Analyzing Discourse in Sugar Cane: Stanza 1/6

1) The mother bending over a baby named Shug
2)  chuckles, “Gimme some sugar,” just to preface
3)  a flurry of kisses sweet as sugar cane.
4) Later, when she stirs a spoonful of Domino
5) into her coffee, who’s to tell the story
6) how a ten-foot-tall reed from the Old World,
7) on being brought to the New, was raised and cropped
8) so cooks could sweeten whatever tasted bitter?
9) Or how grade-A granulated began as a thick
10) black syrup boiled for hours in an iron vat
11) until it was refined to pure, white crystal.


Alfred Corn's "Sugar Cane" continues to reference Phillis Wheatley's poem. Phillis Wheatley does not mention "sugar" in her poem, and the only "cane" is "Cain" the biblical brother of Abel, however, the idea of refinement and binary of black and white is also a theme which relates to the manufacturing and processing of cane sugar into refined sugar.  This theme is immediately alluded to in the first stanza.  Sugar and its uses are mentioned six times in the first stanza.

The first stanza is told in the present tense. The scene starts domestic, familial, and  feminine. The characters are a mother and her baby daughter at home. The baby girl's name "Shug" appears in the first line, and is an African American Vernacular English (AAVE) use of "sugar", used as a term of endearment often used as a nickname. Like an allegory, the baby girl becomes sugar, by being named "Shug." In the second line the mother, speaking to her baby daughter asks her to give her kisses "Gimme some sugar" which is also playful AAVE. "Sugar" is slang for a kiss or kisses in AAVE.

The third mention of sugar is in the following line, the kisses are described metaphorically as being "sweet as sugar cane."

The forth mention of sugar is in the fourth line, where the use of sugar as a sweetener poured into coffee is described, and sugar appears as a proper noun as the American sugar brand name "Domino." This is the first reference to the commercial. "Domino" is interesting as a term because it is a game commonly plaid in the West, however it has it's origins in the "Old World" in Asia (specifically China) . It's origins are recorded as early as the Yuan Dynasty. Domino's are traditionally white rectangular tablets with black spots and have been known to be made of precious materials such as ivory and ebony, which are also imported to the West from Africa.  (The Domino Sugar Company had it's refinery in Brooklyn, New York along the East River)

The fifth mention of sugar, is in it's raw form as a "10-foot-tall reed" . (The following three line's describe the migration, process, and use).

The migration of the Sugar Cane plant is intertextual. The importation of sugarcane follows to importation of Africans to America, and therefore references Wheatley's "On Being Brought from Africa to America" (OBBFATA) The slave trade from Africa to America is inextricably connected with the sugar trade.  I think the diction here is important too. In line 7 Corn writes that sugarcane was "raised and cropped" not that it was "produced" or "cultivated". Corn uses words which can be interpreted to have negative connotations. The word "raised" can mean to cultivate, but it also sounds like "razed" which means to destroy completely and "cropped" which can refer to agriculture and the harvesting of a crop is most commonly used as a synonym for "cut" especially "to cut short."
Line 8, although not mentioning sugar explicitly refers to an integral quality of sugar as a product, as something used by cooks for consumption. Line 8 addresses taste by introducing the dichotomy of sweetness and bitterness. In the context of the 8th line the transformation from bitter to sweet is culinary, however the words "bitter" and "sweet" do not necessarily have to be related to food. Somehow, by bringing a "cook" into the stanza, there is always a question of agency... a third party is transforming something unpleasant to be perceived as pleasant.






Lines 9, 10 and 11specifically references sugar again. It is referred to by a processed rating of quality.  "Grade-A granulated" refers to the final processed product of sugar which is consumed in the west as typical table sugar. Here again, there is a dichotomy and contrast. In line 10 the origin of sugar is a " thick/ black syrup" which contrasts in both form and color to the "pure, white crystal." In line 11.  These lines, again, reference Wheatley's "OBBFATA." The word "refined" appears in the last line of OBBFATA. By line 11, the originally black liquid product of sugar has been through time and heat lost it's color,  become "refined" and transformed into "crystal."

This first stanza asks a question of a) agency WHO is going to tell the story b) or origins WHERE did sugar come from? c) transformation HOW did sugar change?


This stanza is set in the present tense. This stanza can be interpreted as a response to Wheatley's command to "remember", by asking "who's to tell the story...". This introduces the following narrative stanzas which are told (predominantly) in the past tense as recollections, brief stories from the speaker's memory.

This stanza takes part in discourses of time and space. Of age and race.  Of construction and destruction and agency.

Analyzing Discourse in Sugar Cane: Epigraph

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their color is a diabolic dye."
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refined, and join the angelic train.

Phillis Wheatley, "On Being Brought from Africa to America"

This epigraph, though short, is dense with allusions to the cultural discourses which it engages in. Phillis Wheatley is an educated slave who was freed. This poem was published in 1773 when slavery was still an institution in the united states, but also at a time when the abolitionist movement began to gain momentum.

Though the words slave and slavery are not used in the poem, the title of the poem, "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is a blatant allusion to the slave trade and slavery.  This poem directly engages in the cultural discourse of slavery.  This creates an immediate polarity of oppositions. On one side there are "Negroes" and on the other side non-negro Americans, implied as the "Some" in line one of the epigraph who "view our race with scornful eye."  Another related discourse immediately implied is race and race relations.
The speaker in Wheatley's "On Being Brought from Africa to America" is herself dark skinned, the possessive pronoun "our" in the first line of the epigraph makes that clear, as the speaker identifies in "our sable race."   The poem engages in this discussion of race with the use of color. "Sable race" "Their color" "diabolic dye" and "black as Cain" describe darkness related to skin color.

Another discourse present in this poem is one of religion and morality. The way non-negro Americans view dark-skinned negros is with a "scornful eye."  The non-negro American judges the negro based on the color of his or her skin as Wheatley ascribes in the quotation in the second line of the epigraph. The dark skin color is given demonic or devilish characteristics via the term "diabolic" and characteristics which conjure up the idea of intentional stains and impurity via the term "dye." The binary to this would indicate purity and holiness. These elements are present in the use of the terms "angelic" and "refined" in the last couplet. There is also a biblical allusion to the story of Cain and Abel.  According to certain versions of the bible, Cain was the first official murderer in the Bible. After killing his brother Abel, Cain was confronted by God who asked him of Abel's whereabouts... to whcih cain replies "How should I know? I am not my brother's keeper" Whereby God calls Cain out on his lie, cursing him and banishing him to wander. His curse was a mark that made clear he were not to be killed (#markofcain ). This story is is often referenced to exemplify the wicked and the righteous. 

Furthermore, the speaker in  "On Being Brought from Africa to America" addresses Christians in the third line, commanding them in the imperative to "remember."

This epigraph does two things. First, it creates binary oppositions. There are three binary oppositions in the epigraph. The second thing the epigraph does is overcomes those oppositions.  In the first two lines, an "us" and "them" relationship is fairly clear. There are negroes  and non-negroes. By the third line, it is unclear who the "us" and "them" is.  Another binary opposition is dark and light as described through color "sable" "black" "dye" "refined." And the third binary opposition is that of good and evil in the biblical context as alluded to through the words "diabolic" "Cain" and "angelic."

The speaker of the poem addresses Christians, "Remember Christians." And Christians refers to religion and belief, which is not dependent on skin color. (Even if you want to assume that Africans brought from an non-Christian Africa to serve as Negro slaves in America do not traditionally practice Christianity, it cannot be denied that African slaves were forced to attend church services and observe Christian practices as slaves. Many also adopting the religion and belief system).

Another way the "us and them" binary opposition is overcome is through a mixed speaker. The speaker of the poem identifies as having dark skin, and uses the possessive pronoun "our" when identifying as belonging to a "sable race" however, Wheatley then chooses to give the non-negroe voice within the poem as well, using a quotation "Their color is a diabolic dye" --- however, this distinction is only present in the printed version of this poem.  When recited orally, the lines become more ambiguous.

Another interesting thought about this epigraph is to take into consideration it's form and the medium it is being transmitted on. When it is printed it is easier to perceive the us in them through punctuation, grammar,  and layout, -- it is of all things, black ink, printed on whiite paper. However, if the poem is transmitted orally, it becomes less clear who the "us and them" is -- Wheatley could have kept the poems speaker without including the quotation marks around the second line....  she could have written something like: they see their color as a diabolic dye... however in this poem, there are two voices. And the medium which it is transmitted makes the difference. The voice can neither be  black nor white, at least not in color.



There is an opposition created in this poem immediately.


 Below is this poem in it's entirety:

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land

Taught my benighted soul to understand

That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:

Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

Some view our sable race with scornful eye;

"Their colour is a diabolic die."

Remember, Christians, Negros black as Cain,

May be refin'd, and join th'angelic train^.

^{- from "Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral"}

Alfred Corn's "Sugar Cane" : The Text