Conflict Of Emotions And Beliefs In Cane By Nathan Pinchback Toomer

Nathan “Jean” Pinchback Toomer believed there was a potential of an “American” race, which he described as a blue hybrid that involved “the spirits of the black, white, and red races” (Hulett 6). Toomer’s writing in his first novel, Cane, gained support from many writers in the Harlem Renaissance through his reflection of African American culture. His adult years were an indecisive shuffle of postsecondary education and career opportunities.Toomer also experienced racism and criticism, including from himself, as many artists and revolutionaries do. Finding himself without a significant published piece after Cane, Toomer was distressed. Nathan Pinchback Toomer’s works represented the turmoil and conflict of emotions and beliefs that a majority

Since he shared his name with his father who decamped when Toomer was still an infant, his mother and maternal grandparents called him “Eugene,” he established himself as “Jean” in his writings in later years. His mother, Nina Elizabeth Pinchback, met his father, Nathan Toomer, in Washington, D.C., soon after Nathan Toomer was widowed. Toomer has a majority European descent, from several European nationalities, along with Cherokee, and African American through his maternal side. From his paternal side, Toomer was a mixed race African American. “Toomer's family also had European lineage; growing up, he moved between African-American and white neighborhoods and attended both all-white and all-black schools” (Biography.com 4). In his later years, Toomer had held a variety of occupations, “Toomer was married twice: to Margery Latimer in 1931 (she died in childbirth in 1932), with whom he had one daughter, Margery (Argie); and then to Marjorie Content in 1934. A resident of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, from 1934 onward, Toomer died in a Pennsylvania nursing home of arteriosclerosis on March 30, 1967” (Hulett 5). Toomer’s daughter, Margery Toomer Latimer, published a collection of her father’s poems after his death. Toomer retired in a Quaker community in Doylestown,