Jazz by Toni Morrison : The Symbolic

Significance of the Title

Posted by Nicole Smith,Dec 7, 2011FictionComments ClosedPrint
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Toni Morrison’s Jazz is a simply titled novel, but this simplicity belies the complexity
of the narrative structure to which the word “jazz" alludes. Toni Morrison’s novel
“Jazz” is experimental in that it challenges the conventions of the American
canonical literary narrative. Toni Morrison incorporates elements of the genre of jazz
music as a way of both honoring African American modes of expression and creative
and cultural production, as well as creating new, hybrid forms of expression. The
result is a novel that can be frustrating and difficult, at times, for the reader to
follow. Morrison’s narrative is, by turns, tangential, digressive, and improvisational
and like other novels by Morrison reliant on symbols, it can never be taken at face
value. Nevertheless, understanding the underlying structural and thematic
significance of this narrative approach by analyzing the novel’s structure through the
lens of jazz music helps the reader to not only develop a tolerance for the novel, but
to adapt himself or herself to its expressive power. As a result, new possibilities open
not only for Toni Morrison as an author, but for the reader as well.
Jazz the novel by Toni Morrison, like the origins of jazz music itself, is situated
primarily in the 1920s, and its focal point is Harlem, New York. Establishing a sense
of place, as well as the mood that pervades it and the characters that populate it, is
crucial to the “plot" of the jazz tune, whether with or without lyrics, and the same is
true for Morrison’s novel. In the novel, Morrison describes “the city," New York City,
in vivid and descriptive visual terms. The narrator says in one of the important
quotes from “Jazz” by Toni Morrison, “I’m crazy about this City. Daylight slants like
a razor cutting the buildings in half. In the top half I see looking faces…Below is
shadow where any blasé thing takes place…." (Morrison 5). This speech is not
normal speech that one uses to communicate; it is highly visual, imagistic, and
sonorous. The speaker does not necessarily hurry to proceed from this description to
the next point; she riffs on her meditation about the City for as long as she likes, and
only then does she proceed with her narrative. This narrative technique in “Jazz” by
Toni Morrison is unusual for literature, but is entirely familiar to the genre of jazz
music, which wanders and improvises, plays with the relationships between sounds,
and juxtaposes seemingly incongruent musical ideas in innovative ways. In Jazz,
Morrison does the same.
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There are other elements of speech in Jazz that are reminiscent of the musical genre
yet represent an experimental foray for literature. Consider, for example, that the
characters do not always speak in formal or complete sentences. At times, there are
just enough words to convey a general idea or impression, and the reader must fill in
any perceived gaps. The astute reader picks up on this fact on the very first page of
the novel when scanning through the quotes from this first part. The narrator is
describing a woman and she adds, “Know her husband, too" (Morrison 1). The
absence of the subject, “I," mimics colloquial speech; extraneous details are omitted
and the reader has to pick up the narrative “beat" or lose the novel’s rhythm
completely. “Proper" English is rejected as false in this novel; instead, Toni
Morrison’s characters must express themselves with their own authentic voices, even
at the possible expense of losing the reader. In a sense, like jazz music, the creative
act of production becomes more important than the fact that the work will be
received by an audience.

The numerous tangents and digressions in Jazz by Toni Morrison also indicate the
idiosyncratic narrative structure of the novel and allude to the influence that the
genre of jazz music had on Morrison’s development of this novel. Temporally
speaking, the “Jazz” by Toni Morrison weaves back and forth between the early
twentieth century and earlier times, introducing a densely populated collection of
characters in two different locations whose relationships can be difficult to
understand. Yet perhaps Toni Morrison’s intention and expectation is not that the
reader will be able to keep track of all of these people, places, and relationships, but
rather that he or she will capture a general impression or sense of them. As with jazz
music, the narrative structure of Toni Morrison’s novel disrupts expectations that
the reader has developed while reading conventionally written texts. The difference
in the narrative structure calls for a distinct reading strategy. Again, the reader of
“Jazz” by Toni Morrison can take his or her cue from jazz music in order to
understand the most effective strategy for understanding Morrison’s novel. Attempt
to understand the work conceptually, globally, and do not get bogged down in small
details that can distract one from comprehending the overall significance of the
work.
Another aspect of the narrative structure of this Toni Morrison novel that is
reminiscent of jazz music is the way in which the same story is played out again and
again, but in different ways. The narrator of Jazzby Toni Morrison explains the
essential elements of the plot, but reworks and revises them again and again in
multiple retellings. Each time she does, a new voice or new perspective emerges,
layering on new meanings. Jazz music does the same, playing with a melodic or
harmonic theme again and again, but tweaking it slightly and creating a variation—
or many variations– on the theme. Each time the listener,–or in the case of the
novel, the reader—hears the tune or reads the story, each variation yields a richness
or alternate perspective that could not have been possible with a single telling. In
Toni Morrison’s novel, certain words, like certain stories, bear repeating, if only to
invite the reader to marvel at the sonoric properties of language. “‘Felice,’ he said.
And kept on saying it. ‘Felice. Felice. Felice.’ With two syllables, not one like most
people do…." (Morrison 212).
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Still another way in which Morrison’s novel can be linked to jazz music and
understood as the literary equivalent of a jazz composition is by examining the
conclusion of Jazz. There is something ambivalent, ambiguous, and unsettling about
the ending of the novel, which seems to lack a resolution according to the
conventional understanding of that term and its traditional uses in literary
narratives. Jazz music is the same. Endings can be abrupt and unexpected; they can
also trail off inconclusively, simply holding or insistently repeating and then fading
out on a certain note. The final passages in Jazz evoke the same kinds of feelings as
do these highest points of a jazz music composition, and they rely upon the same
kinds of techniques and resources. In fact, the concluding lines of Jazz build up and
threaten to explode, but they then fade out, almost without the reader realizing that
the novel, like the song, is over: “Say make me, remake me. You are free to do it and I
am free to let you because look, look. Look where your hands are now" (Morrison
272). The three sets of repeated words or phrases reinforce a sense of final urgency.
Yet the reader is left to either accept the ambiguity of such a conclusion, or to
attempt to make sense out of it. Either way, the experience of receiving the creative
production can be fulfilling and pleasurable.
Toni Morrison’s novel, Jazz, is an experimental novel that borrows extensively from
the ideas behind and the expressions of jazz music. Honoring her cultural peers from
another creative genre by appropriating and adapting their techniques for her own
use, Morrison creates a text that represents the hybrid of two powerfully creative and
expressive art forms: music and literature. The result is an idiosyncratic narrative
structure that can be challenging. Admittedly, the novel Jazz is not intended for
every reading audience. However, the reader who can approach the novel on its own
terms, rather than forcing conventional literary analytic frameworks to an
interpretation of Jazz will be likely to have more pleasurable reading experience and
a more profound one. Sometimes, a novel is not only about the events that it
describes or a particular moral or lesson that its author intends to convey.
Sometimes, and this is one of those times, a novel is less about the product of
creation than the process that resulted in its publication. As the reading audience, we
must decide whether we will accept Jazz on its own terms and improvise our reading
style, just as Morrison improvised her writing style.
 role of the city in Toni Morrison's jazz
Category: April 19
The city in Toni Morrison’ s Jazz plays an important role in the lives of Violet and Joe. Moving to the
city is a point in their life that deepens the bonding of the relationship of the couple. The fact that
they share an experience which changed their lives is something they will never forget about each
other and makes them stay together. Therefore, the day ’when they moved into the city’ is
something they will always refer back to and will never forget. The city not only offered them to
forget about the past, but also was a chance for them to make a new start, develop their personality
and make them new selves.

In general it can be said that in Jazz the city is shown from two different perspectives, a positive
and a negative view. For Joe and Violet the advantages of the city are, for example, the
annonymity they have in the city. For them the city also stands for emotional liberation and the
chance to take part in a new culture. At the beginning they expierence the city as more than
perfect, but after they have spent some time there, they realize that there are also negative sides of
the city. For example, they start getting annoyed by other people and the noises of the city.
Furthermore, they realize that corruption and violence are inevitably linked with the city. This is also
when they start developing a certain nostalgia and yearning for the rural area they lived in.

An Analysis of the Narrator as the Voice

of the City in Toni Morrison’s Jazz
The narrator seeks to be the voice of the city and follows the characters of Toni Morrison’s Jazz,
to document their lives. In an attempt to provide the reader with an accurate account of their
actions and characteristics, the narrator dismisses the possibility of being tainted lens. As each
voice is created to further an agenda, this narrator is unable to provide an unbiased version of
the story.

The narrator wishes to be the voice of the city by speaking and listening on behalf of it. As the
city, the narrator is to address the city’s culture and roots. However, the city cannot be described
by a single narrator as the city is experienced differently by each individual. The story that the
city tells to each person is unique and as it stimulates its residents, each perception of the city
created is significantly different. The voice of the city may be one that is the most generic version
of the most common perception but the narrator is unable to speak in this voice. The ambiguity
of the city resembles in the undefined narrator. By not identifying the narrator’s gender, race or
age, one is free to determine the details of the narrator’s character. This opens the possibility for
the reader to insert them into the novel. The narrator’s claim to be the voice of the city is a
statement that limits the imagination of the readers as the setting is created as a character. Yet it
also opens the possibility of an opportunity for the reader to create the city as the narrator.
The city itself would be the ideal narrator as an unbiased and all knowing character. One who
could speak on behalf of every character and provide an accurate background of each character
or location. The narrator as the voice of the city creates depth within the novel. The illusion of
the city’s free spirit is created through the flow caused by the lack of punctuation and describes
each street as composed of a symphony of sounds. As the narrator describes the city, it comes to
life as a character but when s/he attempts to become the city, s/he fails to embrace its true
essence. As the narrator is to convey the messages that the characters cannot verbally share,
s/he inserts their opinion of the characters and actions. The narrator’s investment in the defense
of the characters takes away from the effect of being the voice of the city. By becoming the city,
the narrator hopes to tell the secrets of the characters but is unable to do so without their
personal bias affecting their stories.

VIOLET TRACE
Character Analysis
Violet, Violet, Violet. No—we're not muttering under our breath; we're addressing
each of the three Violets that populate this novel.
Yes, you read that right. Though to be clear, there is physically only one Violet:
Violet Trace. She's a fifty-year-old hairdresser living in Harlem with her hubby Joe,
and she has a touch of the old multiple personalities. It's not a seriously debilitating
condition, because Violet can still hold down a job and cook meals that are designed
to help build her up to her pre-menopausal weight and curviness. But she still suffers
from the feeling that there are (at least) three Violets hanging out in her head. Let's
take a look at what makes these Violets tick.

Young Violet: Strong, Strong-Willed, and Smokin' Hot

Young Violet is the woman that Present-Day Violet tries to conjure up when she
drinks those milkshakes, when she cooks fattening, delicious dinners, and when she
stews about the past. Who is young Violet?
Well, Young Violet is a woman with very few regrets and a ton of plans. Young Violet
reacts to her mother committing suicide with the decision to stop the mental illness
gene in its track by not having any babies, and sticks by her guns. Young Violet
goes to get work on a cotton farm and is terrible at it, lagging behind with the twelve-
year-olds. It's pretty humiliating.
But Young Violet perseveres and decides to give it her all, and ends up a "powerfully
strong young woman who could handle mules, bale hay and chop wood as good as
any man." Once Young Violet makes her mind up about something, she gets it.
You know, like she got Joe. It's not that Joe wasn't into Violet—he totally was—but
"Violet claimed him." Her Young Violet reasoning is that he fell practically into her
lap when he fell out of the tree, so therefore he is hers. Get it, girl. This
assertiveness later helps drive Joe's infidelity, as we'll see in our discussion of Joe
(read up on him elsewhere in this section), but for the majority of Violet's life it
remains an awesome, positive characteristic.
It's Young Violet who has the idea to move to a big city. Her idea was Baltimore—
the city that True Belle lived in, and the city that Golden Gray was born in—but
because Joe knows some people that made it big in New York, they ultimately
choose The Big Apple.
But back to Young Violet's Baltimore dreams, because the reason Young Violet
wanted to go to Baltimore is super-important to her character: She wants to go there
because her grandmother True Belle lived in Baltimore. True Belle is the woman
who raised Violet, and Violet adores her because she supplied Young Violet with the
sanity and nurturing that her own mother couldn't give her.
The combination of Violet's mom being a little nutso, and the siren song of the
(expensive) City mean that Young Violet intentionally miscarries three times. This is
all good and makes financial sense until years later, when the woman we'll call
Crazy Violet, becomes unhinged partially because of a gnawing baby-hunger.

Crazy Violet: Stealing Babies and Talking Nonsense

Frankly, this is the Violet that is the most fun to read about, in our humble opinion.
Crazy Violet does, well, crazy things. And we all know that acts of insanity make for
awesomesauce reading material.
Let's start where we left off with Young Violet: Young Violet is sure that she never
wants babies, and everything is cool until Young Violet hits forty, becomes not-so-
Young Violet and starts wanting a baby. Like yesterday.
The desire to hold a baby is so strong it's described as a "skipping, running light" in
her veins. Eventually, "(the) longing became heavier than sex: a panting,
unmanageable craving. She was limp in its thrall or rigid in an effort to dismiss it."
Okay, dang. That kind of "unmanageable craving" would make anyone a little loony-
tunes. Violet is an addict, and a baby is her fix. Only she's too old to have a baby.
Cue irrational behavior.
What irrational behavior? Well, Violet starts saying things accidently—things that
don't make sense. She also sits down in the middle of the street for no good reason,
and tries to steal a baby out of a baby carriage. Plus she starts hugging a doll.
What do these actions of Crazy Violet's have to do with the larger story?
Thematically, we're getting a prime example of how history repeats itself either
biologically (having kids) or mentally (going nuts, perpetuating violence). Plot-wise,
it's Violet's instability that prompts Joe's eyes to start wandering and finally land on
Dorcas.
This of course culminates with the ultimate act of Crazy Violet's: slashing dead
Dorcas's face and letting all of her birds free. When we understand Crazy Violet's
baby-hunger, we can see that these acts are very symbolic of letting go of the
possibility of maternity. But more on this over in the "Symbols" section.

Present-Day Violet: All's Well That Ends Well

When someone talks about killing themselves—twice—it's usually not a good thing.
However, when Violet talks about killing herself twice it's awesome and sane. This is
because present-day Violet, after a couple of very thoughtful milkshakes and some
conversations with Alice, does away with Young Violet and Crazy Violet.
"How did you get rid of her?"
"Killed her. Then I killed the me that killed her."
"Who's left?"
"Me."
Yup. We're guessing that Young Violet (super strong-willed and resolute) killed
Crazy Violet, and then present-day Violet did away with Young Violet. Besides
reducing the number of Violets in Jazz down to a more manageable number, the
murder of Crazy Violet and Young Violet does some nifty stuff thematically. Let's just
list 'em all:

 The murder of Young Violet can be seen as closing the door to the past.
 The murder of Young Violet can also be accepting old age and childlessness.
 The murder of Crazy Violet is a way to come to terms with Rose Dear's
insanity.
 The murder of Crazy Violet is a way to come to terms with Joe's infidelity and
be charitable, once more, toward young women.

Also pretty cool is the fact that Violet, like Joe, is now a murderer of sorts. This helps
them get back on good footing with each other. Whatever it takes to make a
marriage work, we guess? And whatever it takes to feel sane again.
Present-Day Violet also retains the good things from Young Violet and Crazy Violet.
Young Violet was strong-willed and determined, and Present-Day Violet is still these
things. For her part, Crazy Violet was eager to be maternal, and when Present-Day
Violet cooks for Felice and takes care of Joe we see these attributes front and
center. Another way of understanding Present-Day Violet, then, as the book ends is
as Violet in her prime. For someone named after a flower, it seems she's finally—at
least kind of—bloomed.
 JOE TRACE
Character Analysis
So much of Joe's character can be summed up in his last name. When he is in
school, he's asked to supply a last name for himself and he comes up
with Trace because, when his adoptive mother tells him "O honey (your parents)
disappeared without a trace," he "understood her to mean the 'trace' they
disappeared without was (him)." Sadness.
Trace is also super-appropriate for him to two other reasons, though. One is
that trace can be understood to mean outline or silhouette. Joe Trace is a man
whose exterior doesn't change much—he's as handsome at fifty as he was as young
man—but he talks about going through multiple interior changes or rebirths. His
outline may be constant, but it's his insides that shift. Also, he traces the paths that
he knows Dorcas follows around New York City when he wants to find and kill her.
Now let's check out these traces a little more closely.

Little Boy Lost

Poor Joe never knew his parents. This is hard, and it's only made harder by the fact
that Joe's mama is a pretty wild woman named, well, Wild. She is rumored to live
around the town of Vienna, Virginia, and Joe spends a good part of his childhood,
and then adulthood, searching for her. He finds a path she may have followed—
often signaled by the presence of red-winged blackbirds—and traces it. That's right:
He traces it. The narrator tells us:
I imagine him as one of those men who stop somewhere around sixteen. Inside.
Even the narrator is clued in to how little and forlorn Joe is in his heart of hearts.
He's an adolescent inside, still searching for his mom and for reassurance. This is
partially why, when Violet stops talking to him and nurturing him and starts carrying
a doll around instead, Joe flips out and looks for loving elsewhere. That's right:
When Violet becomes girlish, no longer like a capable mother, he finds another
woman to take her place.
And whom does he land on? Dorcas, the wild child. He finds a young woman who is
equally wild (though more mentally stable) than his own mother. Freud would have a
field day with this one, guys.
But the real Mommy/Dorcas intersection comes when he is stalking Dorcas around
New York and keeps thinking about his mommy dearest. The narrator admits that
s/he was mistaken when "All the while he was running through the streets in bad
weather I thought he was looking for (Dorcas), not Wild's chamber of gold." Yup,
Dorcas and Wild are practically one in the same when it comes to Joe and his
needs.
Luckily for both Violet and Joe, Violet turns back into a mother figure supreme when
Felice comes to visit. After this, Joe and Violet are back in love and their marriage is
smooth sailing once again—after all, Joe finally has his mama back.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Joe admits to having shed his skin in a snakelike manner a whole bunch of times.
Jeez, this makes Violet's multiple personalities look totally sane.
Let's outline what Joe understands as his multiple births:

 He is born, like actually pushed out of the birth canal.

 He gives himself his last name.
 He learns to be an independent man with the help of Hunter's Hunter.
 He moves to Palestine and meets Violet.
 He moves to New York City
 He's beaten by a bunch of white men, but survives.
 He sees Dorcas for the first time.

This gets to the heart of the trace in Joe Trace being a kind of outline or form—the
center, the real Joe, keeps mutating and being reborn.
In a novel that is as preoccupied with the lasting effects of history as Jazz is, this is
kind of weird. Joe can't actually keep being reborn, as much as he would like to; he's
trapped in his own history, though it's not until Felice shows up that he realizes this.
What makes him realize this?
Felice tells him that Dorcas's last words were "There's only one apple." This apple is
none other than the apple from the tree of knowledge that Adam and Eve eat before
getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden. And just like Adam and Eve don't get a
chance to go back and not eat the apple, Joe doesn't get a chance to get a do-over.
There are actually no second chances, no rebirths.

Hunter/Hunted
Joe's third "birth" comes when Hunter's Hunter teaches him to be an independent
man's man: the kind of guy who goes out, finds an animal, kills it, and eats it. Rawr.
You better believe that this sticks with Joe.
However, most of Joe's actions in life come as the result of other people's choice.
Violet chooses Joe; all Joe does is fall out of his tree-house bed. Violet chooses
moving to the City. And Violet has a career, while Joe has a series of odd jobs rather
than leading a self-possessed life that involves spending his time doing something
like, oh, say, going out and shooting his dinner.
This pattern of letting other people choose for him certainly helps Joe feel safe and
cozy and like his mama is watching over him. What it doesn't help with is his desire
to be a manly, assertive, stereotypical Man. (This was 1926, guys—gender roles
were pretty narrowly defined back then.)
But then Joe chooses Dorcas. He displays "randy aggressiveness" and gets his
girl—and he feels like a big strong man. He says:
"I chose you. Nobody gave you to me. Nobody said that's the one for you. I picked
you out."
And then, of course, Dorcas leaves Joe behind, giving him the old heave-ho. And
Joe is both a crushed little boy whose security blanket has sprouted legs and walked
off and a manly hunter-dude whose prey has evaded him. This makes him go
insane-o. So he shoots a man in Reno just to watch him die, er, shoots his ex-
girlfriend at a party because if he can't have her, no one can.
In the end, Joe comes to terms with himself a little bit. He feels secure in his
masculinity because he shot his prey (a.k.a. Dorcas). Yuck, right? But at least he
and Violet have a good relationship after. Or something like that.

DORCAS
Character Analysis
Dorcas is a real wild child, a flapper, a jazz lover, a juvenile delinquent, and a
speakeasy aficionado. She's the 1920s in a nutshell: a very sexually attractive
nutshell with bad skin, to be precise.
And yet, for all of this dynamism and strength, and for how important she is for the
plot of Jazz, Dorcas isn't exactly a character whose interiority is explored. Everyone
else in the book has an opinion about Dorcas, but we don't get many of Dorcas's
thoughts.
Joe thinks she's the cat's meow; Violet thinks she's the worst thing in the world until
she starts to feel warm maternal feelings toward her; Felice thinks that she's ugly,
inside and out; Alice thinks she's trouble with a capital T; and Malvonne thinks that
she's okay because she gets an extra two bucks a week so Joe can carry on his
affair with her. But what does Dorcas think about? Surprisingly little. She thinks
about her new boyfriend Acton, who is a super-hot and totally rude. She also really
likes jazz. Check it:
Dorcas lay on a chenille bedspread, tickled and happy knowing that there was no
place to be where somewhere, close by, somebody was not licking his licorice stick,
tickling the ivories, beating his skins, blowing off his horn while a knowing woman
sang ain't nobody going to keep me down you got the right key baby but the wrong
keyhole you got to get it bring it and put it right here, or else. (3.16)
It's not that surprising that Dorcas doesn't have a lot of interiority, because she
basically exists as an advertisement for/PSA against being a flapper. She's sensual,
and sensuality doesn't have a lot of interior thought behind it. Or so the thinking of
the time seems to go.
She's also—and this is hugely important—basically related to as a dead girl. The
memory of her is more important than her actions as a flesh-and-blood living woman
in this book. We learn a lot about the rest of the characters in Jazz by how they
relate to Dorcas, but we never really get to learn a ton about Dorcas herself. The
dead, after all, can't talk.

FELICE
Character Analysis
Felice's name means happy, and this is important because Felice brings happiness
to the otherwise pretty freaking dismal world of Jazz.
Her most important feat in the world of Jazz is to set Joe and Violet's marriage right.
She comes up to talk to Joe about Dorcas and to see if she can get her favorite opal
ring back, and she ends up supplying Violet with someone to nurture and giving Joe
the chance to sort through his memories of Dorcas.
This is all very well and good, and totally solidifies Felice's standing as a guide figure
in Jazz… But what about Felice's motivation? She doesn't just pop up at the Trace
apartment with the keen idea that she's going to help a middle-aged marriage get
back on track. Nope—she has reasons.
The first reason Felice stops by is that she wants her ring back. This is an opal ring
that her mom stole for her from Tiffany's. And remember: Jazz is all about the
mamas. So in a way Felice goes to the Trace house o' pain to reclaim her
relationship to her mama. But it goes beyond that. Felice's mom grew up in a world
that was even more racist than Felice's, and so Felice's mom stealing the ring was
her big act of defiance. Felice thinks that this theft is kind of dumb until she thinks it
over some more and realizes that it was, in fact, gutsy.
Felice also visits the Traces because she wants some closure to Dorcas's death.
Felice and Dorcas had been besties since grade school, and Felice describes
Dorcas as being "[…] never afraid and we had the best times. Every school we went
to, every day." Even though Felice didn't approve of a lot of things that Dorcas did,
they were still thick as thieves. So with Dorcas now gone, Felice needs some help
closing that chapter of her life. And, if we do say so ourselves, it's lucky for the
Traces that she does. Sure, Felice gets what she comes by for—but they are healed
in spades.

Jazz Themes
Youth vs. Age
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
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

Violence

Jazz begins with a recap of Dorcas's murder and Violet's attack on her
corpse. The couple that kills and then defaces the young girl seem
immediately to be evil and immoral characters but surprisingly Morrison
goes on to flesh them out and to explain, in part, that their violent acts stem
from suppressed anguish and disrupted childhoods. Morrison traces the
violence of the City characters back to Virginia, where generations of
enslavement and poverty tore families apart. Subtly, Morrison suggests that
the black on black violence of the City carries over from the physical and
psychic violence committed against the race as a whole. She interweaves
allusions to racial violence into her story with a neutral tone that lets the
historical facts speak for themselves. Further, her descriptions of scenes
are often filled with violence, as she discusses buildings which are cut but a
razorlike line of sunlight. Even her narrative is violently constructed with
stories wrenched apart, fragmented, and retold in a way that mirrors the
splintered identities of the novel's principal characters.
 Race

With its shape-shifting, omnipresent narrator, Jazz immerses its reader in

the psyche and history of its African-American characters. The book
attempts to mirror, from an anthropological and fictional standpoint, the
concerns of this community and the roots of their collective search for
identity. The narrator does not travel far from the self-contained universe of
black Harlem and does not focus on the lives of any white characters, save
for Vera Louise Gray. The legacy of slavery reverberates throughout the
story and the influx of blacks to the City reflects a distancing from this past.

chaucer's narrative art with special

reference to The Canterbury Tales.
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EXPERT ANSWERS
BOOBOOSMOOSH | CERTIFIED EDUCATOR

Chaucer's narrative art is most prominently displayed and praised in his

epic poem The Canterbury Tales.

While many sources cite Chaucer as the father of poetry, he was also
keenly observant of those he met, demonstrating that he was also a
shrewd student of human nature.
Chaucer held a great many jobs in his life and so was able to move freely
not only within the upper class (among royalty), but also with peasants,
merchants and members of the clergy. If perhaps cynical in some
instances, he had a great appreciation for the diversity of the people he
met. Chaucer's love of humor is also included, as is his sense of irony.

The structural device of the pilgrimage allows Chaucer to bring together all
sorts of folks that made up medieval society so that even years after his
death, the world was able to view a cross-section of society during the
Middle Ages.

Chaucer used his descriptive and narrative skill to express a comic vision
of humanity undimmed by the passage of six centuries.

One of the reasons Chaucer's characters are so impressive is that he had

an uncanny ability to maintain

an air of personal detachment; his appreciation of the individuality of his

characters affords an honest and objective account of each of them...at
times it is difficult to determine whether he intends to commend or
reprimand, so well does he blend satire with faint praise.

While Latin was the language of the Church, and at that time most people
used Old English to write, the emerging language of Chaucer's day was
Middle English. With little written in that manner, Chaucer worked diligently
and created a form of writing that would soon be widely emulated by other
writers. Chaucer is sometimes referred to as the father of the English
language because his efforts would lay the ground work for modern
English.

As seen in The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer wrote poetry,

not prose. He mastered the use of rhyming couplets and near-rhyme.
However, it is his narrative style that is so impressive.

The premise of The Canterbury Tales is that groups of people from many
walks of life come together to travel on a pilgrimage to the shrine
of Thomas à Becket (the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury). It was
believed that by traveling to a holy place, one could atone for his or her
sins. Because it was something practiced by people of all socioeconomic
groups, Chaucer is able to present a wide variety of people that would not
generally interact with one another. Represented are those highly regarded
in the Church, as well as a lowly Parson. The Knight has just returned from
war. There are also several merchants represented, including the
legendary Wife of Bath, a very colorful character. Something else that
makes the story so unusual is that the author includes himself in the story
as another person making the pilgrimage.

The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales introduces the main characters. As

an organizational element, Chaucer has his characters agree that at the
end of each day of travel to the shrine, one member of the group will tell a
story. Structurally, Chaucer uses these tales to cleverly allude to many
characteristics of the speaker but allows the reader to make his or her own
decisions about that person's true nature. In reading between the lines,
both in the Prologue and in the Tales, the reader learns a great deal about
human nature, medieval society, integrity, goodness, guile, etc. For
example, the reader gains new insight into the wretched behavior (greed,
self-centeredness, lasciviousness, etc.) of most of the clergy represented in
the story—except the Parson, who is a true servant of God.

Consider the Wife of Bath. She is from the town of Bath and she makes
beautifully woven cloth.

In the Wife of Bath, Chaucer created one of the great comic characters in
literature, larger than life, an imperious feminist, outrageous, but fiercely
and somehow admirably resolute.

She is dressed in red and her face is red. She is deaf, is quite wide and has
gaps in her teeth. However, she is well-dressed and quite successful as
well.

Her kerchiefs were of finest weave and ground;

I dare swear that they weighed a full ten pound
Which, of a Sunday, she wore on her head.
Her hose were of the choicest scarlet red,
Close gartered, and her shoes were soft and new.
Bold was her face, and fair, and red of hue.
She'd been respectable throughout her life,
With five churched husbands bringing joy and strife,
Not counting other company in youth;
But thereof there's no need to speak, in truth. (453-462)
Chaucer describes her as if she stands before him. He employs several
devices to bring the Wife alive before our very eyes. His vernacular makes
his writing seem casual and friendly: "I dare swear..." There is humor in his
exaggeration with regard to the weight of her headdress: "a full ten pound."
We can only imagine that her wealth and a desire to be seen has prompted
her to wear "hose...of the choicest scarlet red..." Her face is "bold"—she is
honest and forthright: she does not mince words, as we will discover when
she shares her tale. We discover that she has been married five times and
is looking for a sixth husband! She is bawdy with her jokes, with no
apology. Our narrator reveals that she did have dalliances in her youth, but
since then has behaved properly within the confines of matrimony. Her tale
is in keeping with her personal quest for marriage—again.

When it is her turn, the Wife tells a tale of Sir Gawain (one of King Arthur's
knights) who is punished for forcing himself upon a maiden. He must
search for the answer to a riddle to save his sorry hide from death. Without
the answer in a year's time, he will be executed. The question is: What is it
that a woman truly wants?

Gawain travels for 364 days and finally meets a crone who will give him the
answer, but he must promise to marry her in exchange for saving his life.
She provides the answer to the riddle at court, which is: Her way with men
in all things, or rather, getting her own way all the time.

Gawain must keep his promise to marry the crone or die. At bedtime He
enters the chamber with much trepidation—how can he sleep with such a
horrid old woman? At this point, however, she turns into a beautiful, young
woman. There are several versions of the tale: they convey a choice
Gawain's new wife offers him—does he want a beautiful, young wife who
will be unfaithful, or an ugly woman who will delight him behind closed
doors, forever faithful? Another version offers him a choice of an ugly wife
by day and a gorgeous wife by night, or vice versa.

The common thread to these versions is that Gawain has wisely learned
his lesson, and lets her choose whichever she wants to be, thus giving the
woman her way in all things.

Chaucer's descriptive details of the Wife allows the reader to envision a

woman who does not pretend to be beautiful, but after burying five
husbands (the reader can assume) is well-versed in pleasing her man. Her
 story asks the listeners (the men) which is more important to a man? The
introduction Chaucer provides supports the theme of the story she tells,
alluding to a frisky relationship in the bedroom if one can overlook a less
than perfect appearance.

Chaucer's ability to present such lifelike people without judgment or

pretense enables the onlooker to imagine what life was truly like in his
day—and to realize that people then were very much as they are today.
While we can enjoy his use of humor and appreciate the irony he
witnesses, his narrative provides a realistic sharing of information that is
not preachy or harsh. The author's slice of life is revealing yet gentle. The
final assessment of these characters is left to the reader.

Additional Source:

Adventures in English Literature, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers:

Orlando, 1985.
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SHAKETEACH | CERTIFIED EDUCATOR

The beauty of Chaucer's prologue to The Canterbury Tales, is that he gives

us a microcosmic look at the Middle Ages. When he introduces the
pilgrims, he gives us the good, the bad, and the ugly. It is a cross section
of medieval society.

The Knight and Squire are the picture of chivalry.

The clergy does not fare as well. Both the Monk and the Friar do not
display the values that we associate with religion. The Nun is seen as vain.
 The merchant class is also represented dressed to reflect their status.

The rest of the pilgrims are a wonderful cross section of people from the
Oxford Scholar to the Wife of Bath (my personal favorite) to the Pardoner.
Some of these people are rude and crude while others seem to be virtuous
and good.

Through his narration, we are able to get a comprehensive picture of

England in the Middle Ages. Rather than somebody writing about this after
the fact, Chaucer is an eyewitness to the time.

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