Toomer Challenges Racial Identity English Literature Essay

Toomer Ch eithithernges Racial Identity English Lit date of referenceture EssayKarintha, reapers and November like flowers, all view as similar laptings in rural Georgia which is located in the southwestward where we see a lot of racism going on. The south for sinister Americans functioned as a site for trauma as considerably as a typic reference for their homeland. It is withal a symbolic connection between slavery and informalized melanize wo hands. Its is all embedded in Toomers quest for racial indistinguishability as a mulatto. Toomer tries to represent the black womans sexuality as an act of sexual union scarred by traumatic history by depicting Karintha as an innocent prostitute. The deem lambast is regarded as a passing era associated with the trauma of slavery. Toomer was severe to create a connection between racial and cultural pertinacity generated by modernity to the regulation of black fe man uniform desire. The study stand in this story which is death an d sex relate to the Black American historical content of slavery and lynching. We see that in Cane, Toomer uses nature to exposit the bodies of the black females but nearly all the females are either tormented or violated in the rural settings which projects displacement of nature. The haunting rhythm method of folk songs in the rural landscape draws attention to the women who are objects of male desire and transforms this women into lost objects. Toomer portrays the gender issues and fond barriers that hindered black women. Her skin is like dust on the eastern horizonwhen the sun goes down (page 5).This description Toomer gives of karintha as dusk shows that what she represents is fading past. Karintha introduces the themes of movement in life and death that reoccur in the book Cane. The interest of men, who wishes to ripen a breaking intimacy as well as soon (page5) shows that men hastened her sexual development. Karintha represents the folks spirit that is fading away du e to modernity in the south, she is over sexualized and that means that black men still have urges to be reconnected with the past.In Reapers, we see major racial themes here the head of slavery takes major precedence in ones brainpower when we start reading the poesy. Toomer lays emphasis on the battle cry black (Page 7) apply to describe the black Americans that were slaves at that time in the south. The reapers were tied to a life of monotonous work. The institution of the mower disrupts the peace in the nuance of the weeds and brings war this brings out the theme of racism, where there is constant social war between the colored and the white. The verse form Reapers is suggestive of Black dramaturgy laborers in the early twentieth Century. Toomer in addition tries to depict the problem of racial economic inequalities that were also present in the south at that time. The word continue (page7) connotes the constant labor the black male did in the fields. We also have a v iew on how in the early 20th century, black males who had their lands would have to work and pay a certain make sense grit to the whites thereby deviation them with little profit. All their turmoil and life-threatening work was always in vain. We also see an introduction to craze that emerges with the blood-stained scythe that has cut a rat in the poem, an issue that Toomer readdresses ulterior in cane.November cotton plant flower is an other(a) poem that ensues after Reapers, the poem talks about environment in the south were we all kip down was difficult for the colored skin at that point in time. The poem describes how the cotton flowers survived the harsh south weather and still strived through the impenetrable times it went through.We see Toomer use the idea of racial identity, he uses the images of scarcity, drought and death to express the black race during the time the poem was written. embrown eyes that loved without a trace of fear,Beauty so jerky for that tim e of year. (Page 8)Toomer depicts the sudden urge that the African American race have to fight against racism. The description of a hope for the cotton flower shows that Toomer believes there is hope for the African American he tries to create a wed between the oppression of race to the growing of a cotton flower.In Cane, Toomer tries to create a hybrid structure, where we see a combination of little(a) stories and poems. Karintha, Reapers, and November cotton flowers portray death, labor, racial identity and racism which portray major themes in the book cane as a whole. The book cane is designed in a circle, Toomer starts from the south up into the north and back into the southern regions again. Since, Karintha, Reapers, and November cotton flowers are the first three consecutive pieces in the book Cane, Toomer gives us a shadow or a breather of what is to proceed in other poems and stories in the book. The three pieces are set in the rural south where a lot of racial identity i s taking place, the description of Karintha as a November cotton flower, also gives us an imagery of how the south and its environment looked at that point in time.In karintha, Toomer describes her as an innocent prostitute who men constantly came to for gratification of their sexual desires just to tolerate a living for herself. Toomer reechoes the themes labor and economic inequalities also found in the poem Reapers and November cotton flower. Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade (page 7) shows how the African Americans in the south had to continually labor to fend for themselves and family. In the south, the blacks grew cotton for a living but in November cotton flower, they had turmoil but seen no rewards of their labor, the natural resources were depleted thereby leaving the fields empty. And cotton scarce as any southern snow (page 8)Toomers cane is compiled of encounters with both blacks and white and black. In Karintha, we see encounters between blacks and white . Karintha was a black woman who was sexually appealing to both the white and black men in her community. However, in Reapers and November cotton flower we see the diametral of such encounters. Even though white men are attracted to karintha, in Reapers, and November cotton flowers, we see that they belittle the dusk skin color and heart-to-heart them to a life of constant labor.Toomer also paints the theme death in these three consecutive pieces that start the book cane, as it would also be discussed in the other poems and stories that followed. In karintha, we see towards the ending that she mysteriously has a electric razor who dies, Toomer likens the death to smokes that curl up in the community. Furthermore, Toomer uses animals in Reapers and November cotton flowers to signify death. In reapers, And there a field rat, startled screaky bleeds, (page7)Shows the black reaper slays the rat and leaves it bleeding without offering any beneficence to it. Toomer also describes the features of a loose land in November cotton flowers. dead birds were found (page 8).Toomers description of Karintha as a November Cotton flower shows the idea of double consciousness because karintha was depicted by Toomer as a impetuous child who was mischievous and always stoning the cow, yet the preacher convinced himself that there was nothing wrong in her acts and regarded her as a November cotton flower. Toomer tries to portray how the whites thought their maltreatment of the blacks were justified and lawful. Which, is also the same thing seen in Reapers when the reaper refuses to acknowledge the fact that he had hurt the rat.The introduction of the mowers by Toomer in the reapers also signifies the birth of modernism and the new negro movements, which, is also repeated in November cotton flowers when the cotton flowers begins to unexpectedly grow and the blacks see a hopeful future after the death of karinthas child which signifies the death of the old negro and old cult ural style because as soon as Toomer transitions to the rural setting, the folk song setting seems to vanish. jean Toomers cane is a book that takes into cognizance, the lives lived by Negros at that particular era and his work was considered as the New Negro art that led other black poets or writers to write other books in that light.