Cane

by

Jean Toomer

Paul is a light-skinned man from Georgia who has traveled north, to Chicago, as part of the Great Migration. In Chicago, Paul passes as White and attends college. He shares an apartment with a White man named Art Carlstrom and goes on double dates with Art and White women. Paul’s racial ambiguity is a source of anxiety to his acquaintances, who suspect the truth but cannot—or choose not to—confirm it, even though there is plenty of gossip. Paul is attracted to a White woman named Bona but is keenly aware that social mores strongly oppose interracial relationships because of anxieties about interracial relationships. Paul yearns to tell Bona who he is and to have her still love him, but in the end, he realizes that this is an impossible fantasy.

Paul Quotes in Cane

The Cane quotes below are all either spoken by Paul or refer to Paul . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Navigating Identity Theme Icon
).
28. Bona and Paul Quotes

[Bona] sees that the footfalls of the men are rhythmical and syncopated. The dance of his blue-trousered limbs thrills her.

Bona: He is a candle that dances in a grove swung with pale balloons.

Columns of the drillers thrust toward her. He is in the front row. He is no row at all. Bona can look close at him. His red-brown face—

Bona: He is a harvest moon. He is an autumn leaf. He is a nigger. Bona! But dont all the dorm girls say so? And dont you, when you are sane, say so? Thats why I love—Oh, nonsense. You never loved a man who didnt first love you. Besides—

Related Characters: Bona (speaker), Paul
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis:

Art has on his patent-leather pumps and fancy vest. A loose fall coat is swung across his arm. His face has been massaged, and over a close shave, powdered. It is a healthy pink the blue of evening tints a purple pallor. Bubbling over with a joy he must spend now if the night is to contain it all. His bubbles, too, are curiously tinted purple as Paul watches them. Paul, contrary to what he thought he would be, is cool like the dusk, and like the dusk, detached. His dark face is a floating shade in evening’s shadow. […] But is it not queer, this pale purple facsimile or a red-blooded Norwegian friend of his? Perhaps for some reason, white sinks are not supposed to live at night. Surely, enough nights would transform them fantastically, or kill them.

Related Characters: Paul , Bona , Art Carlstrom , Helen
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:

Crimson Gardens. Hurrah! So one feels. People…University of Chicago students, members of the stock exchange, a large Negro in crimson uniform who guards the door…had watched them enter. Had leaned towards each other over ash-smeared tablecloths and highballs and whispered: What is he, a Spaniard, an Indian, an Italian, a Mexican, a Hindu, or a Japanese? Art had at first fidgeted under their stares…what are you looking at, you godam pack of owl-eyed hyenas?…but soon settled into his fuss with Helen, and forgot them. A strange thing happened to Paul. Suddenly he knew he was apart from the people around him. Apart from the pain which they had unconsciously caused. Suddenly he knew that people saw, not attractiveness in his dark skin, but difference. Their stares, giving him to himself, filled something long empty within him and were like green blades sprouting in his consciousness. He saw himself, cloudy but real.

Related Characters: Paul , Bona , Art Carlstrom , Helen
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:

I came back to tell, you […] that you are wrong. That something beautiful is going to happen. That the Gardens are purple like a bed of roses would be at dusk. That I came into the Gardens, into life in the Gardens with one whom I did not know. That I danced with her and did not know her. That I felt passion, contempt and passion for her whom I did not know. […] And all the while the Gardens were purple like a bed of roses would be at dusk. I came back to tell you, brother, that white faces are petals of roses. That dark faces are petals of dusk. That I am going out and gather petals. That I am going out and know her whom I brought here with me to these Gardens which are purple like a bed of roses would be at dusk.

Related Characters: Paul (speaker), Bona
Page Number: 105-106
Explanation and Analysis:
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Paul Quotes in Cane

The Cane quotes below are all either spoken by Paul or refer to Paul . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Navigating Identity Theme Icon
).
28. Bona and Paul Quotes

[Bona] sees that the footfalls of the men are rhythmical and syncopated. The dance of his blue-trousered limbs thrills her.

Bona: He is a candle that dances in a grove swung with pale balloons.

Columns of the drillers thrust toward her. He is in the front row. He is no row at all. Bona can look close at him. His red-brown face—

Bona: He is a harvest moon. He is an autumn leaf. He is a nigger. Bona! But dont all the dorm girls say so? And dont you, when you are sane, say so? Thats why I love—Oh, nonsense. You never loved a man who didnt first love you. Besides—

Related Characters: Bona (speaker), Paul
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis:

Art has on his patent-leather pumps and fancy vest. A loose fall coat is swung across his arm. His face has been massaged, and over a close shave, powdered. It is a healthy pink the blue of evening tints a purple pallor. Bubbling over with a joy he must spend now if the night is to contain it all. His bubbles, too, are curiously tinted purple as Paul watches them. Paul, contrary to what he thought he would be, is cool like the dusk, and like the dusk, detached. His dark face is a floating shade in evening’s shadow. […] But is it not queer, this pale purple facsimile or a red-blooded Norwegian friend of his? Perhaps for some reason, white sinks are not supposed to live at night. Surely, enough nights would transform them fantastically, or kill them.

Related Characters: Paul , Bona , Art Carlstrom , Helen
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:

Crimson Gardens. Hurrah! So one feels. People…University of Chicago students, members of the stock exchange, a large Negro in crimson uniform who guards the door…had watched them enter. Had leaned towards each other over ash-smeared tablecloths and highballs and whispered: What is he, a Spaniard, an Indian, an Italian, a Mexican, a Hindu, or a Japanese? Art had at first fidgeted under their stares…what are you looking at, you godam pack of owl-eyed hyenas?…but soon settled into his fuss with Helen, and forgot them. A strange thing happened to Paul. Suddenly he knew he was apart from the people around him. Apart from the pain which they had unconsciously caused. Suddenly he knew that people saw, not attractiveness in his dark skin, but difference. Their stares, giving him to himself, filled something long empty within him and were like green blades sprouting in his consciousness. He saw himself, cloudy but real.

Related Characters: Paul , Bona , Art Carlstrom , Helen
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:

I came back to tell, you […] that you are wrong. That something beautiful is going to happen. That the Gardens are purple like a bed of roses would be at dusk. That I came into the Gardens, into life in the Gardens with one whom I did not know. That I danced with her and did not know her. That I felt passion, contempt and passion for her whom I did not know. […] And all the while the Gardens were purple like a bed of roses would be at dusk. I came back to tell you, brother, that white faces are petals of roses. That dark faces are petals of dusk. That I am going out and gather petals. That I am going out and know her whom I brought here with me to these Gardens which are purple like a bed of roses would be at dusk.

Related Characters: Paul (speaker), Bona
Page Number: 105-106
Explanation and Analysis: