was not often associated with either the writers or
artists of the period, nor was he directly engaged
with them. Nevertheless, the work is a reflection
of the themes and style of the Renaissance, as well
as being indicative of the modernist period. The
work is an expressionistic montage of sketches,
poems, short stories, and songs and includes a
closet drama. Reminiscent of a jazz piece, it echoes
the communal voices of the African-American
community. Cane inaugurated a new form and,
as many critics suggest, it laid the foundations for
contemporary African-American literature.
Cane was published in 1923 after Toomer’s re-
turn north. It garnered critical accolades for its
inventive style, and ALAIN LOCKE included two
sketches from the work in The NEW NEGRO (1925).
A half century later, ALICE WALKER noted that the
work, especially its portrayal of women, had ex-
erted a powerful influence on her own writing.
Toomer admitted in a letter to Sherwood Ander-
son that Cane was indebted to Winesburg, Ohio.
Like Anderson’s collection of vignettes, Cane at-
tempts to paint the life of the African-American
poor in the rural South and their dispossessed
counterparts in the North. The work also focuses
its attention on the troubled relationships between
men and women at a time when gender roles were
being challenged and readjusted.
Toomer’s own uncertainty about his racial iden-
tity can also be felt in the work. A double-conscious-
ness pervades its themes, characters, and style. Most
of the female characters are biracial and suffer for
their marginal position in society. But these BLUES
women also embody an earthy sexuality connected
to the South, to the past, and to their African heri-
tage. The South itself also possesses a dual identity:
It is both frightening and beautiful. At once, it is the
site of the horrors of slavery and lynching but also a
place of African-American folk history and culture,
where people maintained a discernible connection
to nature. Toomer called the work a “swan song,” a
lament for the past. Concerned that the modern era
that brought with it an end to agrarian life would
also signal the death of the vibrancy of African-
American culture, Toomer set out to capture the
tone of the land and the people.
While the cane and its “roots” symbolize the
history and the people of the community (as well
as their connectedness to nature) of the South,
the sketches that are set in the North are marked
by images that suggest alienation. Here charac-
ters are trapped in their urban environment by
boxes, houses, metal, and anything that cuts them
off from nature, their past, and themselves. Male
and female relationships are even more dislocated
than in the South. Human relationships in general
signify a growing isolation from the world of the
North. The stories of the first and second sections
of the work—those set in the South and then the
North, respectively—respond to each other, em-
phasizing again the duality of Cane and of Afri-
can-American life. The work closes with “Kabnis,”
a drama set in the South. Its lead character is a
northerner, however, haunted by the fear of being
lynched. The circular narrative pattern of Cane—
from the South to the North and back again—il-
lustrates Toomer’s belief that African Americans
must remain connected to the South and to their
past, even in light of the horrors of their history, if
they want to be free from the psychological bur-
dens of slavery and racism.
Toomer never matched the success of Cane, but
he continued to write and experiment with form
and style. In 1931, he published Essentials: Defi-
nitions and Aphorisms. The same year he married
Margery Latimer, a white woman, who died the
following year while giving birth to their daugh-
ter, Margery. Two years later, he married again,
this time to Marjorie Content. The couple studied
many different forms of religion and spirituality,
even for a time joining a Quaker congregation.
The poem “Blue Meridian” was published in 1936
and reflects Toomer’s interest in Eastern philoso-
phy and modernist style, but he never had a major
publication again even though he lived another 30
years, dying in 1967.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baker, Houston A., Jr. “A Journey toward Black Art:
Jean Toomer’s Cane.” In Afro-American Poetics:
Revisions of Harlem and the Black Aesthetic, 11–44.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988.502 Toomer, Jean