Ambivalence in Jean Toomer’s Cane

Abstract

In the lush landscape of Toomer criticism is a vacuum surprising related to Cane, the most notable creative output of the author and a book widely acknowledged as a masterpiece of the New Negro Movement. The said vacuum is the absence of a study on ambivalence in the book. Here then lies the significance of this essay whose aim is not so much to interrogate the said vacuum as to fill it. Combining insight from the sociological, biographical and psychoanalytical approaches to literary criticism, the study investigates the subject and discovers firstly, that there is a pervasive presence of ambivalence in the multi-genre work as it permeates all aspects of the book from its very title through its internal structure to its thematic concerns; secondly, that much of the ambivalent situations therein reflect the true experiences of the Negro folks in the post emancipation New World and of course the author’s disturbed mental processes. The essay, therefore, concludes that a close examination of the intricate network of ambivalent situations in and out of Cane remains the best approach towards establishing its significance as a true masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance.

Key Words: Ambivalence, contradiction, complexity, conflict, attitude, Jean Toomer, and Cane.