Abstract
This paper focuses on sugar cane and issues relating to its interaction with soil. Sugar cane places a heavy burden on the soil on which it grows. It also releases extremely large quantities of phosphorous into the surrounding environment.

Abstract
The paper describes how Lalita Tademy's "Cane River" follows the lives of four generations from slave to author in the Cane River area of Louisiana. The paper discusses how, although the book is a work of fiction, it still offers a historical look at four strong women, and at how family endures through the ages. The paper demonstrates how the book describes the essence of the historical periods it covers and then points out the main strengths of the novel. The paper recommends this book as fascinating reading for anyone who is interested in American history and the history of slavery in the country.

From the Paper
"Ultimately, this book is a historical look at four strong women, but more importantly, it is a look at family and how it endures through the ages. Early in the book, Elisabeth tells Suzette, "You only get one family." Tademy acknowledges she became "obsessed" with finding out the details of her family in order to write this book, and that becomes clear as the theme of family is woven throughout the text. The author writes, "Since Gerant, Suzette had begun to think of Elisabeth as the strongest link in a growing chain." Tademy wants to share her ancestors with modern readers so they will have an even greater understanding of the roots of modern African-Americans and what their ancestors endured."

Tags:slavery, women, marriage, family, plantations

Abstract
This paper reviews Jean Toomer's book, "Cane", explaining the book as an extension of the author's self, character, and beliefs that had been shaped by his rather affluent upbringing, the changing definition of race in 1920s, and by an inability to acquire one specific racial identity. The paper contends that Toomer had never experienced the negative impact of racial segregation and was given equal access to black and white social circles. This had resulted in weakening of a racial identity. The paper describes how Toomer refused to classify himself as a white or black and this laid the foundation of the non-racial ideology that was later found in his book, "Cane".

From the Paper
"When Cane was published in 1923, critics and famous writers including W. E. B. Du Bois, William Stanley Braithwaite, immediately received it and Sherwood Anderson as part of new and emerging African American Literature since it's author was a black man. Toomer was seen as solid new voice for African Americans as Braithwaite claimed: "we come upon the very first artist of the race, who . . . can write about the Negro without the surrender or compromise of the artist's vision. . . . Cane is a book of gold and bronze, of dusk and flame, of ecstasy and pain, and Jean Toomer is a bright morning star of a new day of the race in literature." Similarly Anderson termed Toomer's work "the first Negro work I have seen that strikes me as being really Negro". Toomer appreciated such valuable observations but was still uncomfortable with the idea of being labeled a Negro writer. A man who had repudiated racial identity a long time back was not willing to let others put him in a certain categories of writers. He even denied James Weldon Johnson the permission to reprint some of his poems from Cane in The Book of American Negro Poetry saying: "My poems are not Negro poems, nor are they Anglo-Saxon or white or English poems. My prose likewise. They are, first, mine. And, second, in so far as general race or stock is concerned, they spring from the result of racial blending here in America, which has produced a new race or stock. We may call this stock the American stock or race." "

Tags:african, american, racism

Abstract
This paper discusses the music of the band, "Brother Cane". It gives a history of the band and the band members. The author offers insight into the band's personal and musical philosophies. The paper further discusses the band on tour and their relationship with the fans. In conclusion the author offers a personal opinion on the band.

From the Paper
"Damon credits the fans as their strongest foundation and what has helped push the group to the forefront. Their strongest following has been around their hometown in the southeastern United States. The band has plans for a "Homecoming Show" on April 2nd. They're all "really excited" about getting back to Birmingham, not in the least because they'll get to see family and friends that they haven't seen since December. Damon has a "very special female" in his life as do a couple of the other guys in the band. Along with lots of other brothers, sisters, and kinfolk rooting them on. "Our families couldn't be happier with our success. It's been their support that has helped us get through the last three or four months. Although we got some pretty insanely ridiculous phone bills.""

Tags:music, fan, following, philosophy, tour

Abstract
Dusk is portrayed as an image of fusion in Jean Toomer's "Cane". It shows something to be both ending and beginning at the same time. Dusk joins light and dark, day and night, and most importantly, black and white. This paper explains that it is a time of merging, a time of vagueness, and a time of ambiguity. It discusses how Toomer's writing is marked by patterns of imagery that find their roots in dusk. Compelling evidence of dusk seems to lie in the murkiness of both the atmospheres and the characterizations of Karintha, Becky, Carma, Fern, Esther, and Louisa. The paper also shows how each of these characters had their own "dusky" stories to tell.

From the Paper
"Dusk is portrayed to be a reflection of Karintha's soul in the novel Cane. Imagery can be seen joining the light and dark, "perfect as dusk when the sun goes down" (Toomer, 3). In my opinion, this shows Toomer's wish for the merging of the two races. The light and dark images seen in this particular excerpt can signify Toomer's underlying dream for a merging of the two races; especially by his use of racially mixed characters. His vision of the future, essentially, is where race in no longer the basis of identity. Toomer desperately wanted the colors to merge in his characters; creating a race-free society just like the merging of colors in dusk. After all, dusk is the intermediary between the golden light of the sun and the darkness of the moon; it is where color merging takes place."

Tags:Karintha, Becky, Carma, Fern, Esther, Louisa

Abstract
This paper reviews Jean Toomer's "Cane", including some powerful vignettes, which highlight just how damaging it can be for men when they do not understand and appreciate women as whole, three-dimensional beings. The paper stresses that each of the central male characters in Toomer's vignettes actually, themselves, create a distance and isolation from the very "thing" they obsess about: getting close to women. The author believes that looking at each of Toomer's vignettes and seeing how each of the male characters creates his own isolation by not seeing the whole woman clearly opens up new questions about the author himself. Maybe Toomer perceives women as flatly as some of his fictionalized male counterparts.

From the Paper
"The anonymous "young men" and "old men" in "Karintha" all long in vain to have the lovely young beauty whose "skin is like dusk, when the sun goes down." Karintha is put on a pedestal, her idyllic beauty allowing men to project onto her all the ideals associated with beauty, like goodness and innocence. They ignore any aspect of her personality which doesn't fit with their idea of Karintha; her mischievousness, even her proclivity for cruelty. The men adore Karintha blindly, faun over her and give her money, but instead of making her love them, they cause the opposite affect. We are told that Karintha "has contempt for them." "

Tags:vignette, damaging, women, obsess, perception

Abstract
Discusses the connection of blood imagery in "Cane" with death. The writer shows how not all blood imagery in the work is connected to death, and the paper re-evaluates this stance and asserts that blood imagery is a symbol of passion, separate from love. Focuses on anger and frustration, as well as the separateness of the work's characters.

From the Paper
"Often in literary works, a recurring symbol in a work will illustrate a single theme or several closely related themes for that work. Such is true with the green light in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby or rain in Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. At first glance, though, Jean Toomer's use of blood and blood imagery in his only novel, Cane, does not follow any one pattern or serve any single theme. Instead, the settings and characters of each story and poem define the meaning of the blood's presence. Blood or blood imagery is used in connection with death, physical passion, love, anger, ancestry, and indifference. The blood and blood imagery in Cane reflect the individual emotions of the characters and speakers in the novel and serve as specific elaborations upon the many themes of the novel. However, these themes and the reactions of the novel's characters to the themes and their outcomes combine to illustrate the dark instinct of men's souls."

Tags:georgia, passion, sparta, death, love

Abstract
The paper analyzes the film, based on the novel "La rue cases-Ngres" by Joseph Zobel, looking carefully at the narrative structure that illustrates the social dynamics of the place and time of the narration. The writer looks at the impact of the economy on the characters, then describes the way in which the language and drama can leave a lasting effect on the viewer.

From the Paper
"The economic structure of this society is always at issue and is addressed in the film from the first as the determining factor in the lives of the people. They work at this particular task because they have no choice--economic necessity takes their choice away. Education is the only way to escape from the cycle represented in this village by the work passed from one generation to the next, with the children working as hard as the adults and seeing nothing in their lives but more work stretching ahead to their death. Much of the economic lesson of the film is told through the eyes of the children, who in most societies would only be observers, but who in this society are direct participants. The children see wealth as distributed for work--they tell Jose that they will be paid on Saturday because they are working, and Jose will not because he is not working. They reflect the way the village lives--the people work all week, they get paid, and they find that they are not paid enough to live. It is an endless cycle, noted later by Jose in his essay when he says that the cane fields killed his friend and that the cane fields are a trap for the young children who start working at age eight and continue until they die. Leopold's view is not different from this except that he believes the whites cheat the blacks and that the books they keep would show this fact, which is why he tries to steal the ledger. Economic issues drive the actions of each individual and of the society as a whole, and economic relations define how each person fits into the whole, not just the whole of the village, but the whole of the colonial structure."

Tags:colonialism, economics, narrative, character, black

From the Paper
"Since the early nineteenth century, sugar manufacturing has been one of the most profitable industries in the state of Louisiana. Although the rapid growth of Louisiana's sugar cane industry began in the early 1800s, sugar cane itself was introduced to the area about a century before. In the year 1700, the French explorer Pierre Le Moyne Sieur d'Iberville obtained some cane from the island of Santo Domingo in the West Indies and brought it with him on an expedition up the Mississippi River. A bit north of present-day New Orleans, d'Iberville planted the sugar cane. At that time, it was already realized that the best type of soil for growing sugar cane was "a mixture of sand, silt, clay, and some organic material" D'Iberville and his men noticed that this was precisely the type of soil to be found in the Mississippi delta region that they ... "

Tags:HISTORY: U.S. (Before 1865)

Abstract
This paper discusses Jean Toomer's book of short stories as a reflection of social attitudes toward racial matters, including issues of assimilation and multiculturalism and the marginalization of blacks.

From the Paper
"Jean Toomer's book Cane reflects social attitudes toward race and racial matters and so can be linked to the statement by W.E.B. DuBois that "the problem of the 20th Century is the problem of the color line." Race itself becomes a source of social and ..."