The novel's ambitious and unconventional structure, along with its lasting impact on subsequent generations of writers, has contributed to the recognition of Cane as an important part of modernism.

[1] Some of the vignettes from the novel have been extracted and included in literary collections, while the poetic passage "Harvest Song" has been featured in multiple Norton poetry anthologies.

In order to form a book-length manuscript, Toomer added sketches relating to the black urban experience.

"[6] In a letter to Sherwood Anderson, Toomer wrote that the story-teller style of "Fern" "had too much waste and made too many appeals to the reader.

[8] Toomer had a history of complex beliefs about his own racial identity, and in the spring of 1923 he had written to the Associated Negro Press saying he would be pleased to write for the group's black readership on events that concerned them.

In his autobiography, Toomer wrote: "I realized with deep regret, that the spirituals, meeting ridicule, would be certain to die out.

"[11] Hughes suggests that Cane failed to be popular among the masses because it did not reinforce white views of African Americans.

It did not fit the model of the "Old Negro" and did not depict the lifestyle of African Americans living in Harlem that whites wanted to see.

John Armstrong wrote: "It can perhaps be safely said that the Southern negro, at least, has found an authentic lyric voice in Jean Toomer…there is nothing of the theatrical coon-strutting high-brown, none of the conventional dice-throwing, chicken-stealing nigger of musical comedy and burlesque in the pages of Cane.

Robert Littell wrote in his 1923 review that "Cane does not remotely resemble any of the familiar, superficial views of the South on which we have been brought up.

On the contrary, Mr. Toomer's view is unfamiliar and bafflingly subterranean, the vision of a poet far more than the account of things seen by a novelist.

Jean Toomer belongs to that first rank of writers who use words almost as a plastic medium, shaping new meanings from an original and highly personal style.

"[17] Gerald Strauss points out that despite "critical uncertainty and controversy," he finds that Cane's structure is not without precedent: "it is similar to James Joyce's Dubliners (1914) and Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (1919), two other thematically related story collections that develop unified and coherent visions of societies.

Walker had it marked with a gray marker stating ZORA NEALE HURSTON / A GENIUS OF THE SOUTH / NOVELIST FOLKLORIST / ANTHROPOLOGIST / 1901–1960.

[23] The novel inspired Marion Brown in his "Georgia" trilogy of jazz albums, especially on Geechee Recollections (1973), where he put "Karintha" to music, recited by Bill Hasson.