SOURCE: “The Reluctant Witness: What Jean Toomer Remembered from Winesburg, Ohio,” in Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 28, No. 1, Spring, 2000, pp. 77-100.

In the following essay, Scruggs evaluates the influence of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, on Toomer's Cane.

“Winesburg, Ohio and The Triumph of the Egg are elements of my growing. It is hard to think of my maturing without them.”

—Jean Toomer to Sherwood Anderson, 

December 18, 1922

The Sherwood Anderson whom Toomer said he admired was the Anderson who affirmed the value of existence despite the painful loneliness, isolation, and existential angst experienced by his characters. As he told Anderson,

Your acute sense of the separateness of life could easily have led to a lean pessimism in a less abundant soul. Your Yea! to life is one of the clear fine tones in our medley of harsh discordant sounds. Life is measured by your own glowing, and you find...