SOURCE: “Jean Toomer's ‘Box Seat’: The Possibility for ‘Constructive Crisises,’” in Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 13, No. 1, Spring, 1979, pp. 7-12.

In the following essay, Schultz contends that not only is “Box Seat” integral to the thematic, imagistic, and philosophical unity of Cane, but the story has integrity and significance on its own.

Jean Toomer's Cane has once again come into its own. Recognized by a handful of critics shortly after its publication in 1923 as a masterpiece, it fell into neglect until the late Sixties when a flurry of articles began to appear on Toomer in general and Cane in particular. Many of these discussions, noting the disparate structure of the work, focus on its thematic, imagistic, or philosophical unity.¹ Several of them also identify “Box Seat,” the short story at the center of the work, as a pivotal piece in terms of Cane's unity. Although the story's...