Early Twentieth-Century Fiction
English 358:358, Fall 2023
“It was Sunday. Our congregation had been visiting at Pulverton, and were coming home. There was no wind. The autumn sun, and bell from Ebenezer Church, listless and heavy” (Toomer 10).
Cane, Jean Toomer, p. 10
Switching between staccato sentences and longer sentences makes the passage seem more raw and real as it mirrors how thoughts form. The shorter sentences create breaks in the flow of the passage to emphasize the importance of smaller details in the setting of the vignette.
Hair- silver gray, like streams of stars, Brows- recurved canoes quivered by the ripples blown by pain, Her eyes- mist of tears condensing on the flesh below And her channeled muscles are cluster grapes of sorrow purple in the evening sun nearly ripe for worms
Cane, Jean Toomer, p. 14
The passage implies a distortion or lack of beauty that is still romanticized, giving the narrative a melancholic feel and possibly foreshadowing the novel’s unconventional perspectives on its other themes.
“Significance. Superstition saw
Something it had never seen before:
Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear,
Beauty so sudden for that time of year.”
–Cane, Jean Toomer pg 7