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Becky never comes out of her house again. She makes herself so invisible, many people believe she may be dead. Then, one Sunday when "There was no wind. The autumn sun, the bell from Ebenezer Church, listless and heavy. Even the pines were stale, sticky..." (p. 8), Becky's house falls down on her. The house is a symbol of her consciousness, alienated and alone, possibly self-hating, and she dies from its complete collapse.
The strength of the black people is beautiful too. "Carma," for example, "in overalls, and strong as any man, stands behind the old brown mule, diving the wagon home...the sun which has been slanting over her shoulder, shoots primitive rockets into her mangrove-gloomed, yellow flower face" (p. 12). Another example of beauty can be found in Fern's stoic bearing of sadness, her withdrawal into an inner world that cannot be touched by any man, though many want to. Esther's effort to get a life for herself is pathetic and beautiful at the same time, showing eternal hope in the human spirit for something better. Even poor Tom in "Blood-Burning Moon," the ugliest of all the stories, has a noble sense of dignity about him when he is lynched and burned...
A stake was sunk into the ground. Rotting floor boards piled around it. kerosene poured on the rotting floor boards. Tom bound to the stake, His breast was bare. Nails' scratches let little lines of blood trickle down and mat into the hair. His face, his eyes were set and stony. Except for irregular breathing, one would have thought him already dead" (p. 36).
Beauty is an important element in Toomer's work. These stories could be unbearable without the beauty he brings to our attention. For Toomer beauty is an anesthetizing agent against pain. What would life be without the beauty of women singing folksongs and children like Karintha who "at sunset, when there was no wind, and the pine-smoke from over by the sawmill hugged the earth, and you couldn't see more than a few feet in front, her sudden darting past you was a bit of vivid color, like a black bird that flashes in light" (p. 3)? The black experience in the South that he portrays is so fearful and so full of violence and sadness, and yet his people make the best of things and achieve a sort of normalcy that transcends the evil aspects. Beauty is the agent of…
... Poor Catholic poor-white crazy woman, said the black folks' mouths" (8). But throughout the novel, it is factual treatment of race that dominates any emotional construction of race. The central problem of identity in Cane is grounded in lack of acceptance of what has universally existed i.e. polarities. In the 1920s, writers like Toomer embraced a new kind of racial identity i.e. repudiation of race itself that emerged from accepting
bell hooks, the celebrated Black feminist writer and thinker, recently penned a book called Feminism is for Everybody. It is a provocative title to be sure, but hooks is not the first writer to tackle the subject of how so-called "women's issues" can often have profound consequences on men. Literary works of fiction have long struggled with this central theme. In particular, Jean Toomer's Cane includes some powerful vignettes
E. women) (Millay 1611, lines 4, 2). But although the first and most commonly used definition of zest is "keen relish; hearty enjoyment; gusto," the word can also refer to "liveliness or energy; animating spirit" (dictionary.com). Taken this way, the seemingly passive and accepting sexuality seen in the beginning of he poem is disingenuous and even coy. This interpretation is borne out by another structural details of the poem --
tomorrow / Bright before us / Like a flame. (Alain Locke, "Enter the New Negro," 1925) From the 1920's Alain Leroy Locke has been known as a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Through his writings, his actions and his education, Locke worked to educate not only White America, but also the Negro, about the beauty of the Negro heritage. He emphasized the idea that no single culture is more
A race doomed and cursed to be forever and ever a part of the white race's doom and curse for its sins. Remember that. His doom and his curse. Forever and ever. Mine. Your mother's. Yours, even though you are a child. Being brought up this way taught Joanna to see blacks as objects. "I had seen and known negroes since I could remember. I just looked at them as