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
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
Although both Ernest Hemingway and Jean Toomer use nature imagery to great advantage in their short stories "Big Two-Hearted River" and "Blood-Burning Moon", the manner in which the imagery impacts the story is decidedly different. Hemingway paints a picture of nature and man as one symbiotic entity, showing, in his character Nick, a feeling of peace and of comradeship with the natural surroundings. Toomer uses nature as an omen, a boding message to the characters in the story, forewarning of evil and disaster. Both authors use nature images to paint their narrative pictures; both authors, however, paint very different pictures.

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 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 ..."

Abstract
This paper discusses "Cane" by Jean Toomer and analyzes the poetry of Langston Hughes.

Tags:african, american, literature

Abstract
This paper discusses the use of metaphor in two short poems, "Portrait in Georgia" by Jean Toomer and "In a station at the Metro" by Exra Pound, showing how metaphor shapes meaning and crates imagery.

Abstract
This paper discusses and analyzes both Faulkner's and Toomer's works, which include characters who are in some way alienated from society because of their differences from the mainstream. It offers examples from the texts, highlighting characters affected by racism and sexual identity.

From the Paper
"Fern's identity, however, lies much deeper than her eyes and beauty for "like her face, the whole countryside seemed to flow into her eyes" and "through her eyes she is filled, informed, and incarnates the mystery of the universe." Her complex identity also comes from the mixture of African, Georgian and Judaism. Because of the way that men viewed Fern, they "were everlastingly bringing her their bodies," as well as other gifts and money, instead of love and care. They see her a part, separate, untouchable as a virgin"

Tags:literature, sexual, racial, identity, character

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
This paper analyzes, compares and contrasts their beliefs and writings of African American authors Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. The paper demonstrates how the two were as different in their attitude toward racial progress as they were in their styles of writing. While both men wrote about race and were concerned with bettering the plight of African Americans, the paper explains that they had very different philosophies about how to accomplish social change. Citing their writing, the paper argues that Washington believed the acquisition of jobs for Blacks was most important, because economic freedom would automatically about social and cultural change. Du Bois, on the other hand, believed in careful political organization and individual action for the improvement of the community and the betterment of society at large. The paper concludes with an analysis of Du Bois' theory on double-consciousness, relating it to contemporary author Jean Toomer, a protege of Du Bois.

From the Paper
"Du Bois was committed to an integrationist vision combined with an assertion of a proud cultural heritage; he had a vision of a certain role that the black man should fill in Americans in society; and he believed in full civil liberties, the abolition of racial discrimination. Both men were interested in education. Du Bois believed that education should nurture the growth of culture and felt that education and a university system could transform personal and racial relationships, while Washington favored vocational training for Blacks. Booker T. Washington's "up from slavery" was an overly optimistic account of his life and of race relations in America; it followed the lines of his general philosophy of trusting the paternalism of the southern whites, accepting the fact of white supremacy and accommodating white oppression. Washington emphasized the mutual interdependence of blacks and whites in the south but also felt that they were to remain socially separated."

Tags:black, african, american, slavery, freedom, civil, rights, economics, jean, toomer, spiritual, stivings, race, racial