Comparing the Blues and Jean Toomers Cane :: comparison compare contrast essays

Comparing the Blues and Jean Toomers Cane The struggle between the possibility of Black life and the Reality of Black living is the Blues (McKeever 196) Debate centers around the structure of Jean Toomers introspective reverse Cane. Whether viewed as a novel or a collection of shortsighted stories and poems, the impressions are poignant and compelling. They are full of passion and depict a writer casting a critical eye towards himself and his surroundings. The work is a lot read as a portrait of the artist as a new(a) man more specifically a black man making his way in the South. As such, Cane is suffused with quest resource and on a number of levels the work functions as a young mans introspective search for himself, his race and his place within both. On the scratch a discussion of the blues may seem a chip shot high-minded. How seriously can one take works entitled Aggravatin Papa, bespeak a Little Sugar in my Bowl, Gimme a Pigfoot and a bottle of Beer, when placed next to a work of such literary font as Cane a work that William Braithwhite gushingly refers to as a book of gold and bronze, of dusk and flame, of ecstasy and pain, and Jean Toomer is a satiny morning star of a new day of the race in literature (Baker 16). A closer examination of both forms reveal floor similarities in theme, structure and content and that most important attribute - spirit.