All Frank’s efforts to form his masculinity are unsuccessful until he revisits Lotus with Cee. As the double narrative demonstrates, a supporting relationship with Cee is the key factor. The third-person perspective, with the voices of people around Frank, presents how women around Frank consider him a man. The first-person’s point of view, on the other hand, demonstrates how Frank values the women around him. Together, the first and third-person narratives demonstrate that women have a great impact on the re-formation of Frank’s black masculinity. Lily is the first woman who consoles Frank but she fails to heal him. Cee, most important of all, is the one who learns with Frank about the meaning of being black, being a brother and being a man.
Frank’s first-person perspective shows that Frank loves her with all his heart and the third-person narrative also demonstrates that Lily wants to have a family with
Frank. However, Frank’s trauma is the obstacle to building a family with Lily. As Frank’s first-person narrative reveals, Lily “[made] me want to be good enough for her” (69). Frank loves her so he makes efforts on being a considerate and responsible man who pays for her dresser, who smokes outside the apartment and who raises the toilet seat. Besides, he claims that she relieves him from the traumatic pictures of his friends dying in the war as the third-person narrative displays that “[o]nly with Lily did the picture fade, move behind a screen in his brain, pale but waiting, waiting and accusing” (21). He tries to show his masculinity by supporting Lily; however, forming a masculinity also requires a relationship with women which is frank enough to support each other in any circumstance. When Frank escapes from the hospital, he refuses to ask for Lily’s help because he feels this shameful behavior makes him effeminate. As a result, this oblique way to get along with Lily works partially for the re-formation of his masculinity. The third-person narrative on Lily, on the other hand, denies Frank’s efforts to love her as it shows that Frank shares the housework merely temperately and that Frank has an untouchable pain deep in his mind. Lily knows it must be the war irritates him, but she has no way to learn about his problem. Unable to face his traumatic past, Frank has an incomplete self and his emasculated
masculinity is too fragile to support a family. As a result, Frank shows no willingness to buy a house and form a family with her. Despite a loving relationship with Lily, who tries to console Frank and to provoke his caring masculinity, Frank is unable to form a family with her.
In Home, Morrison invests a form of non-sexual relationship—brother and sister.
In this relationship, Frank is masculine but non-sexual (Bollen 39). Cee, as Frank’s beloved sister, who needs the help of Frank, is also a family member who supports Frank and connects him to the community. Although Cee is saved and protected by Frank, Frank needs Cee to gain the prowess from village women and to connect
himself to the community. As Morrison specifies, black women’s relationship with men is different from any other races because they have sheltered their men (Bollen 39). Traditionally, black women constitute a sisterhood which is strong enough to save not only women in the community but families, including men, in the community. The connection to the community, hence, is significant for supporting black men. In
Home, Frank firstly learns about Cee is at risk due to Cee’s sisterhood with Sarah.
Sarah, who works with Cee, shares a good time with her like a family for Cee feels [t]his was a good, safe place, she knew, and Sarah had become her family, her friend, and her confidant. They shared every meal and sometimes the cooking. When it was too hot in the kitchen, they ate in the backyard under a canopy, smelling the last of the lilacs and watching tiny lizards flick across the walkway (65).
Later, perceiving the danger of Cee, Sarah informs Frank to rescue her. Due to the sisterhood between Sarah and Cee, Frank embarks on his journey to save Cee.
Returning to Lotus, both Frank and Cee are assisted by the village women to redefine their identities as a man/woman. During the healing process, the community women tell Cee to spread her legs under the sunshine. To be sun-smacked, it is necessary that Cee re-sees her body without shame and identifies her body as a black woman
physically. Moreover, Miss Ethel teaches her to re-think the meaning of being a black and to face slavery bravely as she educates Cee that deciding her identity according to others’ will “is slavery” (126). In addition, Cee is invited to the quilting center, which is a symbol of black culture. Cee also thinks the village women strengthen her a lot.
Due to their help, Cee is able to revisit and understand the horse scene so that she can bury the dog-fight men with her quilt with Frank. Besides, on their way to the horse scene, she, with her ankles hurt by her sandals, makes up her mind that she doesn’t want to listen to whatever Frank says as “she told herself. I don’t want Frank making
decisions for me,” which is a remark of an independent woman (142). The last time Cee is hurt by her shoes is when Cee shows up at the doctor’s door. At that time, she was the girl lacked self-dominance and the woman was controlled by others, such as the shoes and the doctor. When she complains Frank for bringing her to the scene, she finally grows up to understand nobody, including her beloved brother, can make a decision for herself. For Frank, on the other hand, the village women also indirectly help his re-formation of masculinity as they tell him that his masculinity is useless in healing Cee so that he comes back to repair their old house. Only when Frank revisits the house does he appreciate the beauty of his hometown and realize that masculinity is also about family-caring. Family-supporting is essential for the development of Frank’s masculinity because Frank can be psychologically brave enough only with the healing and consoling of Cee.
Cee is important in relieving many of Frank’s traumas for several reasons. In the first place, Frank’s trauma in the war, including the war trauma and the trauma of sexual encounter, is relieved because of the family with Cee. On the train to Atlanta to rescue Cee, Frank is surprised to learn that he becomes brave enough that the war trauma doesn’t hover in his mind anymore as “Frank suddenly realized that those memories, powerful as they were, did not crush him anymore or throw him into paralyzing despair” (100). When Frank is with Cee, he realizes that being with Cee brings the healing salvation to the trauma of Korean girl. This time, Frank uses a firm and strong tone to express his attitude, dodging his mistakes by condemning the one shooting the girl’s head and hiding the sexual intercourse—he admits his faults and makes a possibility to form a masculinity in a healthier way. Hence, Cee is the key for Frank to face his traumas in the war. Secondly, his childhood trauma in Lotus is healed in his relationship with Cee since Cee makes him return to learn the beauty of their hometown. Frank’s first-person narrative declares that “[o]nly my sister in
trouble could force me to even think about going in that direction” to show that Cee is the key element for Frank to go home (84). However, when he returns to Lotus with Cee, he re-thinks this place with appreciation. And Lotus is no longer the place unable to provoke any deep thoughts as Frank starts to understand the meanings behind the heavy labor. Last but not least, Cee is the most crucial figure for Frank to face the racial trauma in the dog-fight scene. Due to Cee, Frank can inquire their grandfather about the horse scene. To heal the racial trauma in the horse scene, Frank buries the
“dog-fight men” with the quilt made by Cee, which implies that the black culture and black women’s tradition are necessary to relieve the pain of the race. In the burying scene, Frank sees the ghostly zoot-suitor grinning. The zoot-suitor is an image of the black men at the time when black men have no other way to exhibit their masculinity except for wearing the zoot suit and doing something against the rules (Bollen 41). As the zoot-suitor represents black men at the age, his smile symbolizes black men’s agreement that the masculinity of black men is re-defined. Another remark in the burying scene is the epitaph Frank writes for the dog-fight men, which is “Here Stands a Man.” It implies that Frank, burying the traumatic past, finally redefines the meaning of masculinity. In contrast to men’s brutality defined by the “stand” in the horse scene, Frank now is aware that mentally stand by his family is more important.
The power of the word “Stan[d],” therefore, is transformed from physical strength into a symbolic standing, which means supporting the family, like Frank standing by Cee. Cee, fragile as she used to be, actually saves Frank.
IV. Conclusion
In Home, the re-formation of Frank’s black masculinity redefines his personal identity as a man, his familial identity as a brother and his racial identity as a black.
Only when Frank works with his beloved sister can he return home to face and heal
his traumas, which is necessary for the re-formation of masculinity. As Frank and Cee face the racial trauma and bury the dog-fights men, the dehumanization of the blacks in the past and his relationship with women are portrayed in the re-formation of Frank’s masculinity.
Conclusion
Jazz and Home manifest the processes of re-formation of black masculinity in different historical periods. Although the male protagonists in Jazz and Home are traumatized for different reasons, they are consoled and healed by their beloved women. Black men’s cooperation with women has been essential since slavery because both black men and women suffer from the dehumanization and the pain makes them understand each other. As Jazz and Home show men’s relationships with women are the crucial factor in the re-formation of black masculinity.
Morrison shows her engagement by rejecting the stereotypical image of black masculinity as she depicts the development and the emotion of black men. She unveils the unseen of black men with subtlety so that the readers can observe how black masculinity has been de-formed. Morrison contributes to the world with her words because of the image of the re-formed masculinity.
As the analysis of Jazz and Home proves, the re-formation of black masculinity requires the assistance of women, with the help of their sisterhood. Jazz represents Joe’s healing process in the 1920s, the Jazz Age. To console Joe, women play the important role. When Violet is consoled by Alice’s friendship, she is able to face her traumas.
After Joe’s childhood trauma is healed by Dorcas and his pain for losing his lover is consoled by Felice, he is able to form a family with Violet. When Joe’s masculinity is re-formed, he is able to reunite with Violet to form a family. Home, on the other hand, illustrates the 1950s, when the black men return from the Korean War, from which they win less social attention than expected. Frank’s journey of rescuing Cee is a self-salvation. Only when Cee is physically and mentally healed by the village women can she form a family with Frank. With the help of Cee, Frank is able to connect himself to the community so that he can face the racial traumas, build a family and re-form his
black masculinity. Although the backgrounds of these novels are set in different periods, black men’s cooperative relationship with women is essential for the re-formation of black masculinity.
Although the traumas of the blacks cannot be completely healed easily, men are empowered by women, who have learned to survive by the strong sisterhood, by working with them. Once men have a cooperating relationship with women, they are able to face the pain shared by the race together. Men’s relationship with women, hence, is needed to relieve their pain. With a cooperating relationship between men and women, men are able to form a family with love. In this family, they know the deformation of their masculinity so that they are able to re-form their masculinity. The image of a loving black man also encourages black boys to cooperate with women to defeat the de-formation of the black masculinity in the white society.
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