Thoughts on Cane, by Jean Toomer

There appear to be several tangled threads in CANE that join the three parts of the book together. The first thread unifying the collection of poetry and prose is the way it was put together. In book one you have the narrator observing rural negroes in the south. In book two you have the narrator express-ing the discontent of urban negroes. Then, in book three, you have old Kabnis, a northern negro, trying to escape his pain by returning to his roots in rural Georgia. Coming full-circle. And yet not. Part Two should come first, with its discontented youth, then "Kabnis", then Part One. Why does Toomer choose to progress from spiritual unity to disunity? Is it because the book truly represents a cycle which has no beginning and no end? A clue to this is in two poems, "Reapers" and "Harvest Song". Both are written on related topics, and yet "Reapers" is the first poem of the book, and "Harvest Song" the last. In "Reapers" a rat is injured by a scythe, and yet "the blade, blooded-stained, continues cutting weeds and shade" oblivious to or uncaring of the rat's injuries and pain. In "Harvest Song" the narrator is a reaper who, at the end of the day, with his work still unfinshed, fears his own hunger so much that he distracts himself with pain, "...My pain is sweet...It will not bring me knowledge of my hunger." What, exactly, is it that Toomer's characters hunger for?
Another thread appears to me to be the striving for unity. This desire for unity is expressed in the ways in which the men and women in CANE strive toward unity in their relation-ships. Admittedly, they fail miserably. The women in the book are terribly one-sided--sex objects that are either passive, as with Karintha and Fern and Avey, or active, as with Carma and Louisa and Bona. However, for all their being available physically, the females Toomer portrays in his cameos are untouchable or out of reach spiritually. The men are also one-sided--rational and yet passionate, often overcome by lust and rage. These probably function to demonstrate Toomer's personal views on what men and women are, and how their desires for unity in healthy relation-ships produces a significant amount of pain as a result of their oppositeness.
Pain is yet another thread that unifies the poetry, sketches, stories and drama of CANE. After all is experienced, the pain is what is left, the only significant fruit of their struggles. In Part One, the pain everyone suffers seems to be symbolized by the ever-present cane. The cane, which can cut the skin, must be ground, the juice boiled and cooled, in order to obtain it sweetness. Is the pain which the characters savor the sweetness in their lives? And if so, wouldn't the cane also represent the sweetness (pain) in their lives? In Part Two, which takes place in the urban North, the Negroes live repressed, frustrated, and sadly warped lives. The pain is intellectualized, yet it is still there, doubly so. Is this a result of being separated from the soil--that which is perceived to be source of their spirituality--as well as their failure to form meaningful relationships? The pain in "Kabnis" is more incoherent, the pain of an urban negro who has returned to his roots only to find that he cannot accept them, is alienated by them.
It is impossible to discuss all of the tangled threads that weave CANE into the powerfully moving and unorthodox novel of Toomer's voyage of self-discovery. It is often incoherent, filled with evocative recurrent images, and powerful character sketches that leave the reader unfulfilled, confused, and hungry for more. Perhaps it is Toomer's own hunger, expressed in his writing, that the reader picks up. If there was more to the novel, perhaps one could pin down the more elusive points. Then again, perhaps not