Reaction Paper: Cane.
True to Modernist conventions, Toomer's Cane stretches the boundaries of.
language and succeeds in blurring the distinction between poetry and prose. The.
form of Cane is puzzling; in the work, there are sketches, stories and poems.
Its form seems to be in a state of flux; appropriate, as the depicted cultural.
identity of the American is in a state of flux. .
Toomer uses the imagery of dusk to represent racial convergence. Toomer's.
images of dusk, the foggy time between night and day, between black and white,.
are magical, mystical, and pregnant with possibility. In "Fern," we are.
introduced to an aloof, idolized figure of men's desire in whose eyes flowed the.
"whole countryside" and "held God."" For Fern, dusk represents refuge and a.
place of dreams; dusk is a place where she is able to exist:.
Besides, picture if you can, this cream-colored solitary girl sitting at a.
tenement window looking down on the indifferent throngs of Harlem. Better that.
she listen to the folk-songs at dusk in Georgia, you would say, and so would I. .
Or, suppose she came up North and married. Even a doctor or a lawyer, say, one.
who would be sure to get along - that is, make money. You and I know, who have.
had experience in such things, that love is not at thing like prejudice which.
can be bettered by changes of town (15-16).
.
Like Eliot's The Wasteland, Cane is about the lack of a common, cultural.
heritage and the need for salvation. Unlike The Wasteland, however, the answer.
to finding salvation in Cane will come from the birth of a new racial.
identity---a racial identity born from the death of a current, past, oppressive.
and violent society. .
