Sunday, September 23, 2007
Cane Poems
Honestly, I did not really understand much if anything of what I read in the poems for Cane. So I guess I will just talk about "Becky." I guess this poem was written to show us that prejudice does not just lie with the white people but blacks as well. Becky was a white lady who had a child by a black man and now she is hated by all. The tone of this poem is at first very angry and hateful. They pretty much want her dead since she is "unclean" now. But it goes on to show that even though society is racist and prejudice there are still some decent people out there. The one man who built the one house for her to stay in though wanted to remain annonoymous showed that some people still have compasion even though society doesn't. Then the tone goes to almost an appologetic tone as they see the oldest son carrying a baby around letting everyone know she had another child by a black man. But, by the son carrying the child around leads everyone to believe she is dead since no one has seen her and now their hate turns to fear as they feel if she is dead her ghost will be haunting everyone. So it shows you that you need to becareful of what you do and say to people because it will come back to bite you. I know I pretty much summed up the poem but I really did not know what to write since I didn't understand the poems.
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4 comments:
I know just how you feel, it’s like there is some deeper meaning or message, or at least you hope there is, but since we don’t know his motivation for the poem, we don’t know what it is. I was thinking maybe this was actually some sort of folklore in the town in Georgia and he may have made it as some sort of sarcasm on the town or just society as a whole. Either way, it points out a very common theme for this class, some sort of search for identity when you don’t belong to a group because of being of mixed race.
If you read through the stories twice or three times... soemtime sjust the parts taht harder to comprhend than they are much easier to understand. I think the confusion is done on purpose beacusse Toomer wanted these stories to be analyzed. The confusing and twisty plots and characters give more meaning and life to the words that are paper but come to fruitation by making mental movies.
I wonder if the black father built that house for becky? The people kept bringing her food and such, but no one wanted to bbe seen or known of doign this. In the South it was considered inmmoral and wrong to do soemthing like have realations with a black man, and she was casted out from the town for doing this.
I think it was hard to read between the lines i guess you say it like that to get the understanding of the peoms and the stories about the women.I guess there could be a deeper meaning that being mixed race that she could not find a sense of identity as annie said that is a common theme in the book ex colored man and thruoghout the poems. Maybe there is adeeper message in the stories and the poems.
I think you did a good job of suming up the poem. His poems are completely open to interpretation! I think that this poem showed whites how thier prejudice can turn on them and turn into fear. Their false beliefs now give them false fear.
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