Modernist times is a time of experimentation, especially in a literary sense. It was the time to do what you want artistically. This text is an experimentation in many ways; in it’s structure and in it’s subject. He formatted it very interestingly. It is the make up of poems and short stories and it is very dynamic. It is unique in it’s subject in that he spoke into the times of the Harlem Renaissance in a way that is unprecedented. All the different outlets he utilized in “Cane” gave him opportunity to experiment with his feelings about it in many different ways. He speaks about many different types of prejudices and consequences of being African American and he does it artistically. He also uses religion to explain his points further and to create spiritual sounding short stories that I personally believe impact deeper. Here is one that I felt like he was really trying to make a point on; “God would not dare to suck black red blood,” (Toomer 41). He does not believe this himself but he is speaking about the arguments the people around him make. He interestingly begins the whole text with a borderline provacative short story called “Karintha” and uses such provactiveness to tackle a whole other unspoken element of the mistreatment of African Americans. I perceived the whole text as a whole to be a stream of consciousness.
There is a lot of evidence that Toomer was deeply conflicted about his racial identity, going back and forth about his identity many times. I read his letters to Waldo after the text and he repeated tells him that he is not Negro. He resoluted that he is “neither black or white, but is American”. He uses the Kabnis and other literary figures to explore this. I think what truly helps me understand. Another piece of background is that he grew up in a white neighborhood but was schooled in an African American school. Evidence such as this leads me to the thought that his main concern is not racial identity, but cultural identity.
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