- \n
- Jean Toomer <\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"224652_3501988\"](\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/files\/2016\/05\/224652_3501988-300x252.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPerhaps one of the most striking features of Puryear\u2019 image is its resemblance to male genitalia. The image, meant to be an abstract representation of the character Karintha herself, hints at the way in which Karintha is consistently sexualized, sculpted by the desire of the men that surround her.<\/p>\n
Old men rode her hobby horse upon their knees. Young men danced with her at frolics when they should have been dancing with their grown up girls. God grant us youth, secretly prayed the old men. <\/em><\/p>\n
Both phallus and blossoming flower, Puryear\u2019s print is representative of the crafting of the female body that is explicit throughout Toomer\u2019s Cane<\/em>. Karintha, perhaps more than any other woman Toomer crafts, is sculpted by the male gaze: it imprints itself on her body.<\/p>\n
The young fellows counted the time to pass before she would be old enough to mate with them. This interest of the male, who wishes to ripen a growing thing too soon, could mean no good to her. <\/em><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
Puryear\u2019s print, illustrating the act of insemination, the seed inside the bud, is not only the culmination of the sexual desires men project onto Karintha, but also an act of personal incrimination. \u00a0Puryear, in carving this image, has made himself complicit in the act of crafting women\u2019s bodies.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Karintha, at twelve, was a wild flash that told the other folks just what it was to live.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Would there be a way to reverse the gaze? Is there a way to return control to Toomer\u2019s women?<\/p>\n
![\"224656_3502028\"](\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/files\/2016\/05\/224656_3502028-300x251.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPuryear\u2019s image of Esther appropriately is one that bears the most human figure of his series. Out of all the women Toomer describes, Esther is perhaps the most flawed. She possesses all the good looks of other women, but lacks the vibrancy that converts Toomer\u2019s other women into mythic beauties.<\/p>\n
Puryear echoes this in his depiction; Esther appears to be the character that is treated most like a human; she is granted the most dimensions. However, as the profile face appropriately demonstrates, Esther, like all the women in Toomer\u2019s text, she is still subject to being molded by onlookers. Her silhouette in this image, much like in the text, is flattened depleted. The spectator, however, is granted the privilege of maintaining their layers, their dimensionality. As Esther looks to us, we gain a sense of the one-sided ness of Toomer\u2019s and Puryear\u2019s crafting of Esther, while they possess the power to gaze at her, she cannot gaze back at them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, there may still be a way to redeem Puryear\u2019s depictions of Toomer\u2019s women. In not crafting an exact image of the female form, Puryear grants his subjects a flexibility that allows them to avoid categorization. Karintha is able to oscillate in the liminal space between gender identities while Esther is given the ability to escape the confines of the human body.<\/p>\n
She stares at the viewer in an act of defiance rather than submission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ALEX MENDEZ Men had always wanted her, this Karintha, even as a child, Karintha carrying…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/31"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}