Cane

Cane could be read as an intimate ode to the American South that celebrates its natural and cultural beauty. Occasionally, the narrative perspective is tied to a Northern character perceiving the South as an outsider. What would you say is the relationship that Cane sets up between the North and the South? Is it antagonistic or complimentary? Why?

What are the narrative and aesthetic effects of the songs that appear throughout the novel? How would Cane be fundamentally different without these songs?

The women in Cane are receptacles of men’s affection and desire, sexually free but with little interior life. In short, the woman characters are conduits for the development of the men. What are other literary methods of character development that authors typically use, and how might they be applied in an imaginative rewriting of Cane?