Cane · Chapter
II explained
In Fred Halsey's parlor, Kabnis, Halsey, and Professor Layman discuss the realities of the South, including lynching and racial violence.
What happens
In Fred Halsey's parlor, Kabnis, Halsey, and Professor Layman discuss the realities of the South, including lynching and racial violence. Layman recounts the brutal story of Mame Lamkins, while church singing and shouting from a nearby church unsettle Kabnis. The conversation reveals tensions between Northern and Southern perspectives on race and religion.
Themes in this chapter
Violence and Brutality
Layman's story of Mame Lamkins's lynching and the murder of her unborn child exemplifies the extreme racial violence in the South.
Alienation and Search for Belonging
Kabnis feels out of place in the South, caught between Northern ideals and Southern realities, and struggles with the religious practices of the community.
Folk Culture and Spirituality
The church service, spiritual singing, and shouting represent the folk religious culture that both unsettles Kabnis and defines the community.
Characters to notice
- Ralph Kabnis
Struggles with the harsh realities of the South, expresses contempt for religious shouting, and is disturbed by Layman's story.
- Fred Halsey
Hosts the gathering in his parlor, teases Kabnis about his Northern attitudes, and shows disdain for Hanby.
- Professor Layman
A traveling preacher and teacher who shares grim tales of racial violence, including the lynching of Mame Lamkins.
- Lewis
Mentioned as a queer, observant outsider who asks too many questions and is predicted to have to leave soon.
- Hanby
Referenced as Kabnis's boss and an object of Halsey's hatred.
Key passages
“Th white folks get th boll; th niggers get th stalk. An dont you dare touch th boll, or even look at it. They’ll swing y sho.”
White people take the valuable cotton, while Black people get the worthless stalks; if a Black person even looks at the cotton, they will be lynched.
Halsey uses a cotton metaphor to explain the racial power dynamic in the South.
“She was in th family-way, Mame Lamkins was. They killed her in th street, an some white man seein th risin in her stomach as she lay there soppy in her blood like any cow, took an ripped her belly open, an th kid fell out. It was living; but a nigger baby aint supposed t live. So he jabbed his knife in it an stuck it t a tree.”
Mame Lamkins was pregnant when she was killed in the street. A white man saw her pregnant belly, cut it open, and the baby fell out alive. He then stabbed the baby and impaled it on a tree, because Black babies are not meant to live.
Layman recounts the horrific lynching of Mame Lamkins, illustrating the extreme brutality of racial violence.