African-American Storytelling

Ashe 1 March 1995

Language and Frustration in Jean Toomer's "Kabnis"

The title character of Jean Toomer's short story "Kabnis" cannot communicate. He witnesses the

reality-perhaps even the soul-of the South, but he fails to convey his experience and

perceptions to anyone else. The frustration he feels as a result of this inability manifests not

only in his speech, but also in his listening to others while they attempt to tell stories.

Kabnis's problem with communication is so pervasive, he cannot hear his associates any better

than he can talk to them. His troubles seem to involve a distinction between two kinds of oral

expression: the mundane and particular; and the transcendent and universal. Toomer

establishes this difference, at least in Kabnis's head, by constantly frustratin& one kind of oral

expression with the other. In "Kabnis," voices of nature and the spirit continually intrude on

more common incidents of orality, such as one man telling another a story. The result is to leave

Kabnis effectively deaf and dumb, listening only to his own rambling soliloquies, and even then

~ Q. constantly interrupting himself, until his final speech in which he briefly reclaims, bul

If; {j,0'" ,rfuitimatelY rejects, his claim to Ihe title ·Orator." W~miE!..undefiltand Kabnis as a victim 01

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,," t{ t frustrated storytelling events, 1 denied the opportunity to contextualize himself for others, or to

d himsell in someone else's text. II the~ indeed a culpable party lor these frustrations,

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Kabnis assigns the blame to the preacherly and the prayerful, who have hijacked his language

and replaced it with another, incomprehensible, but strangely attractiv~ to him.

~. ~ From the slory's opening, Kabnis is embattled with competing words. The firsl we learn

~t -: ~I of him is that he "tries to read himself to sleep" (113). His efforts are overcome, however,

ot' jI" P when the cracks in his ramshackle home serve as the lips of night sounds which penetrate his

tof.t(~ walis and mind. Toomer interrupts Kabnis's earliest attempts to involve himself in a

t> traditional narrative (i.e., the book) with the sounds of Georgian winds, personified as

I} credit Bertram Ashe with the introduction of the term "frustrated storytelling events." For purposes of this
discussion, } have adopted and adapted the phrase to describe occasions on wlUch an audience (eIther
diagetic or non-diagetic) expects a story but is denied, at least temporarily.
"vagrant poets" (113). These vagrant poets and their ilk haunt Kabnis throughout the story,

and their first poem not only resurfaces verbatim several times, but functions as a summation of

conventional dialogue elsewhere in the tale. Though neither the reader nor Kabnis can know

until reading several pages ahead, the song obliquely preempts many themes revealed later

through character speech and storytelling. The song ("White-man's land./ Niggers sing./Burn,

bear black children/Till poor rivers bring/Rest, and sweet glory / in Camp Ground") anticipates

(line by line) Halsey's belief that the South and its cotton belong to the white man; the

prominent role of a black woman's church singing; the tale of Mame Lamkins' unborn baby; Sam

Raymon(d)'s fate; and the slumber which nearly closes "Kabnis." The supernatural voice of the

night poet displaces first the book Kabnis reads, then the story he is about to live. While

foreshadowing is a common device, that Toomer would choose to use it so soon and with such

comprehensiveness speaks to the tension between the competing discourses.

That tension is somewhat hidden until Kabnis begins to talk to himself. His

monologue, whether spoken or merely thought, points to the inner turmoil Kabnis suffers

because of language and its relation to reality. Although the book he was reading may have

used words to convey some reality, one gets the impression that the words of the vagrant poet

are more deeply connected to the world, perhaps on a transcendent level. Hence, Ralph feels

the fearful attraction which led him away from his book and toward the "weird chill of their

song" (113). Prom the inadequate haven of his bed covers, Kabnis takes on the questions of

reality and language which plague him. Immediately, we see that Kabnis needs to

contextualize himself as a character in a story, a story that he can relate to someone else.

Oddly, both the character and the audience are imagined in the dark. Addressing himself to

"Whoever you are, my warm glowing sweetheart/' Kabnis negates, or at least complicates, his

identity construction when he insists that "Ralph Kabnis is a dream" (114). Apparently

hoping to place himself in the world, he further maintains that a dream or, by extension,

Kabnis himself is "a soft face that fits uncertainly upon [the world]" (114). But merely

conceiving of such a truth is not enough for Kabnis. He needs to express it to someone else, to tell

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a story of personal identity and purpose. He interrupts himself with the lament, "God, if I

could develop that in words" (114).

If he could develop that in words, his notion of selfhood would likely be substantial

enough to counteract the series of frustrations which follow and eventually drive him to the

brink of madness. Failing that, he continues to battle himself over his mission in the South.

The desire to reify his knowledge and experience through language ("a bull-neck and heaving

body") motivates his rebellion against the spiritual and transcendent and his lingering need to

remain in Georgia, even after his dismissal from the school. "If I, the dream [Kabnis's

conception of Kabnis] (not what is weak and afraid in me), could become the face of the South.

How my lips would sing for it, my songs being the lips of its soul" (114). But just as Kabnis

conceives of his purpose, he loses it, frustrating his own ambition and philosophical narrative

with self-doubt and a response to an outside distraction, "Soul hell. There aint no such thing.

What in hell was that?" This frustration or interruption, only the second of many in the story,

denies Kabnis his identity at a crucial moment. He accepts the notion of a soul-indeed a

communat Southern one-in a moment of realization of purpose, but immediately refuses

himself a place in that community.

The dualism that tortures Kabnis reveals itself in his further reflexive monologues as

he debates his metaphoric and metaphysical genealogy and the desirability of ugliness over

evil. Claiming the Earth as his mother (116), he eschews his father, God, as a "profligate red-

nosed man about town" and relegates himself to "bastardy." His split heritage, between the

earth and God, reflects his mixed feelings toward language. The spiritual songs and shouting

he later hears coming from the church and the night poems speak in or to the transcendent

manner of God, whereas the more earthy tales his associates attempt to share with him, and

most of his own soliloquy's, are earth-bound. It is always his mother earth which calls him

back turning to God. As he "is about to shake his fists heavenward" and place himself in a

cosmic context, "sharp stones cut through his thin pajamas ... He writhes" (116). As he

associates profligacy with God the Father, so to does he say of Him, "God, he doesn't exist, but

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 nevertheless He is ugly [sic]." An ugly world and an ugly God would not be so tempting to

describe as beautiful ones, and would not torture him. Again interrupting his philosophic rant,

he urges himself to "pull ... together" as though he could feel himself being torn apart by his

competing languages. He begins to offer an explanation for why he and others yearn to express

themselves orally ("People make noise. They are afraid of silence ... of what dies in silence"),

but does not develop it before interrupting himself yet again with, "What in hell was that?"

Resuming his thoughts, he tries to deconstruct the opposition in his head by reducing both terms

V ~J "" to zero. "Think nothing ... Don't even think nothing. Blank. Not even blank" (119). But even 1.f'1'
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this effort leaves space for the night winds to reprise their earlier song.

Jft:'.J:.<v't.#;~ In Section Two of the story we see Kabnis interacting with other members 01 his

\tI:'commUnity. Here, Toomer begins to exploit the frustrated storylelling event on a somewhat

'.~( ftnore conventional level, on which characters are definitely speaking aloud to one another.
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;P~ Toomer's description 01 one character, however, leaves us wondering whether we want to hear

q.~ {/ them speak. Professor Layman, according to Toomer, "knows more than would be good for

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anyone other than a silent man" (121). A silent man, presumably,

ternal struggle when trying to find the appropriate

Not surprisingly,
would have less of an

means to convey his experiences to others.

this is precisely the affliction which seems to curse Kabnis. As Lewis later

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hI', remarks, "Life has already told [Kabnis] more than he is capable of knowing.

excess of what he can receive"

paralyzed
(141). In other words, Kabnis's experience

him and, as is evident even early in the story, Kabnis cannot communicate
It has given him

has virtually

what he

A. already knows, let alone what he might learn. Still, he begs for knowledge of other people's

.~ ~ experience to add to his own. When Layman suggests that occasionally whites treat good black

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men like bad black men ("they sometimes mixes urn up when it comes t Iynchin"), he follows

(/JIIPn with the note of interest, "I've seen urn do if' (122). In most dialogue/dialect oriented tales,

~"'U ,.t' this would be a perfect segue into a frame story. But Toomer, taking into account Kabnis's

~ ~ I already over-burgeoning frustration, subverts the moment. Before Kabnis can even ask about

~ "') Layman's knowledge, Halsey jumps in with a story-killing, "Ain't been a stringin up I can

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remember" (122). Minutes later, however, Layman summarizes in a sentence a story in which a

man was cut up after he was killed: "And they didnt stop when they found out he was dead-jes

went on ahackin at him anyway." Kabnis, outrage~e gruesome story, is sure that it could not

end there, that his friend must have interceded or rebelled. Interestingly, he thinks of

language as a sufficient act of protest. "What did you do?" he demands incredulously, "What

did you say to them, Professor?" Layman frustrates Kabnis with his indirect response, "Thems

the things you neither does a thing or talks about if y want t stay around" (124). Layman's

response operates on several levels. Layman strongly implies that the reason one would not

talk about it is because whites would retaliate against the teller; that is to say that the white

man hinders both the reaction to the incident immediately after and the telling of the tale

much later. By extension, because Layman could not contest the whites, he had less of a story to

tell Kabnis, whose frustration would only grow. While this seems a long and indirect chain of

influence, it becomes increasingly important when considering Kabnis's argument that he is a

victim of a white conspiracy. He lays the foundations for this conspiracy theory when he tells

no one in particular that "this preacher-ridden race" can only "pray and shout" instead of,

presumably, using language that matters. His race, he says, is "in the preacher's hands ... and

the preacher's hands are in the white man's pockets" (124).

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Layman's next~tepy meets an almost equally abrupt end. Despite his reluctance to tell

the story because of the influence of whites, Layman narrates the brief Brer Rabbit-like tale of

Sam Raymon(d?), who was cornered by a lynch mob. The mob accepted his plea to choose his

own means of death, and Sam jumped into the stream. If Uncle Remus told the story, Raymond

or Rabbit most likely would have sunk down for a moment, and then swum away. But since

Layman is telling the story and Kabnis is hearing it, the ending is ambiguous. Instead of

resolution, "Singing from the church becomes audible./1 The competing voice of spiritualism, a

"plaintive moan [that] swells to shouting" overcomes Kabnis's attention and frustrates a proper

end to the story. Did Sam get away? Who knows. The reader and the listener are left either to

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decide for themselves or follow 1<ahnis's consctousness to th~ shouter. For his own part, Layman

takes no notice of the competing voice.

A church voice also impedes the inception

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of ~ third Layman tale as the Professor

makes a passing reference to "the worst [lynching] I know round these parts" (126). If Kabnis '

hopes to be the face of the Sout~, singing ~sori.g, everyone with whom he asso<:;iates seems

determined to deny him the fullness of the experience. To be sure, each tale is naturalistic and
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gruesome, but few seem to have any satisfying resolution. Layman seems content to move on

after mentioning only the name of the victim, and Kabnis gets so caught up in "the preacher's

voice roll[ing] from the church" and the "high-pitched and hysterical" tone of the shouter, he

nearly forgets to ask. Between listening to the preacher and asking Layman to tell the story, he

battles himself about whether he should request the tale. "Kabnis wants to hear the story of

Mame Lamkins. He does not want to hear it" (126). Reconciling the opinions, he equates the

two forms of language-arguably the sacred and the profane-and asks, "What about Mame

Lamkins?" This is moment of synthesis for the two dialects, as the sacred and the profane come

together in an uneasy, almost nerve-wracking, balance. "The preacher momentarily stops. The

choir ... sings an old spirituaL.Layman's voice is uniformly low." A reader can almost hear the

.cJ'\ choir serving as an aural background for Layman's terrible story of Mame Larnkins, as if both

..1"\ t" agents of the competing discourses came together as representatives not of a language, but ~
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moment of synthesis continues through the end of the story, when immediately
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after Layman finishes, "a shriek pierces the room." Kabnis's "Christ nol" is answered by at,... ~ ~ •.

shouter's "Jesus, Jesus, I've lound Jesus" (127). Yet, T~er breaks up this moment with yel ~'( 'II'"
another form of verbal communication, a stone wrapped with a threat. The stone immediately 1:' 1: ..,-rI
links Kabnis, in his own mind, to the grisly late of Marne Lamkins. What might have been an # ,.,-1 v"'"
integrating, if terrifying moment for Kabnis becomes only a terrifying one. "Fear squeezes him. ~ tt:
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Caves him in" (127). ~' ~

After this, Kabnis is as artificial as he had been on the stories first night, as he 5~ ~
teetered around his room as though on artificiallitpbs. Now, still not "the real Kabnis/, he i~ /i
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"a scarecrow replica of Kabnis, awkwardly animate" (128). He becomes more and more

paranoid, waving at imaginary (or at least not present) enemies with a fire poker, and

repeating to himself mantras like "They're after me" and "Get yourself together" (128-9). In a

moment of desperation, he reveals his continuing duality as he almost turns to the ugly

language of his red-nosed father for support, but decides that, too, is futile. "Holy Father,

Mother of Christ-Hell this ain't no time for prayer" (129). The arrival of other social

elements-in the forms of Halsey and Layman-does a little to calm Kabnis, but the calm is

interrupted by Hanby, whose entrance and subsequent speech is a stark contrast to anything the

reader has yet encountered in the story, particularly regarding to Hanby's language, a very
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staid and prosaic contrast to any other character's. In a sense, this confrontation is a struggle

between yet another form of language, and Kabnis, in his confusion, simply is not prepared. He

briefly spars verbally with Hanby, a man who can speak in paragraphs, but eventually is

overcome. Nervous, frightened, and unable to say what he wants, Kabnis can only "mutter

words soggy in hot saliva" and "jerk his arms upward in futile protest" (133). Even this much

passion is interrupted by a rap on the door, the sound of Lewis entering. Lewis, "what a stronger

Kabnis might have been" is character associated with verbal strength, and has keen insight

into his complement, Kabnis. It was Lewis who stated, in indirect anticipation of Kabnis'

tirade against Father John, that "a stream whats damned has got to cut loose somewheres"

(126). The two share a "swift intuitive interchange/' the first indication of a positive

connection with another person for Kabnis, but this is quickly derailed by '/a savage, cynical

twist-about within" Kabnis, which makes him repulse Lewis. The moment of connection is lost,

and Kabnis remains without an outlet.

In a brief attack on Lewis and a defense of himselt Kabnis asserts that he comes from

"a family of orators/' as distinguished from "preachers." He begins and ends the argument of

his own volition. It is perhaps the first time in which Kabnis consciously articulates the

distinction between the two types of language which pull him in opposite directions. But by no

means does this solve his dilemma. While he has accepted the existence of his sout he has not

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fully come to terms with the notion that within in his soul "is some twisted awful thing that

crept in from ... a godam nightmare" (156), or that white, black, and mulatto people all feed its

ugliness. His insistence that he is an orator, and his explanation, serves as a public

reconstruction-even promulgation-of his identity, one that defeats the complementary

purpose of Lewis, who thrived on the once verbally-weak Kabnis, and who "plunges ... out into

the night" (157). For once, his efforts to speak his mind, or to listen to someone else's have not

been frustrated.

The final test of Kabnis's newfound articulated identity is important only to Kabnis

himself. There is no audience when "words gush from Kabnis" as he pieces together a rambling

monologue against the probably~deaf Father John. Kabnis argues that the old man is dead

because he cannot experience the world or express himself, accept to repeat empty words like

"sin" and "death" which carry the connotations of preachers, and not of men who, like Kabnis,

experience life in the real world. Sin, argues Kabnis, is not what he believes Father John and

other preacher maintain it is, i.e. sin in the traditional sense of violating a code handed down

by God. Whether he realizes it or not, however, it would seem from Father John's final

comments that Kabnis and he share similar ideas on what the true sin is, namely the subversion
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and frustration of language. Kabnis contends that he is "the victim of sin/, and later that he is

sin. When comparing these statements with Father John's staccato claim that "the sin whats

fixed upon the white folks for tellin Jesus-lies. The Sin the white folks mitted when they

made the Bible lie/, (164) one might conclude that both detest the same thin~ as much as they

detest each other. Such a similarity would help to synthesize the two competing voices in

Kabnis' soul and, at last, put an end to the continual frustration he had suffered through.

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