Cane is notoriously difficult to summarize because it is not exactly a novel; rather, it is a collection of short prose pieces, poems, and a longer short-story/drama hybrid. However, there are a few ways to look at the overarching work, especially as it comes in three parts. Part I is set in the South (Georgia, specifically). It contains prose pieces about women and men, as well as several poems. The prose pieces include “Karintha,” “Becky,” “Carma,” “Fern,” “Esther,” and “Blood-Burning Moon.” Almost all of these stories center on a woman, and how she is alluring but mysterious to the men around her. These women are solitary creatures, mournful and private. They keep their souls and their hearts to themselves, no doubt because love proves to be dangerous or disappointing.
The poems include “Reapers,” “November Cotton Flower,” “Face,” “Cotton Song,” “Song of the Son,” “Georgia Dusk,” “Nullo,” “Evening Song,” “Conversion,” and “Portrait in Georgia.” The poems deal with the work of field laborers, blooming cotton, the intoxicating brutality and beauty of the South, weary black faces, and the displacement of African religion by Christianity. Loss and violence lurk below the surface; there are allusions to the horrors and legacies of slavery and its marks on the land. A few of the poems have an energetic rhythm akin to slave spirituals, while others are broken and halting.
Part II moves to the North. It contains the prose pieces “Seventh Street,” “Rhobert,” “Avey,” “Theater,” “Calling Jesus,” “Box Seat,” and “Bona and Paul.” These works are set in the streets, clubs, and theaters of the Northern city. Jazz, smoke, and tension fill the air as men vie to control women and women long for love and comfort. Communication and harmony prove difficult, though, and many of the pieces express alienation and disillusionment.
Part II also includes the poems “Beehive,” “Storm Ending,” “Her Lips are Copper Wire,” “Prayer,” and “Harvest Song.” The poems express physical and spiritual hunger, desire, and longing for release and escape.
The third and final part is one prose work entitled “Kabnis.” It is structured like a drama, but there is a great deal of exposition provided, which makes it seem like a more traditional short story. Ralph Kabnis is a Northern black man who moves to Georgia to teach underprivileged black people. He is frustrated by the strict rules he must follow (no drinking or smoking), and is also immensely frightened by the stories of lynchings and racial violence. His fear goes hand-in-hand with his arrogance and volatility, and he is eventually fired from his teaching post. After this, he lives with a friend, Fred Halsey, and works with him in his wheel shop. Kabnis is utterly inept at this kind of work and grows increasingly frustrated. One night Halsey invites three people over to drink: two young women, and a friend, Lewis, who is another Northerner planning to return home on account of the townspeople’s hostility towards him. At this gathering, Kabnis becomes very intoxicated and pompously rambles on about how he is an orator and has shaped words his whole life. He rejects the South and his connection to it, and feverishly tries to separate himself from all that vexes or confuses him. He breaks down after Halsey’s elderly father, who rarely speaks and has a prophetic mien, mumbles the word “sin” over and over again.
