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22. Theater
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
The speaker imagines his lover’s lips as electric wires and their kiss as the glow of streetlamps that illuminate the foggy night. He knows the power company installs insulated lines, but as his lover speaks and kisses him, it feels like someone has stripped the wires bare and pressed them to his flesh. The kiss is electric, and he is the illuminated lightbulb.
This short poem yet again emphasizes one of Cane’s favorite themes: feminine beauty. Interestingly, however, it develops a metaphor of beauty as electricity, pointing to the era of scientific and technological advancement in which the book was composed.
Themes
