she miss America, but she misses being among other African Americans–her people–and she resolves to flee Denmark for Harlem so that she can re-embrace her own.
*Alabama. With her minister husband, Helga moves to a tiny town in rural Alabama to do the Lord’s work, but ultimately finds it as unfulfilling as everything else she has attempted. Unfortunately, Helga finds herself trapped by the marriage, by motherhood, and by the finality of the realization that there is nowhere else for her to go.