Cane by Jean Toomer

Toomers cane, published in 1923, is a collection vignettes and poems divided into triplet partitions. Cane has served a curiously integral role in African-American literature, as it simultaneously presents the coloured southern plain experience and the black Yankee urban experience. Throughout Cane, Toomer utilizes several(prenominal) themes in an attempt to take a connection amongst the two. Cane examines issues of race on several different levels. Primarily, Toomer displays how blacks atomic number 18 treated in American society. In the south, elements of danger argon always present. The character Becky exhibits this, as she is rejected by some(prenominal) blacks and puritys for having crossed the color broth by sleeping with a black man. Ramifications of racial tensions be further displayed by the last of character Tom Burwell, who is presently killed by a white mob after an altercation with a white man, wharfage Stone. Toomer uses Burwell and Stone to display th e racial barriers created by bigotry; these barriers ultimately prevent interpersonal relationships from forming successfully. In addition to hostilities between blacks and whites, Cane examines racism that exists within the black community alone. Characters Bona and Paul are ultimately driven apart, as Paul is unable to fuck his identity as a black man.\nThe first section of Cane is dedicated to marooned portraits of single women and societys attitudes toward them. Karintha is an obscure figure who is further presented in the context of her corporeal attractiveness. Throughout her existence, she is perceived by men as a sexual object. Similarly, Fern entrances the narrator of her story, save he does not exhibit any interest in understanding why. Burwell and Stone support over Louisa to the point of death, only little is ever verbalise about who Louisa really is. On the other hand, Toomer ends Cane with Carrie. K, who foils the women presented in the first section by appea ring enlightened and levelheaded.\nAnoth...