Last class, we took fifteen minutes to walk around the campus and thought about “you act upon the space” and “the space acts upon you.” This outdoor activity is strongly related to “Science and Space” in Interdisciplinarity, and there are also “a space” in Cane, which can be connected to the activity.
During the in-class discussion, we dug out of the meanings of “Harvest Song.” Different from “Cotton Song” in Part 1, we figured out this poem is situated in northern America, and it is an isolated, dimmed, dry, realistic, and pessimistic poet. This urban setting explicitly reflects his exhaustion and depression. Additionally, in Part 2, the concepts of racial discrimination look more obviously depicted than Part 1.
On the previous page, a poet “Prayer” even accentuates the difficulties of assimilating to urban cities. This poet’s character seems to newly move to an urban city and tries to adjust to its different cultures. What I focused upon was a repeated phrase, “a little finger,” which might be the pinkies of his hands or of his feet. As the character expresses, “O Spirits of whom my soul is but a little finger,” he self-portrays himself as a little finger. This portrait is interesting because pinkies themselves do not function very much nor seem very important body parts; nevertheless, they do work when the other fingers work together. Therefore, this poet mentions, “(How frail is the little finger,)” which illustrates “the team work” as we discovered in “Cotton Song.”
Albeit the representation of the little finger’s frailty, pinkies scientifically play an important role to let us walk and balance stably. If pinkies on feet are chopped off, we cannot walk straight nor can we balance our bodies. The line, “(How strong a thing is the little finger,)” exemplifies how “the little finger,” or the character, is forced to work as a weak person, but he actually takes a significant role in the society. Nevertheless, from such pessimistic atmosphere, the society, or the space, conceals the significance of his existence and labels him with socially weakness. Hence, the character suffers from its invisible restrains.
Through the outdoor exercise, Interdisciplinarity (space and science) makes me imagine and find more interpretations on the poets in Cane.