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17. Seventh Street
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Cane, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Navigating Identity
Racism in the Jim Crow Era
Feminine Allure
Nature vs. Society
The Power and Limitations of Language
Summary
Analysis
Rhobert bears the burden of his life like a “monstrous diver’s helmet” or like an empty, crumbling house, on his head. His legs are spindly and crooked because he had rickets as a child. He feels like he is sinking under the weight of the house, like he’s a diver who got stuck in quicksand mud when someone drained the river. Rhobert is trying to hold on to the water of life, but someone is draining it away. Rhobert is trying to keep his head in the house—is trying to stay alive—because he believes it’s sinful to try to get out of a thing that God built. But he really doesn’t care if he lives or dies anymore. People watch him struggle as the water drains away and as he sinks deeper into the mud, the narrator of the piece imagines singing “Deep River” and placing a carved monument to Rhobert’s struggle on the spot the moment he finally goes under.
One of the primary symbols of the Northern section of the book is the house, which represents the strictures, rules, and limitations of society. Rhobert appears on the one hand to be successful—the very fact that he has a house suggests a certain degree of financial stability and social capital. But, in an unjust and segregated world, maintaining the house and all that it stands for is a constant, soul-crushing enterprise. Rickets is a preventable bone disease that is caused by insufficient vitamin D and calcium intake during childhood. The fact that Rhobert suffers from rickets implies poverty and want at some point in his past.
Themes
