Jazz Review

Section 1 The novel starts out with the narrator identifying that she knows Violet and Joe briefly describes their relationship and how Joe fell in love with and then shot an eighteen year old girl. This leads to Violet cutting the dead girls face at her funeral. Violet then decides that she wants to learn more about this girl. She goes everywhere in search of information about the girl, eventually finding out things like her favorite band to the lip stick she wore. Violet even visits the dead girl’s house, where Violet acquires a picture of the girl’s face. This is a very intense introduction to the reading. I feel it was used to grab and throw the reader into the very interesting plot. It also starts in a very particular way; the first word is more of a sound “sth”. It is an interesting starting word and it also gives a casual voice for the narration of the story.
Then the novel goes into detail about the city and how it makes the narrator feel strong, “Alone, yes, but top-notch and indestructible-like the city in 1926…”(Morrison 7) and at the same time a feeling of danger, needing to “heed the design-the way it’s laid out for you” (Morrison 9). During the nights Joe and Violet take turns looking at the dead girl’s picture, which is in the living room on the mantel. Violet does hairdressing, this was not a main job for her, but since Joe started to miss work, this was where they got the extra money.
Before the funeral incident happened Violet had many other public displays of strange behavior. One example was she sat in the middle of the street until some stranger picked her up and brought her to the sidewalk and another time was when she walked off with a baby that some girl asked if she could watch for a second.
This section is a basic summary of the plot of this novel. As the book progresses the reader gets more detailed accounts and explanations of characters and events.

Section 2 The next section also picks up with the end of the last section but is separated fromwith a blank page. The section before ends “… answered back: I love you. (Morrisson 24) and then starts with “Or used to” (Morrison 27). The sections are given connection, even though the novel at times can seem jumbled.
While Joe and Violet look at the picture of Dorcas, Violet can only imagine what Dorcas was like. Joe remembers the memories with her during the three months of the affair. He can remember those details so vividly and when he thinks about the beginning of his relationship with Violet he can only recall dates and events, but no feelings behind them. He reminisces when he first met Dorcas while going to Alice Manfred’s house to sell some of his Cleopatra beauty products.
The novel back tracks to when Joe and Violet meet in Vesper County and how the boarded a train to the city. It is ironic that the train is called the Southern Sky; the sky is referred to and described multiple times throughout this novel. It “can empty itself of surface, and more like the ocean than the ocean itself, go deep, starless” (Morrison 35). Also the train is what is transporting them to their new lives and they are filled with love and dreams of their new chapter in the city.
After twenty years Joe can no longer try to make their marriage work. Joe rents a room from his neighbor, so if he ever has a lady friend he will have some place where they can go in private and without disturbances. He brings Dorcas there and they talk about their childhoods and other secrets about their lives. Both partially know their own mothers, Joe’s he could only see her as he hid in the brush and Dorcas’s mother died in a house fire when she was young.
The reader then meets Malvonne, a neighbor of Joe and Violet who loves gossip. She works as an office cleaner. She finds unsent letters, hidden, in her nephew’s room, reading them and then sending them to the labeled recipient. Joe arrives to her apartment. She is expecting him to be selling his beauty products, but that is not the case. Joe is there to see if he can rent out her nephew’s room while she is gone at work. She refused, but eventual she gives in.



Section three of Jazz is where we get to know Alice Manfred. We learn that Alice becomes a surrogate mother to Dorcas after the death of Dorcas’s parents during the riots in East St. Louis. She actually ends up blaming their deaths on jazz music, which was at this time starting to surface and become popular. Here, we also learn that Dorcas has a rebellious side to her. This side contrasts sharply with her conservative aunt Alice. Alice wants Dorcas to be more like her, but Dorcas wants to do what is trendy and popular. I like that this section relates jazz music to the plot line. While addressing the death of Dorcas’s parents, the narrator writes of the music, “It made you do unwise disorderly things. Just hearing it was like violating the law” (Morrison, 58). I like that Morrison uses the juxtaposition of the characters Alice and Dorcas to show how influential and controversial jazz music was. Right after we learn Alice’s personality, the narrator describes who Dorcas is. Dorcas sneaks out to a party with Felice and the narrator writes, “Alice Manfred had worked hard to privatize her niece, but she was no match for a City seeping music that begged and challenged each and every day” (Morrison, 67). This section gave us a lot of insight to both Alice and Dorcas.

The fourth section is where we get a good grasp on the double-consciousness that Violet experiences. She reflects her actions, excusing them by saying that she didn’t do them, but that Violet did. This is also the section where Violet sets her bird free. It isn’t until she no longer can see or hear it, that she realizes she misses it and did truly care about it. I liked that Morrison really gave us insight to Violet’s character in this section because we learn a lot about her interior motives. At first, when I had read that she slashed the face of Dorcas at her funeral, I was appalled by how cruel that was. In this section, I am still not able to excuse that action, but I find it more understandable based on how Violet had, in a sense, lost her mind. She states her reasons by saying, “And that’s why it took so much wrestling to get me down, keep me down and out of that coffin where she was the heifer who took what was mine, what I chose, picked out and determined to have and hold on to” (Morrison, 95). I find it interesting that Violet says that she chose Joe, but Joe says that Dorcas, rather than Violet, is the only thing in his life that he has ever chosen himself. Morrison developed Violet’s character more deeply in this chapter.




Section Eight begins at a party. Dorcus is dancing with a man named Acton. She has just fought with Joe. During the fight she told him that he made her sick and that she wanted to end the relationship. Despite hurting his feelings, she claims that had not been her intention. She states that she only wanted to be able to talk to friends about her relationship. The whole time at the party, the reader sees the repeated phrase, “He’s coming for me,” five times. Dorcus seems to be aware of her fate. The readers then see her death through her eyes. This is the first time that the reader sees the story from Dorcus’s point of view. By seeing her point of view only during her death, Morrison makes a statement about Dorcus as a character. I found this to be very interesting and gave me more insight into Dorcus. Rather than evoking sympathy, this depiction of Dorcus shows her as a selfish naïve girl.

Section Nine begins when Felice goes to visit the Trace’s. Felice received a stolen opal ring from her mother and had lent the ring to Dorcus. Felice went to visit the Trace’s in hopes of getting her ring back and to tell Joe to stop mourning the selfish Dorcus. The second time she visited was to observe more about the couple. It is revealed that the ring was buried with Dorcus. Felice tells Joe that he was the last thing Dorcus talked about before she died. Joe and Violet begin to dance. Felice seems to be a symbol of healing. After dinner Felice comments on the spiciness of the dinner. “I drank a lot of water so as not to hurt her feelings. It eased the pain.” (Morrison 216) I think that Morrison meant this to be a symbol of the healing that began between Joe and Violet. Another symbol in this chapter is that of the opal ring. The opal ring seems to stand for want: When Felice’s mother it was the want for power and rebellion, in Dorcus’s case it was the want for superficial beauty and popularity. When Felice is able to let go of the ring, she also appears to let go of her original bitterness towards Dorcus. Another interesting thing in this chapter is that Felice almost becomes a surrogate daughter to Joe and Violet.

Section Ten begins with an insight into the narrator. The narrator takes on a character of her own. I think this was a very different approach. Morrison takes a risk that most authors do not. The narrator is usually not an outsider looking in, but an actual character present throughout the novel. Morrison also says that in this case, history did not repeat and the cycle was broken. This is a new theme for the type of novels the class has been studying and a positive one. The section goes on to show Violet’s and Joe’s relationship. The couple enjoys both public and private love. Morrison presents their affection for one another in an unusual way for the story. Had the reader only read the final chapter, the Traces might appear to be any other couple; a couple that had never dealt with problems, let alone an affair and a murder. I thought this was a very interesting note for Morrison to end the novel with.