Cane | Essays and Criticism

  • The Circular Design of Cane

    In the following essay, David Kelly examines the circular design of Cane, comparing the female characters who begin and end the book.

  • Introduction: The Witness of History

    In the following introduction to Jean Toomer and the Terrors of American History, Charles Scruggs and Lee VanDemarr provide political background on Cane and its public rediscovery forty-five years after initial publication.

  • Journey toward Black Art: Jean Toomer's Cane

    In the following essay excerpt, Houston A. Baker, Jr. asserts that with Cane, Toomer transcended black American literature of the 1920s to present a "thorough delineation of the black situation."