Sunday, September 30, 2007
Cane poems con't
Out of all the poems I liked Calling Jesus the best. I could be totally off base with my interpretation of this poem but I'm going to say it anyways. What I get from this poem is that this is a story about a black women with a great and energetic soul about her. They compare her soul to that of a puppy. So I take it that on the outside this women is full of love and happiness and shows kindness to everyone. But when she goes home every night her soul is "placed in the vestibule" meaning she leaves her soul at the front door. I take this as what she is like during the day is not who she truly is. She leaves her spirit at the front door so when she leaves during the day she can pick up this soul as a way of hiding the real person underneath. She is under a facade of happiness when in reality she isn't who she appears to be.
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3 comments:
I enjoyed this piece in Cane as well. I am not that great when it comes to interpreting things, but I think that you may be on to something here. I agree that this woman is hiding who she truly is (maybe to protect herself).
I think you did a pretty good job interpreting the basis of the poem. I think the idea of the woman leaving her soul at the door is very interesting and not exactly what I would expect from a black woman in the time that Fauset is portraying her. Instead of being happy on the outside and sadder and lonely when she got home, I would have expected her to be working hard during the day, only to come home and relax, maybe be happy with her family. This wasn't the outcome with the woman in the poem, so that sort of put an interesting twist into a stereotype. This poem made me a little sad wondering how many black women had to hide their true selves, and how many still feel that they need to.
I agree with your interpretation of “Calling Jesus”, but I think it is important to look at the title and compare it to what’s going on in the story. In the first and third paragraphs the narrator is calling out to Jesus, maybe to watch over her and help her through the hard times (“…eoho Jesus…soft as a cotton boll brushed against the milk-pod cheek of Christ, will steal in and cover it that it need not shiver”)
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