Hannah Bodnar
English 301-02
Elizabeth Rich
8 February 2017
Representation of Women in Jean Toomer’s Cane
When reading Jean Toomer’s Cane, one is instantly pulled to examine the factors of race against race, North against South, crossing of racial lines, etc. This pull often strays people from seeing one of the most blaring objectifications of the whole novel: the women. African American writer Jean Toomer’s oeuvre tends to follow a very distinct guideline: there is a love affair, said love affair always fails, and the women in the stories are often viewed as stubborn, careless, or corrupt. This may seem coincidental, but it may in fact be a reflection of Toomer’s own life mirrored within his text. Growing up Toomer always found himself in
…show more content…
relationships with white women, which would always cause controversy, especially growing up in the early 1900s, a time where you did not question racial boundaries without consequence. He recreates this societal disapproval in many of his short stories, builds upon them, and extends the fault of failed love to women. This objectification of women occurs in his short stories Karintha, Avey, and many more. By displaying these negative views of women, and emphasizing the idea of women being an object of sexual gratification, rather than a human being, Toomer attempts to draw attention to the negative effects these societal views can have on women: mind, body, and soul. One of the many examples of this objectification and its detriments to women can be found most readily in the story of “Karintha”. “Karintha” opens with the line,”Men had always wanted her, this Karintha, even as a child, Karintha carrying beauty…” (Toomer 5). She is viewed throughout her life as merely a sexual object, and through this objectification, becomes harsh. And even though she becomes cruel, “no one ever thought to make her stop.” (Toomer 5). This lack of action is a direct cause of traditional gender roles. These roles prescribe men to be logical, protective and just, while women are prescribed to be emotional and weak. Even when Karintha abuses animals, and even other children, no one will stop her. The men, presumed to be above women under these traditional gender roles, feel no need to discipline Karintha, and are even protective of her (giving her money and gifts) because of her beauty, and potentially because they believe she does not have any control over her actions. Prone to emotion, and too weak to control herself, Karintha simply does not know better. This overly emotional and unreasonable behavior, deemed distinctive to women, is also called hysteria. This weak and incompetent view of women can cause them to feel unstable, and judged. It creates a sense that something is wrong with them, as opposed to something being wrong with society, and it eventually leaves Karintha alone and bitter. These traditional gender roles can also be found in the short story “Avey”.
Avey is described as indifferent, tender, and lazy, and appeals slightly more to the submissive and nurturing element of traditional gender roles. She is very disconnected in the story, never fully there. At one point the narrator remarks, “But though I held her in my arms, she was way away.” She is expected, as a woman, to allow for men to be sexual with her, but is denied having sexuality of her own. Femininity, at the time the novel was written, was often associated with submissiveness, and women were often encouraged to tolerate the abuses of men. This was no exception in “Avey”. This submissiveness is common knowledge among all of the male characters in the story, and they often take advantage of it. The narrator at one points states, “if I really wanted to, I could do with her just what I pleased. Like one can strip a tree” (Toomer 46). She was also expected to be (at the same time as being sexually pleasing) nurturing and loving. This is displayed many times in the short story. For example, the narrator says “She laid me in her lap as if I were a child. Helpless… She started to hum a lullaby” (Toomer 45). However, unlike Karintha, Avey almost has a lack of emotion: a reclusion from love, passion, and feeling. This is a direct cause of her submissiveness, which can have so many negative effects on women. They will start to view themselves as less of a person, and more of an object of sexual …show more content…
pleasure. They will begin to believe that they need to let men have their way with them, and will not question it, causing emotional distance and lack of passion, much like Avey experiences in the short story. This lack of passion causes the narrator to oppress her even further, saying he “resented” her “laziness”, and thought her “no better than a cow” (Toomer 46). This displays perfectly the entitlement of males, and their ignorance to the female condition. “Karintha” and “Avey” also display perfectly the patriarchal ideology of the “good girl” versus the “bad girl”.
Under this ideology, “good girls” are thought to be compassionate, submissive, virtuous, and are to abstain from sex. “Bad girls” are described as brutal, aggressive, shrewd, and wicked. These depictions of women imply that if one is not the embodiment of goodness and pureness, the “good girl”, then one is by default a monster, the “bad girl”. In the story of Karintha she is cruel for cruelty's sake, sexually open with men, and judgemental: “[stoning] the cows, and [beating] her dog, and [fighting] the other children” (Toomer 5). She is, by definition, the “bad girl”. “Karintha” provides an example that seems very clear cut in defining good versus bad. But in the case of “Avey”, this distinction is not so clear. Avey is described as caring, tender, submissive, many things revered under the definition of a “good girl”. In fact, the only quality of a “bad girl’ that Avey readily exhibits is openness to sexual advances of men. This begs the question: why is it that one characteristic defines a woman’s entire
being? Women in literature, and in life, are symbolically placed on pedestals. These pedestals are far too small for any hint of error, therefore, as previously stated, if you are not the perfect embodiment of the “good girl”, then you are by default a “bad girl”. This makes it far too easy to fall off of said pedestal, and this can have many negative effects on women. She may begin to judge herself based on society's impossible standards for her insufficiency or abnormalness, or she may even face physical abuses from the community or her lovers. In the instance of Karintha, she is described at the end of the story as a soul that “ripened too soon’’ (Toomer 6). Men still chase after her, but only for sexual gratification, and she is looked down upon by society. The same happens to Avey. She is shunned by the community and deemed as “no better than a whore” (Toomer 47). Although being women is obviously a defining characteristic to these characters, it does not summarize who they are as a whole being. To say such a thing would be as incorrect as to define Avey as a “bad girl” simply because of her openness to men.
The black women’s interaction with her oppressive environment during Revolutionary period or the antebellum America was the only way of her survival. Playing her role, and being part of her community that is not always pleasant takes a lot of courage, and optimism for better tomorrow. The autonomy of a slave women still existed even if most of her natural rights were taken. As opposed to her counterparts
" The Coupling Convention: Sex, Text and Tradition in Black Women's Fiction. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. 110-142.
Margaret Atwood’s speech ‘Spotty-Handed Villainesses’ is an epideictic text, which explores the significance of having a multi-faceted depiction of female characters within literature as a means of achieving gender equity, centring on the fictional presentation of women as either virtuous or villainess. The title of the speech
The title of this book comes from the inspiring words spoken by Sojourner Truth at the 1851, nine years prior to the Civil War at a Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. In Deborah Grays White, Ar’n’t I a woman her aim was to enrich the knowledge of antebellum black women and culture to show an unwritten side of history of the American black woman. Being an African- American and being a woman, these are the two principle struggles thrown at the black woman during and after slavery in the United States. Efforts were made by White scholars in 1985 to have a focus on the female slave experience. Deborah Gray White explains her view by categorizing the hardships and interactions between the female slave and the environment in which the slave was born. She starts with the mythology of the female slave by using mythologies such as Jezebel or Mammy, a picture that was painted of false images created by whites in the south. She then moves to differences between male and female slavery the harsh life cycle, the created network among the female community, customs for slave families and the trip from slavery to freedom, as well as differences between the female slave and the white woman, showing that there is more history than myth. (White, 5) Thus, bringing forth the light to the hardships and harassment that the black woman faced in the Antebellum South.
...on, George. "Jean Toomer and American Racial Discourse." Texas Studies in Literature and Language. 35, 2 (Summer 1993). 226-245.
Deborah Gray White’s Ar’n’t I a Woman? details the grueling experiences of the African American female slaves on Southern plantations. White resented the fact that African American women were nearly invisible throughout historical text, because many historians failed to see them as important contributors to America’s social, economic, or political development (3). Despite limited historical sources, she was determined to establish the African American woman as an intricate part of American history, and thus, White first published her novel in 1985. However, the novel has since been revised to include newly revealed sources that have been worked into the novel. Ar’n’t I a Woman? presents African American females’ struggle with race and gender through the years of slavery and Reconstruction. The novel also depicts the courage behind the female slave resistance to the sexual, racial, and psychological subjugation they faced at the hands of slave masters and their wives. The study argues that “slave women were not submissive, subordinate, or prudish and that they were not expected to be (22).” Essentially, White declares the unique and complex nature of the prejudices endured by African American females, and contends that the oppression of their community were unlike those of the black male or white female communities.
...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.
One of the most interesting aspects in his work proves to be his use of prose, structure, and character to draw upon his Black heritage to demonstrate how history does affect the modern Black. By incorporating history in to these parts of the novel, Toomer offers a definite role for Blacks in the twentieth century. Throughout the novel specific textual references, exemplify Toomer's dependence upon Black heritage in providing the inspiration necessary in identifying Black culture.
The author distinguishes white people as privileged and respectful compare to mulattos and blacks. In the racial society, white people have the right to get any high-class position in job or live any places. In the story, all white characters are noble such as Judge Straight lawyer, Doctor Green, business-man George, and former slaveholder Mrs. Tryon. Moreover, the author also states the racial distinction of whites on mulattos. For example, when Dr. Green talks to Tryon, “‘The niggers,’…, ‘are getting mighty trifling since they’ve been freed. Before the war, that boy would have been around there and back before you could say Jack Robinson; now, the lazy rascal takes his time just like a white man.’ ” (73) Additionally, in the old society, most white people often disdained and looked down on mulattos. Even though there were some whites respected colored people friendly, there were no way for colored people to stand parallel with whites’ high class positions. The story has demonstrations that Judge Straight accepted John as his assistant, Mrs. Tryon honor interviewed Rena, and George finally changed and decided to marry Rena; however, the discrimination is inevitable. For example, when Mrs. Tryon heard Rena was colored, she was disappointed. “The lady, who had been studying her as closely as good manners would permit, sighed regretfully.” (161) There, Mrs. Tryon might have a good plan for Rena, but the racial society would not accept; since Rena was a mulatto, Mrs. Tryon could not do anything to help Rena in white social life. The racial circumstance does not only apply on mulattos, but it also expresses the suffering of black people.
writers are ‘doubly marginal’, being female and a writer in prison whereas at the same time black women suffer threefold- as a woman, prisoner, and African American”(Willingham 57). Although both of these women are prisoners, one of them is viewed as prison writer and another women is viewed just as prisoner. Beside they being treated just by their race, even in an African American society, the perception of looking imprisoned men and women are different, African American women are subjected for gender difference. Willingham mentions the thought of a African American woman, “African American men are almost made martyrs and heroes when they come out of prison but when African American women go back to their communities, the are not only unfit people, they are also marked with the title of unfit mother, and it’s hard to trust us”
In Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author subjects the reader to a dystopian slave narrative based on a true story of a woman’s struggle for self-identity, self-preservation and freedom. This non-fictional personal account chronicles the journey of Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) life of servitude and degradation in the state of North Carolina to the shackle-free promise land of liberty in the North. The reoccurring theme throughout that I strive to exploit is how the women’s sphere, known as the Cult of True Womanhood (Domesticity), is a corrupt concept that is full of white bias and privilege that has been compromised by the harsh oppression of slavery’s racial barrier. Women and the female race are falling for man’s
The society in which classical myths took place, the Greco-Roman society was a very patriarchal one. By taking a careful gander at female characters in Greco-Roman mythology one can see that the roles women played differ greatly from the roles they play today. The light that is cast upon females in classical myths shows us the views that society had about women at the time. In classical mythology women almost always play a certain type of character, that is to say the usual type of role that was always traditionally played by women in the past, the role of the domestic housewife who is in need of a man’s protection, women in myth also tended to have some unpleasant character traits such as vanity, a tendency to be deceitful, and a volatile personality. If one compares the type of roles that ladies played in the myths with the ones they play in today’s society the differences become glaringly obvious whilst the similarities seem to dwindle down. Clearly, and certainly fortunately, society’s views on women today have greatly changed.
In a society unbridled with double standards and set views about women, one may wonder the origins of such beliefs. It might come as a surprise that these ideals and standards are embedded and have been for centuries in the beloved fairy tales we enjoyed reading as kids. In her analytical essay, “To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tales”, Karen Rowe argues that fairy tales present “cultural norms which exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues.” Rowe presents an excellent point, which can be supported by versions of the cult classics, “Cinderella” and “Snow White”. Charles Perrault’s “ The Little Glass Slipper” and the Brothers Grimm’s “ Snow White” exemplify the beliefs that females are supposed to be docile, dependent on the male persona and willing to sacrifice themselves. In many cases, when strong female characters are presented they are always contradicting in these characteristics, thus labeled as villainous. Such is the case of the Cinderella’s stepsisters in Perrault’s “Cinderella” and the stepmother in the Brothers Grimm’s “Snow White.” These female characters face judgment and disapproval when they commit the same acts as male characters. With such messages rooted in our beloved fairy tales it is no wonder that society is rampant with these ideals about women and disapprove of women when they try to break free of this mold.
Women were often subjects of intense focus in ancient literary works. In Sarah Pomeroy’s introduction of her text Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, she writes, “Women pervade nearly every genre of classical literature, yet often the bias of the author distorts the information” (x). It is evident in literature that the social roles of women were more restricted than the roles of men. And since the majority of early literature was written by men, misogyny tends to taint much of it. The female characters are usually given negative traits of deception, temptation, selfishness, and seduction. Women were controlled, contained, and exploited. In early literature, women are seen as objects of possession, forces deadly to men, cunning, passive, shameful, and often less honorable than men. Literature reflects the societal beliefs and attitudes of an era and the consistency of these beliefs and attitudes toward women and the roles women play has endured through the centuries in literature. Women begin at a disadvantage according to these societal definitions. In a world run by competing men, women were viewed as property—prizes of contests, booty of battle and the more power men had over these possessions the more prestigious the man. When reading ancient literature one finds that women are often not only prizes, but they were responsible for luring or seducing men into damnation by using their feminine traits.
In this Alice Walker story, the reader meets a girl named Celie. In this novel, Walker takes the reader on a journey through much of Celie’s life. While taking the reader through this tale, Walker draws attention to a number of social aspects during this time period. Through Cilie’s life, Walker brings to light the abuse and mistreatment of African American women from 1910 through the 1940’s. “Women were also regarded as less important than men – both Black and white Black women double disadvantage.