Jazz: Analysis of Major Characters
"Jazz: Analysis of Major Characters" provides an in-depth look at the complex relationships and personal histories of key figures in the narrative. The unnamed narrator serves as an omniscient observer, weaving together the stories of the main characters with a keen sense of insight and imagination. Central to the narrative is Violet Trace, who grapples with her troubled past marked by familial abandonment and personal trauma, ultimately struggling with her identity and relationships in Harlem. Joe Trace, her husband, is portrayed as a multifaceted character who battles his own demons, including intense love and jealousy, leading to tragic decisions that shape their lives. Dorcas Manfred, a young woman caught between her desires for youth and freedom, finds herself in a relationship with Joe that spirals into tragedy. The narrative also features Alice Manfred, Dorcas's strict aunt, whose protective nature is rooted in fear from past violence, contrasting with the liberating yet chaotic essence of jazz music that permeates their lives. Finally, Felice, Dorcas's best friend, emerges as a crucial figure who helps mend the fractures in the Trace marriage. The interplay of these characters against a backdrop of cultural and historical challenges illustrates the depth of their struggles and the resilience of their spirits.
Jazz: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Toni Morrison
First published: 1992
Genre: Novel
Locale: Harlem, New York, and Virginia
Plot: Psychological realism
Time: 1926, with flashbacks to before the Civil War
The narrator, never identified by name. Her voice and vision are always unmistakable. Like the neighborhood gossip, she sees, hears, and knows everything. What she does not know, she imagines, chastising herself when she is not as accurate or as reliable as she should be. She is the storyteller who must get the whole story right.
Violet Trace, born in rural Virginia, the third of five children whose insane mother drowned herself in a well. Her father visited his family occasionally as he worked underground for a political party “that favored nigger voting.” His absence led to his family's dispossession. She is reared for eleven years by her grandmother, whose Baltimore stories of the beloved blond-haired son of her mistress and a local African American boy corrupt Violet's image of herself and her race. She marries Joe Trace and works the fields with him until they migrate north to Harlem. Twenty years later, she loses control over her actions and words, retreating into silence until a second Violet emerges to strike out at her husband's dead girlfriend. By “killing” that Violet and befriending the dead girl's best friend, Felice, Violet restores herself.
Joe Trace, an orphan and a survivor. He says he remade himself eight times during his life, the last being one time too many. Joe is described as a handsome fifty-year-old, a nice, neighborly man who straightens the children's toys in front of the apartment building, whom people let into their homes to sell them his Cleopatra cosmetics, who walks women home from the trolley, and who is safe. He kills his lover, Dorcas Manfred, when she leaves him for the young “roosters” her own age. His action garners him more sympathy than condemnation, as neighbors understand that he was caught up in a love more powerful than he could control.
Dorcas Manfred, who is reared by her strict aunt, Alice, after her parents are murdered in the East St. Louis riots of 1917. Music, parties, and her own body make her restricted life unbearable. Dorcas is rejected by several young men. She shares evenings with Joe in a rented room, as Joe lavishes gifts and unqualified acceptance upon her. After three months, Joe is not enough. Dorcas needs a young man, young blood, dancing, and jazz. Joe finds her and shoots her.
Alice Manfred, a widowed woman in her fifties who had been frightened for a long time in Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York, until she moved to Harlem, where there were no white people. She rears her niece with strictness to control the fear. Only when she takes Dorcas to the parade commemorating the two hundred people killed in the 1917 riots, drawn in by the drums and the cold black faces, does she feel connected to other African Americans. The drums provide fortitude, but the jazz music young men play from rooftops is dangerous, sexual, and angry. After Violet cuts Dorcas' dead face, Alice lets Violet into her living room, treats her rudely, and lends her Dorcas' photograph. Having lost her own husband years ago, first to another woman and then to death, Alice helps Violet hold onto hers, even though he is her niece's murderer.
Felice, Dorcas' best friend, who becomes part of a “scandalizing threesome on Lenox Avenue” with Joe and Violet three months after Dorcas' death. Reared by a grandmother while both of her parents worked for white people at Tuxedo Junction, she saw them only thirty-two days a year (she has counted). She is Dorcas'alibi the night her friend is killed and the last person Dorcas speaks to. Her first meeting with Joe and Violet Trace is to inquire about the opal ring she loaned Dorcas that last night. She returns because she likes them, and she becomes the catalyst for repair of the Traces' marriage.