Strangely enough (or at least strange for me) neither ending of “Quicksand” nor that of The Blacker the Berry provided the full redemption for our protagonist. I found myself disappointed as Emma Lou became determined to return with Alva (“You mean you’re going over there to live with that man?” “Why not? I love him.” (207)). For Helga, in “Quicksand”, it was a logical move that her ultimate fall from grace – as she found her sexuality – would lead her to her ultimate demise. For Emma Lou though, her experiences with Campbell Kitchen and Gwendolyn seemed to ultimately offer her some insight into her behavior, “It was clear to her at last that she had exercised the same discrimination against her man and the people she wished for friends that they had exercised against her – and with less reason” (218). Even after coming to this realization, though, Emma Lou decides to return to Alva and only does the scene at the door change her decision. As she spots the drunken men around her, “She suddenly felt an immense compassion for him and had difficulty in stifling an unwelcome urge to take him in her arms” (220) after she is already determined to leave Alva. The constant debate in her mind show that her realizations could also be short lived.
There is no sense of redemption as Emma Lou exits and leaves Alva. She confesses to herself that she must accept her Black skin (“What she needed to do now was to accept her black skin as being real and unchangeable…” (217)); however this realization comes rather hurried in the novel, making this ending uneasy. When Emma Lou exits, it seems as she ultimately has not changed. When the “tears in her eyes receded…she felt herself hardening inside” (221). This “hardening” protects Emma Lou for the hurt that will result from leaving the person who she loves, but it does not signal to a beginning where she will accept her skin and change her behavior.