Jean Toomer's Cane

Jean Toomer's Cane is a powerful collection of poems and vignettes of African-American life in the rural South and urban north. Toomer's ability to write short stories of such incredible depth is quite impressive, and are actually believable stories of black life. Although Toomer personally had a complex relationship with his 'blackness,' he inserts autobiographical details in the text that highlight themes of gender (and some contain feminist themes), interracial romance, class,c olorism within black communities and black vernacular English. In addition, Toomer's metaphorical poems and rich, creative language is a pleasure to read. 

While one may read some of his work as a celebration of a loss of culture during the Great Migration, the themes of the short story, "Kabnis," seems to suggest northern blacks who return South will not be fully accepted, in either black or white society. The stories set in DC and Chicago also explore similar themes, such as the brown-skinned black man at the University of Chicago (partly based on Toomer) who cannot find acceptance among whites. One of the more powerful pieces in the text is 'Becky," the tale of a white woman who raises two black sons in a Southern town, despised by blacks and whites yet secretly helped by members of both races. Similarly', "Blood-Burning Moon" is another triumph as it tells the tale of a conflict between a white and black man over a black woman's heart, concluding in the lynching of the black man. 

Favorite Quotes

"This interest of the male, who wishes to ripen a growing thing too soon, could mean no good to her."

"The Bible flaps its leaves with an aimless rustle on her mound."

"God has left the Moses-people for the nigger."

Houses are shy girls whose eyes shine reticently upon the dusk body of the street."

"Suddenly he knew that people saw, not attractiveness in his dark skin, but difference."

"Hell of a note, cant even smoke. The stillness of it. Where they burn and hang men, you cant smoke."

"Roosters crowed, heralding the bloodshot eyes of southern awakening."