Toni+Morrison,+Jazz+(1992)



Jazz is a historical novel by the award-winning author Toni Morrison. Placed mostly in Harlem during the 1920s, the story follows several characters impacted by scandal and love. Joe Trace, a waiter who also serves as a salesman of Cleopatra beauty products, murders his teenage lover in a crime of passion. At the funeral, Joe Trace's wife, Violet, attacks the girl's corpse with a knife. The novel describes the aftermath as impacted individuals have their pasts revealed and their futures decided. The effects of racial discrimination, sheltered lifestyles, and a tangled romance are described in Toni Morrison's flawless writing, framed by a narrator who acts as a character through their inserts and comments. This sums together to become a wonderful exploration of love, passion, and history.

Forum Assignment
//Jazz// Wiki Page Forward, xv-xix Novel, 3-229 Write 300-500 Words

Part A: Why do you think that Joe Trace and Violet settle back down into their marriage, even though Joe wasn't faithful and neither of them were shown to be completely mentally stable? Do you agree with their choices? Include at least two quotes from //Jazz//.

Part B: After reading the wiki page, the related Lodge chapters, and the ending of //Jazz//, who do you think is the unnamed narrator throughout the novel? Provide one quote from the novel and one from the assigned Lodge chapter.

Biographical Info
Toni Morrison, (born as Chloe Anthony Wofford), was born on February 18th, 1931 in Lorain Ohio. Her father, George Wofford, was a welder; her mother, Ramah Wofford, a domestic worker. Morrison always gave credit to her parents for instilling within her a passion for reading, music, and folklore. Morrison had a relatively normal upbringing. She lived in an integrated neighborhood, but never felt the racial differences until she was in high school. Never feeling inferior though, an avid reader and leader; she was the Senior Class Treasurer of Loraine High School in 1949.

Graduating with honors in 1949, Morrison went on to continue the next chapter in her life. She attended Howard University to pursue a B.A. in English, and a Minor in Classics. Later graduating in 1953, she moved on to finish her studies at Cornell University. Interestingly enough, she wrote her senior thesis on works of Virginia Woolfe and William Faulkner. After earning her Masters, she went on to teach at Texas Southern University; and later returned to Howard to teach English. At this time she met her husband, Harold and later they had a son in 1961.

Morrison began her first novel when she joined a campus writers group. Similar to many great authors, (including Mary Shelley, author of //Frankenstein//) her novel started out as a short story! Shortly after this she left her husband, and spent time with family, only later to learn she was pregnant with their second child. After the birth, and living with her family in Ohio for a while, she returned to Syracuse, NY with her sons. There, she began a career as a book and textbook editor; eventually going on to work for Random House, editing work for authors such as Toni Cade Bambara and Gayl Jones.

// The Bluest Eye //, Morrison’s first novel, was published in 1970. The plot revolved around an African-American girl who thinks her difficult life would get better if she only had blue eyes. She went on to write the novels: //Sula// (1973), //Song of Solomon// (1977), //Tar Baby// (1981), and what is considered to be one of her greatest works, //Beloved// (1987). She later won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for her work //Beloved.//

After this string of success, Morrison became a professor at Princeton University in 1989, while still continuing in her literary work. Regarding all of her contributions to the field, she became the first African-American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. She also published //Jazz// around this time.

Morrison created a workshop for writers and performers known as the Princeton Atelier in 1994, this was established while she was teaching at Princeton. This program inspired and encouraged students to create new original works in a variety of artistry. All of this occurred while still continuing to produce great literary works. Later on in 2006 she stepped down from her position at Princeton to endeavor other creativity.

In a new creation, Morrison wrote the libretto for the opera //Margaret Garner//, an American opera that explores the tragedy of slavery through the true-life story of one woman's experiences. The opera made its debut at the New York City Opera in 2007. Over the next decade she continued to write more novels, and became an advocate for //Burn This Book,// after one of her novels was banned at a Michigan High School.

Morrison is now in her 80’s and still going strong! Her most recent novel //Home// was published in 2012; the novel explores American history post – Korean War. While writing this novel, her son Slade tragically passed away in December of 2010; her son was also one of her collaborators in her children’s book career. She still continues to write operas and novels to this day.

**Sources:** http://www.biography.com/people/toni-morrison-9415590?page=1

http://www.tonimorrisonsociety.org/author.html

http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/02/flashback_photos_of_toni_morrison.html

Literary Criticism
The criticism Morrison's novel has faced primarily surrounds the topic of her title, jazz music, and how it really fits with the story. This is the topic of critic Nicholas F. Pici analysis of the novel. Of course on of the simplest ways in which Morrison utilizes the central theme of jazz music is simply by writing her story during the Jazz Age, when the music really took off in popularity and gained notoriety as being sinful music (perhaps as sinful as the affair depicted in Morrison's novel). As Pici notes and as Morrison herself admits, "jazz [music] is improvisational; that is to say, unanticipated things can happen" which certainly is reflected in the progression of the story (Pici, 374). Certain aspects of Morrison's novel are not easily anticipated, an example being the bouts of mental instability suffered by Violet. Though it could be argued that a sane person would try and harm a dead girl, Violet and Joe's emotional distance in their relationship doesn't seem too justified until the admission of Violet's strangeness in the chapters focusing on Joe. Jazz music begins with a very distinct melody which morphs into something else entirely, essentially disappearing from the song, and finally reemerging at the end of the song. Morrison's writing also tends to follow this type of pattern. The "melody" of //Ja//appears in the form of the narrative. Whenever the story seems to stray from the perspective of the narrator and that perspective is being questioned as either right or wrong, it is the "melody" of the novel disappearing (Pici, 375). media type="custom" key="25176536" What is quite intriguing about the novel and Morrison's choice of subject and title, is that the word "jazz" never actually appears in the text. Though it is mentioned under other names or descriptions the characters give it- race music, sooty music, and lowdown music. Even still, the music plays a large part in the significance it adds and it frequently alluded to in either small detail or great depth throughout the entire novel. Pici views Morrison's use of the music as a vehicle to depict the morality of her characters as essential to understanding the time period. While the music comes across to Dorcas and the more loose characters as a transcendent, holy driving force; to the very uptight Alice Manfred she views it as "fire and brimestone music" (Pici, 380). Alice is not driven to experience a cultural revolution when she hears jazz. Instead she digs her heels into the past and keeps her pious ways, all together resisting the call of the "Devil's music". The difference between the characters' reactions to the music style is viewed by Pici as Morrison's way of establishing a metaphor for the ever-changing conditions of African-American life of the 1920's (Pici, 381). Jazz was the music of a people finally diving headfirst into the freedom of life. media type="custom" key="25176532"

**Sources:** http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/uni/nec/pici73.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPK2ZlHAhI8&list=PLbZ5buaADkXNS4wU_f3oSvcmfciApmqVd&index=55

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyYF1zhKSU4

Historical & Political Context
While Dorcas’s death took place in the winter of 1926, the entire story is heavily impacted by the actions that take place before that, in the childhoods of Joe Trace, Alice Manfred, and Violet. These people grew up in a time of great strife, when equality among colored and white populations was in great demand. The migration to the North that Joe Trace and Violet take part in began a little after 1910, a year after the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, is founded.



Seven years after the migration began, in 1917, forty African and eight whites are killed in the riots in East St. Louis, Illinois. These are the same riots that claimed the lives of Dorcas’s parents. Later that same year, Alice Manfred takes Dorcas to Fifth Avenue to view a protest, organized by the NAACP, against the violence and death in the East St. Louis riots. The riots did not end there, and in 1919, during what would be called the “Red Summer,” additional race riots leave behind at least 100 corpses. The violence was created by the white population who resented the African American population that was working in industry and those who had migrated to the North. Some of this anger influences the experience that Joe Trace and Violet have in the South. Between when they were cheated under the influence of Clayton Bede, who raised their debt from $180 to $800, and when they were chased off of their land with “two slips of paper I never saw nor signed.” (//Jazz//, pg. 126)



In the 1920s, Mamie Smith records the first blues record on the Okeh label, “Crazy Blues.” This begins a rise of prominent blues and jazz music, from “Shuffle Along,” a musical comedy, to “Down Hearted Blues,” a track recorded by Bessie Smith. This is the beginning of the music that Alice blames for causing the violence and riots. Interestingly enough, in 1926, when Dorcas was murdered, Louis Armstrong formed his “Hot Five” band, beginning his legendary career.

**Sources** http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/timeline/building_03.html

Video & Film Clips or Other Media (optional; may also be distributed in various sections)
Morrison discusses what it was like growing up her hometown in Lorain, Ohio (where the novel is set) regarding the segregation and racism. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeoFyiMvQQQ The Toni Morrison Society http://www.tonimorrisonsociety.org/

An interview where Morrison talks about books, //Beloved//, //The Bluest Eye//, essays, her influences, and on writing in general. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulQLCc5m-_I

A shorter interview by Time http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUr_XoMCPFA Morrison talks about her motivation for writing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8Zgu2hrs2k