Sunday, September 23, 2007
After reading Cane I am rather confused. Part of the book seemed to be poetry while part seemed to be almost like a chapter out of a novel, maybe even somewhat biographical. I thought it was interesting how Toomer chose to describe the women he did, but I am confused as to how they all relate to one another. He seems to jump around a lot from topic to topic and I find myself wondering if anything will come together in the end. I think he is a pretty good writer, especially the way he can write a novel and poetry as well. Authors generally concentrate on one type of writing so I am impressed that he can take so much and put it all into one book. However, I'm not really sure if it makes too much sense to me (at least not yet).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
I also noticed in Toomer’s Cane that many of his writings were about women who seemed to have little connection to one another. I think that Toomer wanted to write about a variety of women in order to depict many different experiences that African American women faced during this time. In my opinion, the connection between these poems and stories about women is that they address the different topics that were relevant to African American women in the South.
Although I enjoy the writing in Cane, I am also confused with Toomer's piece of literature. I can not decide what type of genre this specific book is. It's driving me insane!
It is definitely different, I’m sure he was pretty…complicated. Obviously the people, places, and things he encountered in Georgia really inspired him to reflect on the plight of these women.
Sadly, it seems as if all of him stories on women have one theme, their sexuality, or the fact that their women hurting them in some way. I think pointing out that women have to deal with things that men would never have to, from almost abuse in the case of Katerina, to Becky being cast out all for her relationship with a black man.
I was definately confused when I began reading Cane. I did not understand if all the stories and poems were suppose to relate, or if they were about different things. After our discussion in class and as I continue to read this book, I think he has done a great job when writing stories and poems in one piece of literature. I think it is a creative way of writing and allows you to see different ways in which he was thinking and the ways he wanted to convey messages by using stories and poems.
As I read the introduction, I got a good sense of who Toomer was and I think complicated describes him well. Toomer wanted to share his experiences that he encountered while in Georgia, what he saw, stories he heard, and people he met. I believe much of those experiences to hold deep personal meaning to him and that's why he wanted to share them with others. I think that he used both poetry and short stories to break up the book and make it different from other books written about African Americans in the South. As far as your comment about things coming together, I don't think that Toomer wrote Cane with the idea of having a common theme within all of his literary pieces. I think that's why Cane is broken up into three sections, so that the poets and stories within a section share a common idea or message.
I was confused when reading cane. yeah it went a little poem to a story about a person adn usally bad things in that persons life never good things in the end. He talked only about women in the stories. There is connection between the themes but not between the women besides the hardships that they went through. Maybe he is just trying to make the conection of all the differnt experiences that africn american women or even just women went through.
I see every women in his poetry to have some type of inner strength. He portrays them as beautiful with an inner secret or desire. He does not lust for the majority of these women like the men he portrays in the poems. He seems to want to save them or show the reader their true nature.
Toomer is a very good artist to be able to cover such a broad spectrum of writing. I also liked the writings about the women. It was compelling, just enough to draw you in and make you use your mind. There was also a sexual tension as Toomer wrote about these women. This is an issue that we have just reached in class.
I think most of the class was confused by much of Toomer's writing. Because of this I feel it's very difficult to read. I feel as if I read a poem or short story 3 or 4 times and still have no idea whats going on. I like it, but in a way I don't. I guess I have very mixed feelings about Toomer.
I lied the way Toomer broke up the peotry with his stories. I noticed also how much he focused on women and how he talked about them in terms of nature. I wonder why he chose women as his main characters, you would think a male character would help him express his feelings better. Perhaps he chose female characters to show people how the race is treated, since women in general should be cared for more than men. I like how he showed women in hardships that perhaps men can handle in whites eyes.
Post a Comment