Previous
12. Evening Song
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Cane, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Navigating Identity
Racism in the Jim Crow Era
Feminine Allure
Nature vs. Society
The Power and Limitations of Language
Summary
Analysis
Esther is nine. Her parents own a grocery store. She looks almost White and she’s almost—but not quite—pretty. One day, she watches a Black man called Barlo fall into a religious trance in the street. At first, White men spit tobacco juice at him, but soon people gather to wait for his vision. Rousing from his trance, he describes the image of a powerful Black man whose head was caught in the clouds in prayer. Some “white-ant biddies” chained his feet, dragged him across the ocean, and imprisoned him. He became the ancestor of “you an me.” At this point, local legends say, a parade of angels and demons flooded the street and there were many signs and wonders. That might not be true, but regardless, Barlo left an indelible impression on Esther.
Esther isn’t just a fair-skinned mixed-race girl, she’s also what the book calls “dictie,” a pejorative term for well-off Black people, because her parents own a grocery store. In contrast, King Barlo is a cotton-picker—a manual laborer—so some of Esther’s fascination derives from their class difference. Barlo’s vision pointedly refers to the history of enslavement and abuse suffered by Black Americans. The fact that he draws a line between the man in his vision and contemporary Black Americans—both those who, like Barlo himself, are clearly marked as Black, and those who are more racially ambiguous, like Esther—suggests how little has actually changed in the years since the Civil War.
Themes
At 16, Esther begins to have daydreams. She imagines the shop across the street catches fire. In one version, the fire department puts out the flames and rescues a baby from the burning building, which Esther raises. In another, men loafing on the streets try to put out the flames by spitting tobacco juice on them. Black and White women flee the scene while showing off their “ludicrous underclothes.” This time the rescued baby is Black and hideous, but Esther loves it regardless.
Notably, this story reverses the dynamic of sexual fascination that’s been on display thus far in the book, with Barlo becoming a figure of obsessive interest for Esther. The story doesn’t cite the race of the first daydream’s baby but by implied contrast to the second, readers can assume the baby is White (or, at least, fair skinned like Esther). Loving the baby—like her attraction to the very dark-skinned Barlo—seems to suggest Esther’s desire to feel connected with her Black ancestry. But the fact that this happens only in daydreams suggests an inability to do so in her day-to-day life.
Themes
Esther is 22. She works in her parents’ grocery store. She is very fair skinned, but still not White. Black men find her cold and White men won’t date a Black woman. She convinces herself that she’s in love with Barlo, and she pines away during the five long years before he comes back to town.
With her identity uncomfortably unfixed—she could almost be but ultimately isn’t mistaken for White, yet her Black peers spurn her too—Esther falls in love with the image of Black beauty and power that Barlo and his vision gave her. Yet, because her love is based in fantasy, it is destructive.
Themes
Esther is 27 and Barlo, now quite wealthy thanks to financial windfalls during World War I, returns like a conquering hero. Esther watches Barlo at the center of an adoring crowd and resolves that she cannot—will not—let anyone else have him. That night, she sneaks out of her house and goes to the speakeasy where Barlo and his crowd are partying. She makes her way into the center of the room and declares her love in front of everyone. Barlo leers at her drunkenly, and in a panic, Esther turns and runs, the sounds of people’s mockery chasing her out the door into the empty darkness.
At 27, Esther seems poised to take control of her own life. Yet, she falters in the last moment. Existing uncomfortably caught between the White world of privilege and wealth and the Black world of Barlo, Esther doesn’t belong anywhere. The story suggests that there are many people like Esther caught unproductively between the artificially reified categories of Black and White, and it insinuates that until America finds a better way to move beyond shallow racism and find a truly integrated sense of itself, society will remain stilted and barren.
Themes
Get the entire Cane LitChart as a printable PDF.
