Cane

Summary

Cane, published in 1923, is Jean Toomer's experimental book of sketches, poems and drama about African American life in the rural South and the urban North, and it is regarded as one of the founding works of the Harlem Renaissance. Toomer, raised mainly in Washington, D.C., spent two months in 1921 as a substitute principal at a school in Sparta, Georgia, where he heard the folk songs and spirituals of the black peasantry and felt that this culture was passing away. The book is in three parts. The first is set in Georgia and consists of portraits of women, mostly told by an observing narrator, interspersed with lyric poems such as 'Reapers', 'November Cotton Flower', 'Song of the Son' and 'Georgia Dusk'. Karintha, whose skin is like dusk on the eastern horizon, is desired by men from childhood; Becky, a white woman with two black sons, is shunned by both races; Carma, Fern and Esther each embody a different form of beauty, longing and frustration. The section ends with 'Blood-Burning Moon', the story of a rivalry between a black man and a white man over a woman, which ends in a lynching. The second part moves to Washington and Chicago, where city life confines people in houses and theaters and boxes; in pieces such as 'Seventh Street', 'Rhobert', 'Avey', 'Box Seat' and 'Bona and Paul', characters struggle to connect across barriers of class, race and convention. The third part is 'Kabnis', a drama-like story of Ralph Kabnis, an educated Northern black teacher who comes to Georgia and is tormented by fear, by the memory of violence and by his uncertain relationship to the Southern past. Toomer's lyrical, impressionistic style influenced later writers. The book includes a lynching, racial slurs of the period and sexual themes, and it is suitable only for mature upper-level students.

Plot or Argument

• Part One: Georgia

  Portraits of Karintha, Becky, Carma, Fern and Esther, with lyric poems, ending with 'Blood-Burning Moon'.

• Part Two: The North

  Sketches of Washington and Chicago: 'Seventh Street', 'Avey', 'Box Seat', 'Bona and Paul'.

• Part Three: Kabnis

  A Northern teacher's crisis in Georgia, told largely in dialogue.

Characters

• Karintha, subject of a sketch

  A beautiful Georgia woman desired from childhood.

• Fern, subject of a sketch

  A woman whose eyes seem to hold the countryside.

• Louisa, heroine of 'Blood-Burning Moon'

  A woman loved by two rivals.

• Dan Moore, character in 'Box Seat'

  A restless young man in Washington.

• Ralph Kabnis, protagonist of 'Kabnis'

  An anxious Northern teacher in Georgia.

• Father John, old man in 'Kabnis'

  A former slave who lives in a cellar.

Lessons

• A mixed form

  Cane combines poems, stories and drama. Students can ask why Toomer chose this form.

  • How do the poems relate to the stories?
  • What unites the three parts?
  • Is Cane a novel?

• The South and memory

  Toomer saw Southern folk culture as passing away. The book is partly an elegy.

  • What does 'Song of the Son' mourn?
  • How does the land shape the people?
  • What does Kabnis fear?

• Barriers

  In the North, walls and boxes separate people.

  • What barriers appear in 'Box Seat'?
  • Why do characters fail to connect?
  • How might such barriers be crossed?

Context

The early 1920s saw the Great Migration of African Americans northward and the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance.

Composition

Toomer wrote the book after teaching in Sparta, Georgia, in 1921; several pieces first appeared in magazines, and Boni & Liveright published it in 1923 with a foreword by Waldo Frank.

Reception

Admired by writers and critics but sold poorly; it was rediscovered in the 1960s as a classic of American modernism.

Comparisons

• The Souls of Black Folk

  Du Bois's essays on African American life and the sorrow songs.

• Up from Slavery

  Booker T. Washington's account of Southern education.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The repeated song in 'Karintha'.
• The poems between the sketches.
• The ending of 'Blood-Burning Moon'.
• Walls and boxes in Part Two.
• Father John in 'Kabnis'.

Key terms and names

Harlem Renaissance

A flowering of African American art and letters in the 1920s.

Modernism

An early-20th-century movement of experimental art.

Elegy

A poem of mourning for the dead or for something lost.

Sketch

A short, descriptive piece of prose that portrays a person or a scene.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Where is each of the three parts set?
2. Comprehension Who is Ralph Kabnis?
3. Comprehension What happens in 'Blood-Burning Moon'?
4. Interpretation What does cane symbolize?
5. Interpretation Why does the book move from South to North and back?
6. Big Question How should we remember a way of life that is disappearing?

Faith Connections

• Psalm 137:4 (Scripture)

  How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

• Lamentations 1:12 (Scripture)

  Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: The folk culture of the black South, born of suffering, holds a beauty that must be preserved in art before it disappears.

Rhetorical device: refrain. The repeated line in 'Karintha' turns the sketch into a song.

Debate: Resolved: that Cane is a unified work rather than a collection.

Memory Work

Her skin is like dusk on the eastern horizon, O cant you see it, O cant you see it, Her skin is like dusk on the eastern horizon ... When the sun goes down.

Writing Prompts

Essay: How does Toomer blend poetry and prose to portray Southern life?

Comparison with The Souls of Black Folk: Compare Toomer's view of the sorrow songs with Du Bois's in The Souls of Black Folk.

Creative Prompts

• Essay

  How does Toomer use the image of dusk throughout Part One?

• Poetry

  Write a short lyric about a place whose way of life is passing away.

• Classroom

  Chart the structure of Cane and explain how the three parts connect.

Further Reading

• The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois