# Barlo — Cane character guide

> Barlo in Cane by Jean Toomer.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** King Barlo

**First appearance:** 0015-part-i-esther

## Snapshot

A preacher whose voice rolls from the church in an insistent chant, rising to crescendo while a sister shouts and a congregation sings old spirituals.

## Who they are

King Barlo is the voice that fills the church in the rural South, his chanting monotone rising at regular intervals while the sister's high hysterical shout attunes itself to the nervous key of Kabnis. Around him, Layman tells the story of Mame Lamkins's lynching in a voice as low and soothing as a canebrake murmuring to its neighbor-road, and the music seems to quiet the shouter. He matters because his preaching and the stories told in his orbit carry the folk memory of violence that Kabnis cannot escape, even in a northern cellar.

## Relationships

### [Esther](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cane_se/characters/esther)

_psychological_

Barlo is an object of Esther's obsessive fascination, representing a raw, primal blackness she both desires and fears.

### [Esther](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cane_se/characters/esther)

_psychological_

Barlo is an object of Esther's obsessive fascination, representing a raw, primal blackness she both desires and fears.

## In the story

### [Becky](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cane_se/chapters/part-i-becky)

Present at the scene of Becky's death; throws his Bible onto the rubble.

### [Esther](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cane_se/chapters/part-i-esther)

Preacher and object of Esther's desire and spiritual longing.

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cane_se/chapters/part-i-i)

A clean-muscled, magnificent, black-skinned Negro known as King Barlo; he falls into a religious trance, delivers a prophetic vision, and later rides out of town on a pitch-black bull.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cane_se/chapters/part-i-ii)

Barlo is the object of Esther's desire; she romanticizes him as a powerful, magnetic figure, though he remains absent for five years.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cane_se/chapters/part-i-iii)

King Barlo has returned to town, rich from cotton during the war; he drives a large new car and becomes the object of Esther's fixation, though he appears drunken and hideous to her at Nat Bowle's place.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cane_se/characters/barlo
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cane_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/cane_se/characters