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23. Her Lips Are Copper Wire
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
This woman’s soul is like “ a little thrust-tailed dog” and it follows her around, hoping to find a warm welcome. But at night it sleeps in the vestibule where it is cold. Jesus covers it at night to keep it warm. During the day, the dog follows her around, but at night, when she goes to bed in her “large house,” she dreams of places where no vestibules or doors are necessary. The little dog of the woman’s soul follows her wherever she goes through “alleys” and past “tumbled shanties” and each night it’s waiting for her by the door, but she doesn’t let it in. Someone—Jesus—must come and cover it at night, and carry it in to the warmth in which the woman sleeps.
Although the characters in the Northern section are, in general, better off than their Southern counterparts, there’s a pervasive sense of loss, disconnection, and alienation among them. In part, this seems to have something to do with a separation from nature, and in part with a separation from the folk traditions and practices of Black southerners. The Northern Black characters live lives that look more like their privileged White counterparts’ lives, and it costs them dearly, this vignette suggests. This privileged Northern Black woman is literally separated from her soul at least in part because of the environment in which she lives.
Themes
