Toomer

Jean Toomer was an African American writer. He was known as the leading American writer of the 1920s after he established his book "Cane" which inspired authors of the Harlem Renaissance. Jean Toomer was born on December 26, 1894 as Nathan Pinchback Toomer. His mother was the governor of Louisiana during Reconstruction and the first U.S. governor of African American descent (Jones 1). In 1985, Toomer's father abandoned him and his mother. He forced them to live with his mother cruel father in

Jean Toomer was born on December 26, 1894 to Nina Pinchback, and Nathan Toomer. He was born with the name Nathan Pinchback Toomer, but it was later changed to Eugene Toomer. Toomer’s grandfather Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback was born a free Negro to a white planter and a mulatto slave. Jean Toomer admired his grandfather, who served in the army during the Civil War, and later became governor of Louisiana. His grandfather, like Toomer, was able to easily pass for black or white. Throughout Jean

Born on December 26 1894, Jean Toomer was an accomplished poet, and novelist during the time of the harlem renaissance. His first book was published in 1923, titled Cane. Throughout the course of his life, he wrote a total of 21 poems, and 6 books. HIs full name was actually Nathan Pinchback Toomer, after his father, who decamped after his birth. Toomer was then raised by his mother, with some support from his grandparents. Nathan’s grandfather, Pinckney Pinchback referred to him as “Eugine“ instead

comfortable conforming to one race. Jean Toomer was part Negro, German, French, Jewish, Welsh, and Indian; he too had trouble developing a single identity with those races. Trying to find an identity in a society that categorizes, it is easy to sympathize with Toomer in his need to classify himself as an “American” as Alice Walker does in her critique considering he decided not to discuss this part Negro identity. Walker, in her article “The Divided Life of Jean Toomer”, does not address the content of

amongst doleful situations. From every ending comes a new beginning. The poem, “November Cotton Flower”, written by Jean Toomer, describes (the conditions when slaves were under the Harlem Renaissance) the conditions in which slaves were under during the Harlem Renaissance where there seems to be no prospect for a brighter future for the slaves in the society. Throughout the poem, Toomer develops his theme of hope and desire for a brighter future by exhausting literary devices such as metaphors, structure

The writer Jean Toomer grew up in Washington DC in 1894. Toomer writings began to shape in his mid-twenties and later on in his adult life. He was a modernist writer as depicted in the narrative. Toomer produced plays, poems, and short stories in the popular magazines of the Harlem Renaissance era. The poem “Canes” illustrates about the horrible atrocities of lynching’s, sexual behaviors, racism and the Jim Crow Laws that degraded and demoralized Africans Americans. According to the text, “The

The fallout after the World War 1 and the Great Depression saw the emergence of a literary preoccupation with the idea of fragmentation, and a 'cubist application ' to literature as a means of representing the 20th Century 'modern ' reality. Authors, poets, artists etc saw; cubism, expressionism and fragmentation as the best vehicles to depict the incomplete, broken lives of their subjects. With both modern and post modern literature making a conscious break away from previous realism, 20thC literature

In keeping with the vision of modernism Toomer concentrated greatly on stretching the boundaries of language and forging new imagistic representations of political and societal convictions. However, his use of imagery seems in pointed contrast to many of his white contemporaries. For Toomer in Cane, dusk is most importantly an image of fusion, of something ending and beginning simultaneously in a way difficult to

All three books demand connection not only because they are printed together, but also because of their relevance to their respective stories as seen above. This distinction is important to make because without it there is no need to question if they enhance or hinder the story. If each form only resided beside the narratives because the author said so then they would simply be a hindrance. Without this distinction, it would be justifiable to skip U.S.A.’s various forms so that readers could return

is like so much voodoo, or supernatural force, to the great South: African Guardian of Souls, Drunk with rum, Feasting on a strange cassava, Yielding to new rods and a weak palabra Of a white-faced sardonic god— Grins, cries Amen, Shouts hosanna. (Toomer, 26) That passage spawns ideas of African-American men sinfully lusting after women as a way of mocking the church. Alcohol is known to twist people, and symbolizes trouble and violence, citing how the loss of inhibitions may lead to an outburst.