The Setting of Jazz - Essay Example

? Toni Morrison "Jazz" Thesis ment Memory is the most significant theme in Jazz through which Morrison makes the argument that the African-American community as a whole has experienced a kind of orphanhood and memory is mostly developed through the presence of several orphans in the novel. Introduction Toni Morrison is one of the most illustrious African-American authors. She "has become a unique literary figure of 20th Century, and the pieces of her writing have become indispensable interpretation in the genre of modern American fiction" (Random House 1). Morrison is also called a historian because she writes about the African-American life long experience happened with them in American history temporally and spatially. She also depicts African-American female characters as heroes in most of her novels. Even, it is commented that she has proved herself a hero for all Americans because of her marvelous writings. Morrison experienced many tragedies in 1993. Her mother died and her home in Grand View-on-Hudson, New York, was destroyed by a fire. She also experienced a great honor when she received the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature in that same year. She was the eighth woman and the first black woman to receive this ("Morrison, Toni" 2) "Morrison's enduring popularity, somewhat rare for a novelist of such high literary stature, became evident in 1996, when Song of Solomon resurfaced on bestseller lists after a push from one of Morrison's more powerful fans, the talk-show host and one-woman media empire Oprah Winfrey, who also starred in the 1998 film version of Beloved" ("Morrison, Toni" 2). After graduating from college, Morrison went on to teach English. She eventually married and started a family. She continued teaching while taking care of her family. All of her novels are woven with many themes. She communicates the sense of loss that African-Americans experienced after the end of slavery. Often Morrison's characters struggle and fail to find their true selves. They seem disconnected from their community and past. Ancestry is also evidently important to Morrison and she believes that it is characteristic of black writing. Morrison is constantly placing her characters in extreme situations that we think human beings cannot bear. These extreme conditions show their true nature. She weaves several other messages throughout her novels. She believes that to be free, one must take risks. Morrison does not advocate irresponsibility. She believes in being responsible for one's choices. She also believes that innocence has to be lost in order for the person to grow. The Setting of Jazz The setting of Jazz is in Harlem during the 1920s. This was a place of promise of a better life for Black Americans, which turns to disappointment for most when they get there. The city was full of excitement, chaos and energy. There were Jazz Clubs everywhere and music all the time ("Editorial Reviews" 1). The story begins with Dorcas' funeral. Violet has just tried to slash the dead girl's face with a knife. Her husband Joe had been having an affair with Dorcas and shot her after she rejected him. The overall atmosphere is bittersweet. The story is not written in a chronological order. It goes from the present, back to the past when Dorcas was still alive and back to the present again. It is written in different points of view that when put together tells a bigger story. The story is written in third person and the narrator has omniscient knowledge. (Treherne, 208) The narrator tells not only what is in the character's mind, but also what is going on outside of them. The narrator at times seems to not have any more control over the story than the reader. The major themes in the novel are youth versus age, music and memory. Youth versus age is one of the central themes. The main relationship in the novel is between "Joe Trace, a fifty year old man, and Dorcas, who is in her late teens" ("Jazz Major Themes" 1). Dorcas becomes a symbol of youth throughout the entire novel. Violet Trace, in her fifties is jealous of Dorcas's youth and good figure. The idea behind Jazz as title The novel's title is borrowed from jazz music and the idea of music is discussed throughout the novel. Alice Manfred and the Miller sisters believe that jazz music is the anthem of hell. Both Dorcas and Violet find passion and pleasure in Jazz music. When Joe pursues and kills Dorcas, it is at a social gathering where noisy jazz music is being played. Dorcas is a young orphan. Joe Trace never knew his true parents and struggles with his memory after he leaves Virginia and comes to Harlem. Golden Gray and Violet have each lost a parent. Morrison makes the argument that the African-American community as a whole has experienced a kind of orphanhood during this time as well. Slavery separated families and the migration from South to North separated families even further their culture, families and memories. Memory is the most important theme in the novel. "All of the major characters suffer the consequences of living a life that is dissociated from the memories of the past" ("Jazz Major Themes" 2-3). Plot The plot is one of conflict and epiphany. There are numerous conflicts in this story. Joe struggles with Dorcas, his young mistress. In this conflict Joe is the protagonist and Dorcas is the antagonist. Dorcas rejects Joe and goes to another man. The denouement is that Joe shoots and kills her. Conflicts In another conflict, Violet struggles against the ghost of Dorcas. Violet is the protagonist and Dorcas is the antagonist. Dorcas is young and beautiful. Violet is old and jealous of Dorcas's youth. Dorcas had an affair with Violet's husband Joe. The novel climaxes when Violet crashes into Dorcas's funeral to slash her face with a knife. The ushers see the knife and wrestle it out of Violet's hands. They drag her kicking and screaming from the church. The denouement is that Violet sets out to regain her sanity and save her marriage. She learns about who Dorcas was and grows to love her. Violet and Joe are also in conflict. Violet is the protagonist and Joe is the antagonist. They struggle against each other in a bad marriage. Joe has an affair with Dorcas. This makes things even worse. After Dorcas's funeral, Violet follows the advice of a friend and decides to try to make it work with Joe. The denouement is that she sets out to learn all about who Dorcas was in order to see what it was that made Joe love her so much. She begins to realize that she loves Dorcas too, like the daughter she never had. In the process of learning about Dorcas, Violet confronts her own problems and past. She is set free from her past and learns to love herself. She also learns to love her husband in spite of his mistakes and shows him how to overcome them too. In the end, Violet and Joe accept each other for who they are and move forward to rebuild their lives. (Loris, 60) The suspense of the story is whether Violet will stay with Joe or not. The foreshadowing events are Joe and Violet do not speak. Joe has an affair and kills his lover after she rejects him. Violet goes to Dorcas's funeral to cut her face. Violet sets out to learn who Dorcas, Joe's lover, really was. The novel ends with Felice visiting Violet and Joe. She tells Joe that Dorcas's last words were, "There's only one apple. Just one. Tell Joe" (Morrison, Toni 213). After dinner they hear music through the open window. Joe and Violet start dancing. When the music stops Joe and Violet decide to get more birds and a record player. Character Analysis of "Violet Trace" Violet is the wife of Joe Trace. She is fifty years old, very skinny, but still good-looking. She is a hard working, unlicensed hairdresser. She was nicknamed "Violent" after she went to Dorcas's funeral and attempted to disfigure her face with a knife. Violet is a fully developed character throughout the story. She actively creates her own existence. She does this through her actions and changes in how she thinks and talks about herself ("Jazz Character List" 4). Violet is both an anti-hero and a hero. She starts out in the story as an anti-hero because she is struggling in her marriage after her husband kills his young mistress, Dorcas. She develops into a hero when she decides to find out what Dorcas was all about in an effort to reclaim her sanity and save her marriage. At the end of the story she finally learns "to overcome the grim reality of her past" ("Toni Morrison" 2) and learns to love her husband in spite of his past mistakes. Violet's strengths outnumber her weaknesses. She is determined, hard-working, courageous, forgiving and understanding. She does however have occasional mental problems and she struggles with jealousy, violence and stubbornness. Violet is motivated by a decision to save her marriage and learn to love her husband again. She believes that if she can find out about Dorcas, she will learn what was missing in her marriage that made her husband have an affair. Violet's change is dynamic. In her attempt to learn more about Dorcas and save her marriage she turns from being a crazy woman who crashed a funeral to cut Dorcas's face, into a woman who loves her husband in spite of his faults. Violet is a believable character. She has many strengths and weaknesses. She has had struggles in life and has made mistakes, however, she has learned to face and overcome her problems. Afro-American Living Conditions In the novel, there are people from various races and very marked social statuses, there are poor neighborhoods as well as middle class and rich. Afro-Americans are living in much better conditions in the City, but there is still discrimination between races and social classes. There is a lot of violence; most of the riots are between white and black people, because the Negroes take the jobs that before belonged only to the white. Also rich people segregate the poor, no matter they are from their same race. (Yeldho, 15) In a lot of homes the head of the family is the mother because the father is gone and as them to bring up their children they have leave them alone. There is also abuse towards children and/or women with in the family. Another problem in that society is the huge lack of education that exists in a lot of its members. Alice Manfred, Dorcas’s aunt, takes care of her niece after her parents' death. They are everything each other have. Alice has a very accurate knowledge of the dangers in the City. She knows about the violence and all bad things that happen there. That's why she wants to protect her niece from it, because she is very afraid of what can happen to her. Therefore she raises Dorcas in a very strict way. She doesn't let her go to parties because besides of the riots, there exists the temptation of sex and drugs. She tries to keep Dorcas inside the house as much as possible and prohibits her to dress, as she likes; she has to use old-fashioned clothes. She even sends her to be religiously instructed. But all what she went through for her niece is not worth because Dorcas cannot restrain herself and rebelled against her, she didn't care about her education any longer. Joe is looking for someone who understands him and listens to him because in this moment he is going through a difficult period. There is a lack of communication between him and Violet, she is going through her menopause and does not speak to him much. He finds very easy to tell Dorcas things that he was never been able to tell his wife. He renews his memories when he speaks to her he makes a strong connection with her. With her he remembers his youth. So he doesn't care about how Dorcas looks, he just likes her personality and that she listens. Neither Joe nor Violet wants to have children because they just don't like the environment in which they live. They don't want their child to suffer from the discrimination and injustices. (Van, Der Zee 97) Joe refuses to bring a child in such a world. Violet does so as well, but she has another reason; she remembers what happened with her mother. Besides they know the trouble that is to have children, the upbringing, etc. Violet who grew in rural America is a very person with a strong character and can stay tall in almost every situation. Due to where she was raised she does not have much education. Her father went away when she was little and her mother suicide. This made her a strong woman. When she moves to the City she is having her menopause and has therefore like two different parts, two personalities "this" Violet and "that" Violet. "This" Violet is the "normal" one, she knows what she wants and is a hard worker; she cuts hair for a living. (Jones, 88) On the other hand, "that" Violet, also known by her neighbors as Violent, is more instinctive; she is not responsible for her actions and is in some cases a bit dangerous, capable of doing anything. She is like this because of all she has went through in her life. After Violet's father abandoned them she raised her children only by her self and she had succeeded in it. But one day white people came by and took all of their things, suddenly she could no longer maintain her family, therefore she felt very disappointed. True Belle was Rose's mother (Violet's grandmother) she worked taking care of Vera Louise and her son, it was a good job. But when she knew what had happened to her daughter and her children she came back to help her raise them. With her mothers help, Rose Dear accomplished her mission, her children were again in a fine situation, and they have survived the crisis. Since she felt that she was no longer needed, she wanted to give it a break. She felt the call of the "beckoning" well and since she felt that her children would be in good hands, she threw herself in and died. (Hardack, 468) The story of the two women teaches us the unity within the Afro-American Families. We see how one abandons what she has in order to help a relative of hers, in these case her daughter. We appreciate how they fight to help themselves. They have to be strong since they are both mother and father in their families, this brings them together. Theme of true love Throughout Jazz, Morrison also concentrated her theme of true love and identity around Violet, who constantly struggled with her psyche throughout the novel. Like Lily, her failed sense of self caused her to become separated from the man she truly loved. Violet's feelings towards love are very comparable to her parrot. In the section on the events leading up to the funeral scene when she stabs Dorcas' face, she refers herself as that Violet, her violent, unrelenting side. She finally comes to terms with her true self, "That Violet should not have let the parrot go... "I love you,"" was exactly what neither she nor that Violet could bear to hear" (Wharton, 92). Once released from captivity the parrot had nowhere to go, just as Violet had nowhere to go without reconciling her true feelings for Joe. Ironically, Dorcas' aunt and guardian, Alice Manfred, helped her to realize her true self before it was too late, an ending unknown to Lily in The House or Mirth. Joe finds the mother he desperately craves through Dorcas. She fills up the "inside nothing" discussed earlier. Joe merges Wild and Dorcas into one person, especially at the point when he confuses his hunt of Dorcas with his hunt of his mother. O'Reilly points out another parallel in Joe's words about Dorcas and Wild. He states, about Dorcas, "She don't have to explain. She don't need have to say a word" (p. 182). Earlier, he says a similar thing about his mother, "She wouldn't have to say anything..." (p. 37) Even after he shoots Dorcas, he still intertwines his mother by describing the crowd, "as a flock of redwings" (p. 130). Joe 'actually' shot and mourns for Wild, according to O'Reilly. She states that Joe never got over the loss of his mother as a child, and spent his life trying to forget her and disown their relationship. Violet seems to be adamantly fighting the idea of becoming her mother, rather than the idea of becoming a mother. This is seen because she places herself in a motherly role. She was "staring at infants and hesitating in front of toys displayed at Christmas." (p.107) She finds her comfort in a doll, generally associated with children, or also, children tend to 'play' the mother role with dolls as well. There is even a scene where Violet has someone else's baby in her arms and fantasizes about brining him home and bathing him. Another maternal role is her line of work. Violet fixes hair for a living, which is seen as a very motherly role. She treats her customers like daughters by grooming and giving advice to them. Violet is seeking to actually become the mother she has lost. Alice becomes a pivotal part of Violet's life. The two visit often, and this allows Violet to find a mother figure in Alice. She often repairs the loose threads and ripped linings in Violet's clothing, which could represent repairing the inner 'cracks' in her (Violet). True Belle returns home to help he grown daughter. (Mbalia, 635) Rose hears the same stories that Violet heard about Golden Gray. True Belle, Rose discovered, didn't hate the boy who stole her away from her daughters, but in fact loved him dearly. Through this, Rose learns that he is her beloved child. Rose found out that she (and May) was replaced by Golden Gray. This brings up the point the author is emphasizing which is Rose cannot be a mother to her daughter because she was not mothered as a daughter. This, therefore, projects on to Violet, who was not mothered and cannot be a mother because of it. Essentially, all of Violet's attempts to recover her lost inner self deepened those 'cracks' and distanced her from Rose. However, her recognition of her own mother's missed mothering allows for an identification, which, in turn, strengthens the bond between mother and daughter. All of this allows Violet to recover herself, and become the woman her mother would have liked her to be. Conclusion Slavery or second rated citizenship is no less than political and social orphanage. This is the recurrent theme in Jazz. There are so many characters that are literally orphans and even, some actions also have an aura of orphanage. Morrison's portrayal of finding one's self through overcoming societal values and love is Golden Gray. Golden Gray believes himself to be white and is overly proud of that fact and his place in society. When his world is disrupted by news of a black father, he becomes outraged and seeks to find out his true identity. Central to his character is the scene where he helps the pregnant, bleeding woman abandoned by her husband. At first his character is contemptible and the fact that he cares more about the staining of his clothing than of the dying woman leaves the reader with a feeling of contempt. In fact, when he first heard of his black roots he tore up his mother's clothes. His relationship to material goods is representative by his vain obsession with clothing, or the way he looks. When referring to the stains on his clothing, one cannot help but parallel Golden Gray to Acton when Dorcas was dying and his first response was to shriek at the ruining of his clothes. Golden Gray serves to be a counterpoint to Selden's character, rooted in internal satisfaction, and more aptly parallels Lily in her quest to attain a status that truly does not represent her true self. In contrast to Violet, Joe seems to never have had an original self because as soon as he was born, his mother abandoned him. It is stated that, "...he traveled with...an inside nothing..." (p.37). Joe creates his own identity, in fact, he does this seven different times, and is able to chronologically pinpoint every change he made and when. His shift is experienced quite differently than Violet's in that he chose seven different selves, but only being one self at a time. Violet, on the other hand, had two selves co-existing together. Joe continues to search for the mother figure that he longs for. Although it would embarrass him to have a confirmation from Wild, it would also create a great happiness in him. He tries to forget her through work and through marrying Violet, but Wild remained on his mind. Works Cited Hardack, Richard. “ ‘A Music Seeking Its Words’: Double-Timing and Double-Consciousness in Toni Morrison’s Jazz,” Callaloo 18 (1995): 451–471. Jones, Gayl. Liberating Voices: Oral Tradition in African American Literature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991. 88 Loris, Michelle C. “Self and Mutuality: Romantic Love, Desire, Race, and Gender in Toni Morrison’s Jazz,” Sacred Heart University Review 14, nos. 1–2 (1993–94): 53–62. Mbalia, Doretha Drummond. “Women Who Run with Wild: The Need for Sisterhoods in Jazz,” Modern Fiction Studies 39 (1993): 623–646. Morrison, Toni. Jazz. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, inc., 1992. Treherne, Matthew. “Figuring In, Figuring Out: Narration and Negotiation in Toni Morrison’s Jazz,” Narrative 11, no. 2 (May 2003): 199–213. Van Der Zee, James. The Harlem Book of the Dead. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Morgan and Morgan, 1978. 97 Yeldho, Joe V. “Toni Morrison’s Depiction of the City in Jazz,” Notes on Contemporary Literature 36 (January 2006): 14–16. Read More