Jean Toomer's Fern

As we were reading Jean Toomer's Cane, i was very intreged by the short story Fern. So as i read this story I was wondering the total aspect of his focus on the the phyical nature of his charactor Fern. Then taking a biographical look at this peice it was evident that during Jean's time in Sparta, Georgia, was when he began to identify himself more as an African-American. So looking at this aspect of his identification is why we see Mr. Toomer focusing on the blackness of the people around him.
Yet, also i had remembered that there was an obession with the eyes of the people in this short story and i was wondering if there was anything in his past that could have influenced this trend. So, looking at his Bio i relized that before he was in Georgia he wanted to be refered to as an American. So i constructed that by looking at the eyes of the people he was avioding the aspect of race, which he was doing until his stay in Sparta.

His biographical information was found online at http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Jean-Toomer

The Island Come & See

In this song by The Decembrists, i paid particular attention to the very last stanza. These last four line made me remember some of my classics classes which i had taken freashman year. The main focus was on the last two lines. The fact of the dimes being placed upon the eyes of the dead was a traditioin pasted down through history. The idea behind the money on the eyes of the dead is to pay the fare into the land of the dead. The money would go to the boat man to carry them across the river Greeks took with them on there last journey coins with which to reward Charon for the safe conduct of his soul, over the dark waters of the Styx. Yet, this is not totally true because the greeks and romans placed the money in the mouths of the dead . It was later in history when the coins began being placed on the eyes. There are many different reasons for this, one is to hold down the eyelids so we would not be able to see death in there eyes or the fact could be they might not have had eyes to look into. The first two lines of this stanza are leading to believe that the captain is still alive and the rest are dead, because someone has to place the coins on their eyes and his cries would not be heard if he was dead. Therefore his cries are for the losses of his crew.