What Is The Portrayal Of African American Women In Jazz

The novel Jazz by Toni Morrison is a great historical fiction that portrays the lives of African Americans men and woman’s via race, gender, and music. The novel offers many critical approaches but Feminist/Gender stands out as the main approach because of the novel themes portrayed by the African American women’s characters, such as their romantic love and relationships; desire; power and role in the society; and the violence. Toni Morrison does an exceptional job with the novel characters and depicting them with the different persona, but her portrayal of African American women stands out clearly because she highly emphasizes on African American women’s romantic love and desire. For instance, Toni Morrison displays romantic love as an important
element in the novel that plays a role to sabotage female characters. In the novel, the main characters like Violet, Joe, and Rose are illustrated as the victims of the romantic love because they grow up without a mother and their love. In the article “In Search of My Mother's Garden, I Found My Own: Mother-Love, Healing, and Identity in Toni Morrison's Jazz ” O’Reilly states, “Jazz is thus a story about the wounding and healing of unmothered children” (O’Reilly, p.368). The author of novel highly emphasizes on mother loves because in the novel the characters don’t get that love and they never learn how to love themselves and others properly. The death of their parents leads these characters to sabotage themselves to become more violent, independent, and lost as they never received the parents love and nurture. O’Reilly starts her writing by stating Morrison’s message about mother role, “Morrison argues that self-love depends upon the self’s first being loved by another self. Before the child can love herself… in all her writings Morrison emphasizes how essential mothering is for the emotional well-being of children because it is the mother who first loves the child and gives that child a loved sense of self” (O’Reilly, p. 367).
Next, Morrison illustrates these characters in adult relationships and shows how it can affect their romantic love with their loved ones if one doesn’t get the parental love. In the text, Violet is married to Joe and they aren’t shown as a loveable and in a mutual relationship because Joe Trace isn’t loyal and committed to her. Violet explains she married joe because she “didn’t want to be like her mother, never like that” (Morrison p.97). Violet mother killed herself because of hate, race, and poverty. Also, Morrison describes Violet as a character who is lost in herself and silent. Therefore, one can conclude that due to the deaths of their parents at an early age, they couldn’t get the love and care, which led their adulthood with independence, damaging oneself and struggle to love others.
Second, Morrison talks about the Black lives hardship in the Jazz era and early in the novel, where characters are victims of race and hate. However, Morrison portrays African American women’s as a powerful, skillful and independent women’s contribution to the society. In this beginning of the article “The Burden of Liberty: Choice in Toni Morrison's Jazz and Toni Cade Bambara's The Salt Eaters” Alwes talks that, “African American woman, for instance, it is often tempting to imagine that that individual is representative of the cultural groups to which she/he belongs, that s/he speaks on behalf of these groups” (Alwes, p. 353). Alwes highly emphasizes African Culture and the women and talks about Morrison’s purpose of women display in the novel, which is to portray them as a strong character to discover liberty and power. Also, their representation to showcase the African culture and their women. Also, Toni Morrison presents African American women as a skillful and independent business owner contributing to the society and helping each other. In the article “Toni Morrison's ‘Jazz’: Negotiations of the African American Beauty Culture”, Richard Pearce talks about the status of African Americans in this era, especially women’s about their hair and includes topics like jazz, their lifestyles, and roles in the communities. His perspective about African Americans, culture and lifestyle gives an audience a depth and understanding of “Jazz” by Toni Morrison.
Peirce states, “Violet is an independent hairdresser, admired for her skill”, Peirce talks about one of the main female protagonist and one could get the understanding and the status of an African American women’s in this era. Jazz era was all about social, culture, beauty, and music. In this article, the author states “hairdressing and beauty products” played a vital role in the African American communities (Peirce p.308). Discrimination was still a big factor and when hairdressing and beauty products became popular, many white-owned drug stores, department stores, and chain stores denied to locate in black communities. Also, hairdressing and beauty trend gave men opportunity to make earn money. “Violet who could style hair women’s homes for less than the beauty shops would charge, and provided opportunities for men like Joe who could sell beauty products from door to door” this demonstrates that the trend helped men to earn money as well as the women’s as Peirce states, “African American beauty for working and middle-class African American women and created a new profession where women could earn from five to ten times what they could make in domestic services” (Peirce p. 312). This article by Richard Pearce gives a great insight into African American women’s and their roles and their status.
Third, In the novel, Toni Morrison presents few characters that are victims of violent and characters who have violent persona because Morrison explains that characters, such as Violet and Joe end up having violent quality because of the trauma they experienced from parents early death, where they didn’t receive the care and love.
In the article “Traces and Cracks: Identity and Narrative in Toni Morrison's Jazz”, Carolyn M Jones talks about the struggle and violence a woman bears in the novel. Jones goes in depth to demonstrate women violence and their struggle by analyzing the characters. Jones states the theme of the story at the beginning of the article, “the novel is concerned with the theme of arming: of moving from the violence that wounds the self to a reconstructed identity and to love.” Throughout the paper, Jones goes in-depth to talk about identity, sexual violence, and violence against women. For instance, Jones talks about the novel character Dorcas, who is an unloved child and lost parents and has become a dangerous woman. Dorcas has become a dangerous woman because she is living to survive and to survive “her body is her offering.” Also, Jones mentions, “Dorcas is Anton’s toy” where she is victimized as an object (Jones, p. 481). Also, Dorcas was murdered by Joe because she left Joe for another man. Craig Seligman writes, “how Joe Trace "fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deep down, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just
to keep the feeling going.” Women’s were mostly dominated by the men and they were not controlled. Dorcas aunt talks about how Joe escaped prosecution, "found out that the man who killed her niece cried all day and for him and for Violet that is as bad as jail." In the novel, Morrison presents most of the characters with good and bad characters as they show love and violence. These claims from Carolyn M and Graig Seligman shows perfect evidence of women and men roles in the novel, which represents women’s in the Jazz era were victimized and were fully dominated by the men’s as their object or property, which they could do anything over and demonstrates them as a victim of violence (Craig, p.8).
Again, Morrison not only portrays women’s as the victims of violence but she portrays women’s as a violence perpetrator too.
One article by Craig Seligman criticizes the characters by gender and their characteristics and deeds. Basically, the author critics the persona of the character as a violent character because they tortured others for their own benefit. Craig Seligman elaborates in a paragraph about the characters being extreme and states, how Violet Trace "went to the funeral to see the girl and to cut her dead face." In the novel, when Violet Trace, the wife of Joe Trace learns that Joe cheated on her and had secret affair with Dorcas, Violet goes to Dorcas funeral to torture her even after she is dead to get the revenge (Craig, p.8). In addition, Violet act of taking revenge on Dorcas shows a very violent side of her but it also shows the desire to fight for what she loves, which is Joe Trace. Toni Morrison perfectly displays in the novel that many characters grew up without the parents love and care, which made them more desirable when they were adult. Deborah A. McDowell writes in her article “Harlem Nocturne.” The Women's Review of Books, "a woman [who] loved something other than herself so much," and wondered "what it is that really compels a good woman to displace the self, herself. ." The lover escapes punishment because the dying woman will not speak his name” (Deborah, p.4). Deborah reference to this quote was to present women role in the novel and one can
conclude they’re represented as a quite violent but a desirable and a lover at the same time. Ultimately, Toni Morrison excellently presents the African American women lives in the Jazz era that was dominated by hate and race in the novel Jazz. However, Toni Morrison also portrays the women’s as a strong and a victim of male domination via their hardship, role in the society, and their relationships.