Youth vs. Age

1. Jazz Toni Morrison Characters
2. Jazz Toni Morrison Ending
3. Jazz Toni Morrison Quotes
4. Jazz Toni Morrison Sparknotes

One of the novel's central relationships is the sustained romantic affair between Joe Trace, a fifty year old man, and Dorcas, who is in her late teens. Throughout the novel, the murdered girl becomes a symbol of youth. Her aunt, Alice Manfred, identifies Dorcas' youth with a budding sexuality that has brought calamity. The motif of the garden of Eden presents the image of Dorcas as a young Eve who is enticed and enticing. Violet Trace's reaction to Dorcas is similar. Her jealousy stems from her husbands affair and she can't help but notice the contrast between her aging, sagging body and Dorcas' youthful, fuller figure. Violet tries to drink malts and eat multiple meals to regain the pounds of her youth and her 'competition' with the dead girl is ironic because Violet does not want to compete with the young, dead child; rather, she wishes that Dorcas could be the young daughter that she never had. Dorcas' friend Felice comes to serve this role for Violet and she also provides consolation for Joe, demonstrating a healthier way in which 'youth' can sustain 'age' without bloodshed.

Subthemes: Sexuality, the 'Fall' in Eden, Seduction

Music

Sep 29, 2012 Jazz is a 1992 historical novel by Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning American author Toni Morrison. The majority of the narrative takes place in Harlem during the 1920's; however, as the pasts of the various characters are explored, the narrative extends back to the mid-19th-century American South. Giselle Anatol of the Toni Morrison Society said, playing and listening to jazz has a pure and purifying effect.

The novel borrows its title from Jazz music and the idea of music is discussed throughout the novel. Alice Manfred and the Miller sisters interpret jazz music as the anthem of hell. The passion and pleasure that Dorcas and Violet find in the music is contrasted with the musical treatment of Joe's crime. When he stalks and shoots Dorcas, it is at a party where loud music is being played to incite passion, 'boil' the blood and 'encourage' misbehavior. For the entire novel, music is the weapon that the City wields to control its citizens. The seasons and weather are determined by the presence of clarinet players in the street. Music also bears a sadness that can be juxtaposed to Violet's ribaldry and Joe's flared passion. Wild's disappearance takes place as her body is replaced with a trace of music and this sound haunts Joe's memory for the rest of his life. Similarly, the 'blues man' who walks the streets becomes the 'black-and-blues man' and finally, the 'black-therefore-I'm-blues man,' providing a critique of racism. The 'blues' songs that the characters evoke are largely the consequence of suffering brought about by America's racist traditions.

Subthemes:: Piety, Social Pretension

Jazz - Ebook written by Toni Morrison. Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or take notes while you read Jazz. Jazz is a novel by Toni Morrison that was first published in 1992. This can be exemplified through three of Morrison’s works: Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, and Jazz, wherein characters’ names, the respective titles, and key objects play highly symbolic roles. By providing deeper examination of these novels, it will be clear the immense importance of symbols in Morrison’s literature.

Memory

Memory is mostly developed through the presence of several orphans in the novel and while Dorcas is the only young orphan in the story, most of the development of this theme actually comes through Joe Trace. Golden Gray and Violet have each lost a parent, while Joe and Dorcas have lost both parents in fires and riots. In Joe's case, he never knew his parents and his 'orphanhood' is defined by his 'trace' of a memory. Joe is an orphan who never knew his true parents and continues to struggle with his memory after he leaves Virginia and comes to Harlem; similarly, Dorcas' memory as a child in East St. Louis IL, is built around a solitary photograph and is fading fast in Harlem.. In the same way that Joe and Golden Gray and Dorcas have lost their parents, Morrison makes the argument that the African-American community as a whole experienced a sort of 'orphanhood' during this turbulent period. After slavery separated families, the 'Great Migration' displaced millions of bodies‹further separating them from their collective and cultural memories. Memory is definitely the most important team in the novel. All of the major characters, Violet, Joe, Dorcas -- even Alice Manfred, all of them suffer the consequences of living a life that is dissociated from the memories of the past.

Subthemes: Pain, History, Orphanhood

Jazz is a 1992historical novel by Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning American author Toni Morrison. The majority of the narrative takes place in Harlem during the 1920s; however, as the pasts of the various characters are explored, the narrative extends back to the mid-19th-century American South.

The novel forms the second part of Morrison's Dantesque trilogy on African-American history, beginning with Beloved (1987) and ending with Paradise (1997).

Jazz Toni Morrison Characters

Narrative style and themes[edit]

The novel deliberately mirrors the music of its title, with various characters 'improvising' solo compositions that fit together to create a whole work. The tone of the novel also shifts with these compositions, from bluesy laments to up beat, sensual ragtime. The novel also utilizes the call-and-response style of jazz music, allowing the characters to explore the same events from different perspectives.

This book also features 'untrustworthy narrators' whose emotions and perspective colour the story. Narration switches every so often to the viewpoint of various characters, inanimate objects, and even concepts. The book's final narrator is widely believed to be Morrison or perhaps the book itself.^[1]

Legacy[edit]

Jazz was Morrison’s most recently published work when she was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature. In the novel, 'Morrison uses a device which is akin to the way jazz itself is played… the result is a richly complex, sensuously conveyed image of the events, the characters and moods.'^[2]

Characters[edit]

• Joe Trace, a door-to-door cosmetics salesman and the murderer of his young lover.
• Violet Trace, an unlicensed beautician. Violet is married to Joe. She is nicknamed 'Violent' because she assaulted the corpse of Joe’s lover with a knife at the funeral.
• Dorcas, Joe's young lover, who is shot down at a party. Dorcas is inspired by a picture from The Harlem Book of the Dead (a collection of funeral photographs by James Van Der Zee).
• Alice Manfred, Dorcas' aunt and guardian. A conservative Christian ashamed by her niece's behavior. Alice enters into an unusual friendship with Violet.
• Felice, a friend of Dorcas' who goes to the Trace household in search of answers.
• Golden Gray, a mixed race man from the 19th century. Golden appears in both Joe's and Violet's histories.

References[edit]

Jazz Toni Morrison Ending

1. ^http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb1455/is_2_11/ai_n29001508/^{[permanent dead link]}
2. ^'Toni Morrison', The Nobel Prize, Press release, October 7, 1993.

Jazz Toni Morrison Quotes

Jazz Toni Morrison Sparknotes