Jean Toomer was an African American writer. He was known as the leading American writer of the 1920s after he established his book "Cane" which inspired authors of the Harlem Renaissance.
Jean Toomer was born on December 26, 1894 as Nathan Pinchback Toomer. His mother was the governor of Louisiana during Reconstruction and the first U.S. governor of African American descent (Jones 1). In 1985, Toomer's father abandoned him and his mother. He forced them to live with his mother cruel father in Washington. P.B.S. Pinchback made a deal to support them only if they changed Toomer's name to Eugene Pinchback. Toomer later shortened Eugene to Jean. Toomer appreciated all the major American poets as part of his self-directed education. He was mostly interested in the Imagists that used concrete language and précised visual images to describe traditional romanticism (Claypool 2).
When he was fifteen years old his mother died from appendicitis. From fifteen years of age to his college years he lived in an all-white neighborhood. From 1914-1917, he shifted from many colleges and academic courses of study as well as he changed his cultural identity growing up. He studied physical education, agriculture, and literature at a total of six colleges and universities from Wisconsin to New York. Although he never completed a degree, his educational pursuits laid the foundation for his writing career. He had the knowledge of philosophy and psychology. He attempted to write when he was a youth, but he made a choice to pursue a literary career in 1919. After he published Cane he became part of New York literary circles. He objected both rivalries that prevailed in the fraternity of writers and to attempts to promote him as a black writer (Clay...
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...ail. He was crippled with arthritis until he died on March 30, 1967 in Doylestown. Many people now look up to Toomer as a
courageous man who hold on to his idealistic principles of racial unity and the meaning of race in America (Claypool 4).
Toomer became a famous African American writer after publishing Cane. Toomer inspired many authors with his book Cane. He had a lot of knowledge and education, but never completed a degree. He was a very intelligent man.
Works Cited
Claypool, June. Jean Toomer. New York: Great Neck Publishing, 2005. Print.
Cofer, Jordan. The “Cain” Allusion as a Unifying Theme in Jean Toomer’s CANE. Boca Raton:
Taylor and Frances Group, LLC, 2011.
Golding, Alan. Jean Toomer. Nokomis: Beacham Group, LLC, 1985.
“Toomer, Jean.” World Book Online InfoFinder. World Book, 2014.Web 28 Apr. 2014.
James Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson, two phenomenal authors of poetry and other forms of writing. They have both written songs for plays, novels on Black writers and poets, and stunning works of poetry. Hughes, however, seems to have had more of an influence on America, having published more novels before his death.
...ptly stricken by an illness which landed him in the hospital. He died on April 9, only two months before his 92nd birthday.
Litz, A. Walton. American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Supplement 2, Part 2. New York: Charles
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The first of the authors he spoke of was Gertrude Stein. He portrayed her as a talkative, outgoing, and somewhat overbearing person. She was very critical about writing. She said that she really liked most of his writing, but he could tell she didn’t understand his idea of prose. She was kind of uppity and would talk about paintings and art a lot. She told him that you could do one of two things. Either buy nice clothes, or buy nice paintings. She herself opted for the paintings. All in all he liked her and enjoyed her company, but he grew apart from her after a while.
He also used his writing to find out more about himself. he also wrote outside of prison talking about his experience as a black man in society, and also the experience as a black man in the ghetto. The book basically compares and contrast being a black man in three very different scenarios.
In "The Jacket" Gary Soto uses symbolism to reflect on the characterization and development of the narrator. Soto seems to focus mainly on a jacket, which has several meanings throughout the story. The jacket is used as a symbol to portray poverty, the narrator's insecurity, and the narrator's form of self-destruction.
...ention given to words when Abel only speaks to his Grandfather when his life has come full circle, even though Abel has wanted to since he came home the first time after the war. The significance of Abel’s silence shows just how much weight he puts on whatever he does say, reflecting the Native American view of the importance of words.
Debate centers around the structure of Jean Toomer's introspective work Cane. Whether viewed as a novel or a collection of short 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 often read as a "portrait of the artist as a young man" more specifically a black man making his way in the South. As such, Cane is suffused with quest imagery and on a number of levels the work functions as a young man's introspective search for himself, his race and his place within both.
Jean Toomer’s seminal work was Cane, a short story cycle he wrote while the principal of a southern school. It is often called one of the most important works of black literature, in large part because it did not pander. Though praised by many black critics, Cane had trouble in sales, precisely because it showed the black experience. Langston Hughes wrote “[Both whites
...and characters to life, and at the same time make them very much a part of the wilderness and landscape. It seems that he believes these conflicts are a natural occurrence, because of innate differences between the make-up of blacks and whites, and men and women. A close reading of this story can be interpreted as Toomer succumbing to a prejudice that can never be resolved, as the opposing sides can never truly understand each other. There is no hope for reconciliation, only the solution that human-beings must live and let live, as coexisting entities in a greater natural world. In essence, Toomer is showing that looks and ideologies are certain to differ; but in general, we are all a part of a greater scheme. He is not asking people to understand one another, but instead calling for hope that someday we can at least respect one another and agree to be different.
Bain, Robert, Joseph M. Flora, and Louis D. Rubin, Jr., eds. Southern Writers: A Biographical Dictionary. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1979.
One of the most famous authors Mark Twain was a reason for Faulkner’s drive to write. “Mark Twain was a direct influence on William Faulkner” (Faulkner, William; Enotes) “Nearly a year after the publication of Soldiers’ Pay. Mark Twain inspired the publication of Mosquitoes”