童妮˙莫里森的《爵士樂》與《家》中黑人男性特質的重構

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系碩士論文 Master’s Thesis The Re-formation of Black Masculinity in Toni Morrison’s Jazz and Home 童妮˙莫里森的《爵士樂》與《家》中黑人男性特質的重構指導教授:蔡佳瑾李秀娟研究生:賴怡頻. 中華民國一○六年八月 August 2017.

(2) Lai 1. 摘要本論文研究童妮˙莫里森的《爵士樂》與《家》中男性特質如何藉由與配偶及手足等女性的互動而重構其黑人男性特質。在《爵士樂》中，爵士樂的音樂結構顯示了喬的黑人男性特是由於情人們的安慰而獲得重構。在《家》中，法蘭克的黑人男性特質重構乃是藉由妹妹的撫慰。關鍵字: 童妮˙莫里森，《爵士樂》，《家》，黑人男性特質，男女關係.

(3) Lai 2. Abstract In this thesis, I will focus on Jazz and Home to examine black masculinity developed in the relationships with women, spouses, and siblings through men’s interactions with women. In Jazz, Joe’s masculinity is shown to be re-formed with the help of his lovers in the structure of jazz music. In Home, Frank’s masculinity is reformed due to his sister’s consoling. Keywords: Toni Morrison, Jazz, Home, Black Masculinity, Men and Women’s Relationship.

(4) Lai 3. Acknowledgement I would like to first acknowledge to my advisors, Chia-Chin Tsai and HsiuChuan Lee for their advices and patience. They gave me advices without any interference. Next, I want to show my gratitude to my friends. Tirina Chen gave me advices on every word I wrote. Marshall Lin and Chia-Wei Yang gave me advices on every step I took. Yi-Hsuan Huang and Hui-Shun Chiu accompanied me during the hard time. Last but not least, I thank my family for their support. Without you, I can’t finish this thesis..

(5) Lai 4. Table of Contents Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………..p.5 Chapter 1 “Right Key for the Right Keyhole”: Jazz, Women and Men in Jazz …………………………………………………………………………………..p.25 Chapter 2 “Here Stands a Man”: War, Family and Masculinity in Home …………………………………………………………………………………..p.43 Conclusion. …………………………………………………………………………………..p.59 Works Cited. …………………………………………………………………………………..p.61.

(6) Lai 5. Introduction. Toni Morrison excels in demonstrating a subtle development of raced and gender identity by depicting the relationship between black men and women. In Morrison’s illustration of gender relationships, black masculinity, stereotypically framed in terms of sexual or physical violence, is redefined due to the perception of the importance of their family. By cooperating with women, black women, heretofore gain the power from community, can understand the trauma of their men and console them. Hence, black men who are consoled by women are able to face the racial violence and to reject the black masculinity deformed by the mass media. Furthermore, their familial love with women nudges men to re-form their masculinity with the care of their family. In this thesis, I will divulge the process that black masculinity is redefined by familial values by examining the gender relationships represented in the text. By investigating the interactions of men and women, I argue that black men’s relationships with women influence the cultivation of black masculinity in Toni Morrison’s novels, Jazz and Home, in which black men have close relationships with women. In Morrison’s novels, the development of black masculinity is embedded in the narrative style. Toni Morrison has engaged in race and gender issues as the Nobel committee said, “Toni Morrison is a literary artist of the first rank. She delves into the language itself, a language she wants to liberate from the fetter of race. And she addresses us with the luster of poetry” (Ellis 166). Among Morrison’s novels, Jazz and Home are out-standing for presenting the development of masculinity with concerns of men’s relationships with women. As the following demonstrates, the male protagonist in Jazz, painful for the loss of his lover, is consoled by the power of.

(7) Lai 6. family while the male protagonist in Home, traumatized in the war, is consoled by his beloved sister. In this thesis, The Re-formation of Black Masculinity: On Toni Morrison’s Jazz and Home, I will focus on Jazz and Home to examine black masculinity developed in the relationships with women, spouses, and siblings through men’s interactions with women. By emphasizing “re-formation,” I argue that the black protagonists re-form their masculinity and move beyond the stereotypical image of black men produced by the white culture. The traumatized protagonists build a family with love and also redefine their masculinity by cooperating with women. In addition to love, the memories and experiences they shared make them a family. S Michael Kimmel also suggests that the emotional connection can be a solution for a family (106). In Jazz, Joe’s trauma of being abandoned by his mother and his pain of losing his lover are consoled by the love that Violet and Felice provide. Frank in Home, on the other hand, is partially recovered from his war trauma, childhood trauma, and racial trauma because Cee provides him with the power to console him. Although Morrison displays the development of masculinity and men’s interactions with women in many novels, the healing power of the relationships between men and women are best illustrated in Jazz and Home, in which the male protagonists are helped by their women to re-form their masculinity and to build a home. Hence, by investigating Jazz and Home, I aim to shed new light on the black masculinity re-formed by their relationships with women. To embark on the investigation of black masculinity developed in the relationships with women, Morrison’s multiple-voiced narrative is unavoidably important. By employing multiple perspectives, Morrison demonstrates African American oral tradition as she declares in “Rootedness” that she adopts the form of “chorus” in her books. In Morrison’s novels, the characters always respond to each.

(8) Lai 7. other like a chorus, which “uses the characteristics of Black art” (60). This narrative style is also featured in both Jazz and Home to unveil the development of masculinity. In Jazz, Morrison adopts the structural musicality of jazz music in the narrative to display how music harmonizes the hostile male and female protagonists. In Home, Morrison embraces the multiple-voiced narrative to demonstrate how the male protagonist re-forms his traumatized manhood with a linkage to his beloved sister. Aaron Ngozi Oforlea suggests that “Morrison construct[s] counter narratives and counter-memories to provide a cultural and literary analysis of African American identity and subjectivity” to indicate that black masculinity is an identity represented or even formed in Morrison’s narrative (Oforlea 25-26). Therefore, to investigate men’s identity developed in their relationships with women, Morrison’s narrative style is essential. Despite Morrison’s engagement, black masculinity developed with the cooperation with women does not win sufficient attention in academic studies. I aim to investigate the re-formation of the hegemonic masculinity defined by patriarchy, such as the masculinity with emphasis on physical strength and sexual aggressiveness. In this thesis, I will investigate black men’s development of their identity as a man with their relationships with women in American society.. I.. Black Men’s Relationships with Women Black men’s relationships with women can be explored from diverse. perspectives in Morrison’s novels since many critics, including Morrison herself, have indicated the subtle connection between men and women can impact the cultivation of a racial identity (Susan Neal Mayberry 1). In many of Morrison’s novels, black characters have the power to influence the family and also the community. Morrison, additionally, declares the cooperation between black men and women in interviews.

(9) Lai 8. (Christopher Bollen and Dana Micucci). Despite the general focus on the female characters in Jazz and Home, black men are of equal importance as women for the family in Morrison’s novels. In many of Morrison’s novels, such as The Bluest Eye, Sula and Beloved, the families are depicted as incomplete because racial violence fractures the black family and makes the black man unable to support a family as a man is obliged to do. As a convention, women form a sisterhood to help each other so that they are mentally strong enough to console men. To build a complete family, all the family members, including men and women, need to cooperate to decrease the influence of racial violence and heal each other. Although the mis-representation of black masculinity de-forms black men’s relationship with black women, the power of sisterhood is essential for consoling black men and helping them to re-define their masculinity. In Toni Morrison’s novels, Morrison shows her attitudes toward the importance of the relationships between men and women in her depictions, such as the men independent from family in Song of Solomon, men hostile to women in Paradise and men sarcastically portrayed as the desire of everyone in Sula. However, the relationships between men and women, which are mixed with hatred, jealousy, unforgivingness, competition, show little help for the development of black masculinity. Only in Jazz and Home is the black masculinity directly nurtured by the warm interaction between men and women. Black men, as stated in black gender studies, have been stereotypically depicted as violent and sexually aggressive. As hooks indicates in We Real Cool, to sustain white men’s superiority, the image of violent black men has been socially constructed; however, this violent image becomes ineradicable for black men. In mass media, for instance, black men are frequently represented as claiming social control and masculinity with violence. In “Doing It for Daddy,” bell hooks criticizes the.

(10) Lai 9. representations of black men in the white-patriarchal dominant media where the black men are depicted as subordinated to the white men’s power. Black boys learn that using violence is the only way to survive. The violence against women, moreover, is regarded as sexual conquests. Because of the difficulties in proving their masculinity through other ways in the white society, such as being a breadwinner of a family, sexual conquest becomes the only affirmation of black men’s power (hooks, We Real Cool, Staples). The violence against women, however, is actually racial violence, which does not prove the masculinity of black men but hurts their relationship with women. Since all these stereotypical images of black masculinity form black male identity, it is undeniably important to reject all these images by re-forming the image of black masculinity. In Jazz, Morrison also implies that black masculinity is not about murdering violence through a hegemonic masculine hunter. In Hunters Hunter’s speech to his mulatto son, Golden Gray, Hunters Hunter shows hegemonic masculinity by emphasizing physical strength. To make a distinction between white man and black man, Hunters Hunter tells Golden Gray, “[b]e what you want—white or black, Choose. But if you choose black, you got to act black, meaning draw your manhood up—quicklike, and don’t bring me no whiteboy sass” (173). However, rather than the masculinity mis-defined as violent in the white patriarchy, Hunters Hunter’s hegemonic masculinity follows the survival principles in the law of nature. For Hunters Hunter, being a man means being physically and mentally strong and brave enough to face the predators in the wild because it is required to defeat the dangers to survive in the wild. He rejects all the femininity in masculinity, including the white man’s fancy attire. He also educates Joe “not to kill the tender and nothing female if you can help it,” which proves that the masculinity of Hunters Hunter is not violent but following the law of nature (175). This masculinity associated with survival is.

(11) Lai 10. useless in the environment of the City, where the discipline of survival changes. In this episode, Morrison illustrates black men’s identity is not limited to the socially deformed black masculinity. At the same time, she also implies that Hunters Hunter’s hegemonic masculinity can merely survive in the wild where he is free from the white dominance. When Joe, Hunter’s Hunter’s apprentice, comes to the City, the masculinity requiring “quicklike” becomes useless for every job Joe has. Additionally, many critics have perceived that Morrison shows equal attention to black women, men and their relationships. As McKay indicates, Morrison considers gender issues seriously, and she escapes the trap of stereotypical binary opposition between a man and woman. Dzregah, moreover, proves that Morrison’s concerns are not limited to women since she claims to think through the whole race. Many critics have pointed out that Morrison, who considers more about the whole race, including men and women, is more like a womanist1 than a feminist. For instance, Shilpi Bhattarcharya and Shruti Sangam show Morrison’s concern about both men and women of the race by indicating: Toni Morrison believes that survival of black women in a white racist society greatly depends upon their emphasis on loving their own race, their own culture, and loving themselves and not on engrossing themselves in white culture or white beauty standards (98). That is, Morrison concerns about the whole race, including women and men, not merely about women themselves. Kohzadi, Azizmohammadi and Afrougheh also agree that Morrison’s engagement in the existence of the wholeness of the race makes her a womanist. Furthermore, Morrison also claims in an interview, “I’m interested in. 1. Womanist: As Alice Walker defines in In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens, womanist is a woman who is “[c]ommitted to the survival and wholeness of an entire people, male and female” (xi). It shows women are engaged in the survival of the race by loving each other..

(12) Lai 11. how men are educated, how women relate to each other, how we are able to love, [. . .] The search for love and identity runs through most everything I write” (Micucci 278). This shows she writes in search for love and identity of both men and women. Hence, as many critics and Morrison herself state, the concern of black men and their relationships with women are of equal importance as women in Morrison’s novels. Among Morrison’s novels concerning the black men, Jazz and Home show how the male protagonists become mature enough to face their traumas due to the support of their beloved women. The female protagonists, consoled by women’s help from the community, are able to understand the pain of their men so that they support their men with love, which is essential for the development of black masculinity. Both Jazz and Home examine the black masculinity formed in the relationships with women. In addition to novels, Morrison reveals her deep concern about men in many of her talks. In interviews and essays, Morrison demonstrates that black masculinity tends to be effeminate in the white patriarchal society, so black men spend their lives proving their masculinity. Some critics, like Aaron Ngozi Oforlea, observe that Morrison advocates the need to re-form the deformed masculinity in many of her novels. In Playing in the Dark, Morrison shows the paradox in black men’s nursing role which is effeminate for their masculinity but is pervasive in the society by indicating that “[t]he black male nurses may verbalize destruction and doom, deny and contradict manliness, introduce and represent antagonism, but the Africanist codes keep them bound to their nursing function” (84). In the society denying black men’s masculinity, the responsibility of black men makes them busy proving themselves as Morrison indicates in an interview, “[Black men] frequently are reacting to a lot more external pressures than black women are. For one thing they have an enormous responsibility to be men [emphasis original]. [. . .] They’re so busy ‘proving something’ to some [audience or group]” (Childress 7). Despite the pressure.

(13) Lai 12. of being a man, black men bear the responsibility alone without emotional connections to others. The re-formation of black masculinity, which is shown to be necessary for Morrison’s novels, is found to be significant by critics as Oforlea proposes that “Morrison recognize[s] the possibility of subjectivity construction as a strategy for intervening in dominant discourses on black male identity” (7). And Oforlea further indicates, American racism determines the formation of black men’s masculinity and relationship with women, which triggers Morrison to deconstruct the racist discourse. In Morrison’s novels, it is verified that there is a need to re-form the black masculinity deformed by the American white patriarchy through the help of women’s consoling in men’s interaction with women. Jazz displays a triangulated love among Joe, Dorcas, and Violet. It begins with Joe shooting Dorcas, Joe’s young lover, and Violet, Joe’s wife, scratching the corpse’s face at the funeral. Then, the narrator traces back to Joe and Violet’s traumatic childhood when their stories coincidentally interrelated. With this trauma, Joe goes to the City with Violet. After the incidence of the death of Dorcas, Violet starts to go to Alice, Dorcas’s aunt, to learn more about Dorcas. She gradually talks to others and embraces the community. After Felice, Dorcas’s friend, comes to Joe and Violet, they form a family together. Since Joe’s development is significant in the text, his identity has been investigated from various perspectives, such as the male protagonists’ traumatic experiences and the help of family and community. Mayberry, in “Classically Retraining Blues Boys,” analyzes Joe’s and Golden Gray’s relationship with family, friends, and lovers and she examines the influences of the City and music, blues and jazz in particular. For Joe, Hunters Hunter is a loving father, but maternal love is more desirable for Joe (198). Evelyn Jaffe Schreiber also emphasizes the healing power of a family as she.

(14) Lai 13. states the family unit consoles Joe. In “Searching for Safety,” Schreiber demonstrates that Joe and Violet leave the traumatic South for the City to find a safe home. By investigating how the traumatized characters help and are helped by the family unit, she concludes: “the personal family unit is necessary to provide subjectivity” (Schreiber 114). The family is what they are searching for, and what heals their pains. In these essays, it is affirmed that the healing power of family increases the importance of black men’s relationship with women; however, they do not indicate how the musicality of jazz music demonstrates that the cooperation between men and women is essentially helpful for the re-formation of black masculinity. Another novel, Home, displays Frank’s love to his sister in the journey to rescue his dying sister, Cee. In Home, a chapter of Frank’s first-person perspective is followed by a chapter of third-person perceptive. The novel begins with Frank seeing the “manly” horses in a mysteriously horrible scene in his childhood. Then, the thirdperson perspective shifts to the grown-up Frank going to the South to rescue his beloved dying sister, Cee, with the revelation of his traumatic experience in the Korean War. As Frank rescues Cee and takes her home, they are helped by the village women to face their childhood trauma together. The narration in Home shows Frank’s development of masculinity in the relationship with his sister. In “Telling Stories,” Jan Furman examines the narrative of Home and argues that the dual-voiced perspective “signals [. . . ] racial violence on masculine self-definition in 1950s America” (231). Frank’s narrative identity is shaped by “the quality of his manhood” as it “facilitate[s] Frank’s storytelling about the past and allow[s] him to achieve purpose and wholeness in the present” (Furman 233). In the first-person perspective, Frank avoids tracing many events, such as his childhood trauma and “the men-treated-like-dog fight” in the horse scene (Morrison Home 139); however, these traumatic experiences are presented in third-person.

(15) Lai 14. perspective. In the end, Frank develops an “integrated narrative identity,” and these two perspectives shape the story and provide a new meaning of masculinity for Frank (Furman 233). Furman finds Frank’s masculinity in the narrative. On the other hand, Aitor Ibarrola, investigating Frank’s trauma in “The Challenges of Recovering from Individual and Cultural Trauma in Toni Morrison’s Home,” demonstrates Morrison’s multiple focalizations in Home as he examines how the multiple perspectives facilitate Frank’s black masculinity in his childhood and the Korean War. Frank and Cee’s traumatic experiences are represented in the dialogical structure, multi-perspectival focalization, and figurative language. However, both Frank and Cee have merely the personal recovery, rather than racial recovery, from the trauma at the end because to bring the insidious effects resulting from cultural and collective negation to a closure requires more than personal awareness (Ibarrola 122). It is affirmed that Cee relieves Frank’s trauma; however, the cultivation of Frank’s masculinity in his relationship with Cee can be further explored. The studies of black masculinity have provided a perspective to analyze Morrison’s black male characters in Jazz and Home. Due to the research gap of the relationship between the black masculinity and women, this thesis aims to provide a research on the development of the black masculinity in Jazz and Home. II.. Black Masculinity In black gender studies, black masculinity is historically and socially mis-. conceptualized as being violent or irresponsible. Traditionally, black men are effeminately defined as violent and sexually aggressive. In the mass media, black men are mis-represented. These stereotypes not merely hurt the black masculinity but also disallow the re-formation of black masculinity. Despite the importance of family for the formation of masculinity, the role of men, including black men, in a family tends to be undervalued in American society..

(16) Lai 15. As Michael S. Kimmel indicates in Manhood in America, “[m]en were excluded from domestic life, unable to experience the love, nurture, and repose that the home supposedly represented” (105). When men returned from World War II, the paternal role has been replaced and men find there is no place for them in a family. As the importance of men’s role in a family is disqualified, it is hard for men to be embraced by familial love. However, Kimmel also suggests that “American men need to come home” because “men [. . .] feel the separated sphere painful to them as well” (105). Separated from the family, men are more stressful for the lack of a familial consolation. Although men are generally excluded from their family in the American society, the formation of black masculinity is inseparable from the love and support of a family. Black men’s relationship with women is regarded as hostile for three reasons: first, black men feel emasculated by black women’s success, particularly in educational attainment. As David M Lane states in Online Statistics Education: An Interactive Multimedia Course of Study, the educational attainment rate of black women is 3.7% higher than that of black men. As Lane indicates, “educational attainment is strongly associated with future employment, income, and health status,” the frustration in black men’s educational attainment implies the possibility of their financial disadvantage in the future. As masculinity is measured by property in the capitalist society (hooks, We Real Cool), the lack of education emasculates black men. Staples further points out the relevance of the dropout rate and the criminal rate as he states that the young black men frustrated in school need to prove their masculinity by violence, a symbol of physical superiority to women. The success of black women becomes threatening for black men as Bjork indicates that Black males, unable to assert themselves as productive members of society, felt their masculinity debased not only by white males but also and.

(17) Lai 16. ironically by black females who were often the sole breadwinners in the white man’s kitchen. (19) Being unable to prove their masculinity by social productivity, black men feel emasculated by black women’s financial achievement. The emasculation of financial and educational disadvantage of black men triggers black men’s hostility to women. Second, popular cultural representation of black gender roles also reinforces black men’s hostile relationship with women. In Home, for instance, a black singer, Lloyd Price’s popular song “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” is played in the cab when Frank brings Cee home (115). The lyrics are about a man mistreated by a woman who loves but his money: “Well, as a girl you want my money/Yeah, but you just won't treat me right.” The song displays a black man’s hatred for a woman who only loves his money. Another lyrics in Jazz is “you got the right key baby but the wrong keyhole you got to get it bring it and put it right here” from “You Got the Right Key but the Wrong Keyhole” sung by Virginia Liston (Morrison, Jazz 60). The lyrics are about a woman kicking out her ex-lover, shouting she has a new lover. This song also shows the unharmonious relationship between a black man and woman as it represents the hatred of the woman for the man. The forms of the pop culture in Jazz and Home associated with the hostility of black men and women suggest that the image of the hatful women is rooted in black men’s mind. Third, black men are taught to be misanthropic and violent, particularly to women close to them. Black men suffer from racial violence which deforms black masculinity, but little power do they have to challenge it in American society. Many of them accept this image before they are aware that violence is a deformation caused by racial violence. Black men are not born to be violent, but the whole environment filled with racial violence nurtures their rage and makes them hate the society, including the women close to them. At home, parents teach black boys that rage is required for their.

(18) Lai 17. survival in the harsh society; in school, teachers show less preference to black boys; in the society, the mass media represent black men, though with physical strength, as being always subordinated to the white power (hooks, We Real Cool). In this unfriendly environment filled with racial violence, black men gradually learn to weapon themselves with coolness and violence: an innocent black boy would look for coolness in gangsta in their teenage years and later he would welcome the concept of violence. Even those who love their family would gradually use violence when they find familial responsibility unachievable. As long as violence is assumed by the society as essential for black masculinity, black men tend to prove their masculinity by exhibiting violence against their women to eliminate the frustration they get from the society (Staples 58-62). The society also reinforces this image by emphasizing the fact of black men hurting women. The relationship between black men and women falls victim to the socially formed violent black masculinity.. III.. Black Women Consoling Black Men In Morrison’s novels, women play an important role in consoling black men.. However, black women are not born-healers but are healed by their sisterhood. Black women’s relationships with men are stereotypically depicted as hostile, but the discord is modified in Morrison’s novels. Important as the cooperation between black men and women is, it requires a long process to achieve the re-formation of black masculinity. Although black women are the ones who help black men to re-form their masculinity by rejecting the racial violence, black women also need the power from the community to go through their own pain so that they can console their men with empathy. In Morrison’s novels and interviews, she displays the image of women who form a bond with other women to help each other. Traditionally, black women are.

(19) Lai 18. regarded as the victims of sexism and racism (Collins 149-80). To survive, black women subvert the stereotype of weak women relying on others in the binary opposition of gender. Bjork states that Beginning in slavery, the black woman, unlike the male-protected and pedestalled white woman, was forced, since she could never be protected by her male, slave counterpart, to develop into a mature, self-reliant being, she was the first, truly liberated American woman. (Bjork 17) In other words, black women are forced to be independent due to the harsh environment. In this statement, it is revealed that it is necessary for black women to be strong during slavery, and their men abused, rather than protected, them under the patriarchal system. As a result, without the support and protection of their men, black women have no choice but to be mature and independent and they develop a bond to survive in slavery—sisterhood, a bond with other women who can understand their pain so that they are able to console each other. Bjork also indicates that “[b]lack women, in the midst of both racism and sexism, did survive, and their ability to do so was the glue that bound together black communities both during and after slavery” (18). Since slavery, the power of sisterhood supported the traumatic people with empathy. It is proved in Morrison’s novels that the community is important for embracing the wounds of their people. In an interview, Morrison attests to the power of the community as she indicates: One lives, really, not so much in your house as you do outside of it, within the “compounds,” within the village, or whatever it is. And legal responsibilities, all the responsibilities of the neighborhood. So that people were taken care of, or locked up or whatever. If they were sick, other people took care of them; if they needed something to eat, other people took care of them; if they were old, other people took care of them; if they were mad,.

(20) Lai 19. other people provided a small space for them, or related to their madness or tried to find out the limits of their madness. (Stepto 11) As this statement shows, in an ideal community, people should support each other materially and mentally. In an interview with Bollen, Morrison also indicates that it is many black women’s experience that women, helped by the community, gain the power to overcome the hard time in their life. Additionally, Morrison illustrates that in a community, there might be a maternal figure who leads their people to go through the pain of slavery. For instance, in Beloved, Baby Suggs preaches to the villagers to face their pain; in Home, Miss Ethel teaches Cee how to be an independent woman. Although black women are victims of racism and sexism, the power from both the community and the maternal figures relieves their traumas and provides them with the ability to console their men. Since black women are forced to learn from their sisterhood to be independent in the harsh environment, both Jazz and Home illustrate how the female protagonists transform themselves from the healed to the healer. In Jazz, Violet is consoled by her friendship with Alice. To understand her rival, Violet visits Dorcas’s aunt, Alice. Instead of consoling Violet, Alice disputes with Violet at her first visit. However, in their interactions, Violet, who is regarded as a madwoman by her neighbors, is treated as a human being, which relieves Violet’s dis-ease in the City and helps her face her present and past life to ensure her stable life in the future. On the other hand, in Home, Cee declares that she is both physically and mentally healed by the village women. Cee is raised to be an unconfident girl by her stern step-grandmother. When Frank carries her home, the village women heal Cee with their traditional therapy. Later, they teach Cee how to follow her own desire to be an independent woman. Furthermore, they form a quilt center to pass down their tradition. With the help of these village women, Cee is connected to the black tradition so that she becomes strong enough to cooperate with.

(21) Lai 20. Frank to form a family. In both Jazz and Home, the sisterhood functions to provide the power from women’s bond so that the female protagonists are able to console and work with their men. Black masculinity is socially formed as threatening to women, a stereotypical image which hostilizes black men’s relationship with women. However, this relationship is essential for black men’s identity not merely because generally it is easier for men to confide in women than in men (Gurian 53) but also because black men are required to work with and learn from women to build a family and a community. Brotherhood, though it is equally important for black men, shows much less significance than women’s sisterhood in Jazz and Home. Brotherhood in Jazz and Home supports Joe and Frank, but it fails to heal their traumas. Masculinity needs male support which requires men to communicate by working or playing together (Gurian 53). In Jazz, Joe has male friends with whom he plays cards, but they can do little in supporting Joe mentally. Joe admits that he cannot tell them about his affair with Dorcas because men will only laugh at him for caring for a woman. Only to Dorcas can Joe confide everything, including his childhood trauma of lacking a mother. It verifies that little can men learn from other men despite the need to develop masculinity (Mayberry 193-222). Home, which demonstrates more of men’s support than in Jazz, shows little evidence of its function. When Frank escapes from the hospital, he gains much material help from the men he met in his journey, such as Billy getting clothes for Frank. However, these men show little attempt to understand Frank’s traumas; instead, they merely look at his service medal with admiration. He feels that he is a man, not because he behaves manly to them, but because he shows the symbol of man’s power. Not until Frank is back home with Cee does he realize that it is not the Korean War but his family that affirms his masculinity. In both Jazz.

(22) Lai 21. and Home, brotherhood functions little for the male protagonists, which indirectly proves the comparative importance of women. Despite the hostility, the cooperation between black men and women is the only solution for black men to form a pain-healing family. bell hooks declares in We Real Cool that only when black men and women communicate to each other can a family be fulfilled. Soul-healing is the only way for the black men to have a real home, choice, hope and love to be a healthy man. Women, who survive both the racial and sexual oppression, develop a system to relieve their pain which can further console black men. Working with women is essential for the re-formation of black masculinity. Additionally, Mayberry also asserts the importance of the connections between men and women by suggesting that “their [black men’s] connections to black women have saved their lives” (i). By learning from the successful experience of black women, black men can be consoled by the linkage to his race (Staples 147-61). When black women, usually the victims of the racial violence, are able to understand black men, love them and console them, black men can be consoled and free from racial violence.. IV.. Black Masculinity in Jazz and Home Setting her stories in the 1920s to 1950s in Jazz and Home, Toni Morrison. employs different narrative styles to demonstrate that black masculinity is re-formed due to the improvement of men’s relationships with women. The male protagonists in both Jazz and Home present the masculinity formed in different historical backgrounds. In Jazz, Morrison adopts the structural musicality of jazz music, implying that Joe’s masculinity is re-formed because his relationships with women help him to face his traumas. In Home, on the other hand, the multiple-voiced narrative shows that Frank’s split self becomes complete because Cee connects him to.

(23) Lai 22. the black community. The analysis of these two novels shows how men’s relationships with women influence black masculinity. As the analysis of Jazz and Home shows, the re-formation of black masculinity is associated with men’s relationships with women. However, Jazz and Home demonstrate different masculinity re-formed in various historical and familial situations—in terms of historical background, Jazz employs jazz music as the medium of communication in the Jazz Age while Home demonstrates the situation of black men after attending the Korean War. Due to the differences of historical and familial situations, Jazz and Home focus on different forms of emasculation and various processes of the re-formation of masculinity. In terms of historical situations, the traumas of black men in the 1920s and 1950s are different. The 1920s is a time when jazz music, the musical performance, particularly jazz, brings them financial success while the 1950s is a time when black men return from the traumatic Korean War. Although black men in the 1920s and 1950s attempt to gain social attention by their musical success and physical strength in the war respectively, the social stereotypes and their traumas disallow black men to perceive that the black masculinity focusing on physical and material achievement is a deformation done by racial violence. Musical achievement and war attending do not always provide men with mental support to re-form black masculinity while cooperating with women makes men aware of the deformation of their masculinity and search for the re-formation of black masculinity through family support. In the Jazz Age, jazz music is important for the re-formation of black masculinity not merely because of the financial success it brings but also its function of communication. After the Korean War, additionally, men suffering from war traumas are consoled by their women, and they recognize family support is essential for their masculinity. Jazz represents the second migration of black people in the 1920s. The jazz.

(24) Lai 23. music at this age was important for its function as black expression which connected people’s emotions. In the second migration, black people migrated to the northern city with their musical communication in their oral tradition. In the city, this oral tradition linked the isolated individuals to a community with the communal power of black people: it nudged the painful women to form a sisterhood to heal each other and it also connected the traumatic men to the help of women. The black masculinity in the Jazz Age, hence, was re-formed by men’s relationships with women due through the medium of jazz music. Home, on the other hand, illustrates the black men returning from the Korean War. Instead of affirming black masculinity with physical strength, attending war traumatized men with the cruelty in the battle fields. Frank showed his reliance on his military medal to relieve his trauma from the war, but gradually, Cee brought him a complete recovery from the traumas. The black masculinity in the 1950s, as Home depicts, required the love from the family and the community to eliminate the brutality of life and death in the war. Therefore, with the familial and communal love, the masculinity traumatized in the war was consoled.. V.. Chapter Outline In this thesis, I will examine the black masculinity re-formed by men’s. cooperation with women. I will focus on Morrison’s two novels, Jazz and Home, to analyze the development of the relationships between the male protagonists and their female counterparts. In the second chapter, I will investigate Jazz to argue that Jazz adopts the musical structure of jazz to represent the re-formation of the black masculinity in the City in the 1920s. The jazzy structure of Jazz, moreover, formulates the development of the male protagonist’s masculinity which is highlighted in the changes of his relationships with women. In the third chapter, I will shift my focus to.

(25) Lai 24. Morrison’s Home, arguing that Frank’s black masculinity is embedded in his relationships with women, particularly Cee. The narrative further suggests that Frank does more than form a family; instead, Frank embraces the family with Cee and, together, they are an inseparable family unit. I attempt to make a contribution in this thesis to the studies not merely on Morrison’s gender issue but also on the present situation of black masculinity in the American society..

(26) Lai 25. Chapter 1 “Right Key for the Right Keyhole”: Jazz, Women and Men in Jazz. In Jazz, the structural musicality divulges that Joe’s development of his masculinity is associated with his relationships with women, such as Violet, Dorcas, and Felice. In addition to the development of Joe’s masculinity, Jazz is important for its function to console people as Morrison declares in “Rootedness” that “The art form that was healing for Black people was music” to validate that (58). As the music shows, the relationship between black men and women is transformed from hostility to harmony in Jazz since music is the medium for them to communicate. Moreover, jazz music is embedded in the structure of Jazz to demonstrate one of the most important elements in the story—the development of Joe’s black masculinity: the novel Jazz is arranged in introduction (chapter 1), development (chapter 2 and 3), digression (chapter 4 to 9) and conclusion (chapter 10). This structure is parallel to the AABA form of jazz music. In the musical correspondence, the musical conflicts in the beginning allude to the deformed black masculinity in the City in the 1920s while the musical assonance in the end implies that Joe’s black masculinity is re-formed through his interaction with women in the call and response of jazz music. With women’s consoling, Joe’s trauma is relieved. With familial love, Joe re-forms his black masculinity as family-caring. In this chapter, I argue that Jazz adapts the structure of jazz to represent the re-formation of the deformed black masculinity in the City in the 1920s. “You’ve Got the Right Key But Wrong Keyhole,” a representative jazz song in the 1920s about a woman kicking out her ex-lover, shouting she has a new lover, appears in the novel. As “Right Key for the Right Keyhole” implies the sexual and loving relationship between men and women in Jazz,.

(27) Lai 26. it is the title of this chapter.. I.. Jazz Music Toni Morrison employs jazz in Jazz, not merely because jazz music represents. the black culture but because it displays the life of the black in the 1920s in its theme, forms, and features. Jazz music originated from the cotton fields in the South and later it was brought to the North in the Migration as Jazz manifests. When it was developed in the city, the techniques of call and response, improvisation, the principles of chordscale compatibility, the theme and AABA form of jazz (introduction-developmentdigression-conclusion) were furnished so that jazz music served as the medium to communicate by expressing deep feelings too painful for verbal expression to convey (Wynton 3-20). Toni Morrison, adopting jazz music into her novel Jazz, converted these musical features into verbal jazz as the following paragraphs show. The diverse origins of jazz music establish it as a form of music containing multiple ways of performance and expression. As McLeod states in “The Construction of Masculinity in African American Music and Sports,” jazz music “grew directly out of field hollers, work songs, and spirituals,” so the black music “represent[s] social rituals whose participants employ similar strategies of competition, improvisation, affirmation, and communal celebration” (217). Since jazz music used to be sung by blacks to relieve the pain of heavy labor, particularly in the cotton fields, the revelry and the pain are mingled together. The subtle mixture of pleasure and pain is the feature which nudges jazz music to be funeral song in the countryside of the South and then in New Orland to express the bereavement and avoid the unaffordable sorrow (Li 15-16). When black people migrated to the North in the 1920s, jazz music was brought along to the North. In the northern cities, jazz continued the musical tradition of embodying happiness and sadness. In the North,.

(28) Lai 27. jazz music couldn’t be performed in the cotton fields but was instead played in bars or brothels and thus manifests themes close to the consumers, such as love, sex, and alcohol. The evolution and features of jazz music are carried out in the beginning of Morrison’s Jazz in the brief introduction of Joe’s love affair with Dorcas which is described as “spooky loves that made him so sad and happy” (1) to anchor on the main theme of Jazz. In the North, jazz music was maturated in terms of performance and expression. Call and response, one of the most representative forms of performance in jazz music, was developed into a form of wordless communication able to heal the pain of black people. Jazz’s tradition of communication is established with its name, since “jazz” comes from a French verb, “jaser,”“connoting engagement in in animated dialogue” (Newton-Matza 94). Jazz-style chatting, wordless as it seems, embroils the tacit communication. In the performance of jazz, the players use gestures to convey the message since “[i]nstantaneous wordless communication used in order to change tempos and rhythm is another common features of jazz group” (McLeod 215). The wordless communication is represented in call and response. Owing to jazz’s tradition of relieving the pain of heavy work in the cotton fields, call and response serves as the medium to express the trauma too painful for verbal language. Jazz’s power to communicate and heal the wound is also noted by Mori: “[c]ommunal racial music, jazz, plays a significant role in healing the wounded and restoring the communication which has been lost between them” (327). As Eckstein argues in “A Love Supreme: Jazzthetic Strategies in Toni Morrison’s Beloved,” chatting and communication in the songs to heal the trauma are the black oral tradition which Morrison widely employs in her novels. Call and response is adopted verbally in Jazz, the non-verbal communication between Joe and Violet is presented in textual arrangement. Without words, they communicate and convey their childhood traumas. When black people try.

(29) Lai 28. to heal the traumas with communal music, jazz helps to develop the bond of a community which develops into a communal identity of the black with the linkage to the audience (Gilroy 200, 203). With call and response, Joe and Violet develop a communal bond to embrace Felice as their family member. Call and response of jazz music is the telepathic communication employed in Jazz to demonstrate the complex healing process of Violet’s and Joe’s traumas. Another feature of jazz music is improvisation. Jazz improvisation is pervasive in jazz music. Among the improvisations, the best is in a solo performance composed on the spot according to the previous chord progression. The soloist is able to declare their existence by expressing their feeling in complex improvisation (Marsalis 21-46). At the same time, when the soloist digresses to individual expression, s/he improvises with the chord progression. Jazz improvisation, the combination of personal expression and communal bond, is also prevalent in Jazz. From Chapter 4 to 9, the narrator digresses to Joe’s and Violet’s childhoods. This section, which functions as their musical solos, is for Joe and Violet to express their inner thoughts and feelings. It is with the feature of improvisation that they trace back the childhood memory. And then, with the technique of call and response, Joe’s and Violet’s childhoods are connected and it shows that they are able to express their true feelings. When Joe’s story is connected to Violet’s, they are mentally closer to each other and it becomes possible for Joe to form a family with Violet. The improvisation in Jazz, therefore, plays the role of true self-expression which leads to a linkage of their inner feelings. Moreover, in the end, the narrator predicts “one would kill the other” (220). However, this hostility turns into harmony since Joe, Violet, and Felice dance together. As the narrator demonstrates, the verbal unpredictability resembles unpredictable improvisation in jazz (Bouson 187). Developing the communal bond by following the main theme and expressing their own feelings, the interaction between Joe and Violet.

(30) Lai 29. represents jazz improvisation. Despite the harmony of call and response and improvisation, jazz music is also prominent for the compatible discords and scale. Unlike classical music composed of harmonious chords, jazz music appeals to the chords at the edge of discord as a token of rejecting the white definition of harmony, focusing on accords. In jazz music, there are “the principles of chord-scale compatibility” which mean that in the compatible range, it is acceptable that some notes are sharpened or flatted. As a result, the chord and scale of jazz music are compatible, but they are not always harmonious. Some of the chords in jazz are regarded as compatible disccords; however, it is the compatibility of jazz chord and scale that specifies jazz music. The feature of compatible disccord in Jazz is reflected by the conflicts among the characters, particularly Joe, Dorcas, and Violet. The involvement of mental break-down, betrayal, and jealousy in the triangulated love makes the narrator sure that “one would kill the other” (220); nevertheless, in the end, love makes their conflicts “compatible” so that Joe and Violet dance with Felice, who is close to Dorcas and who tells Joe Dorcas’s last words. They used to have conflicts, but they are tolerant enough to embrace each other. The principles of chord-scale compatibility, hence, are the musical reconcilement changing the doom triangulated love. Additionally, Jazz provides jazz music with an interpretation of love by thematic resemblance. The prevalent themes of jazz music are love, sex, and alcohol. Despite the popularity of these themes, they are frequently renewed by the players with various interpretations. The theme of the triangulated love in Jazz is a cliché. Nonetheless, in the novel, Morrison brings new life to the triangulated love as she sheds new light on the consoling power of women which supports their family and love. Conventionally, jealousy and betrayal are poison for a romantic relationship. However, Violet is consoled by her sisterhood with Alice and she is able to cooperate.

(31) Lai 30. with Joe to build a family. The healing power of women, in this aspect, cures the dying love and re-forms the theme of love. Among the diverse jazz musical forms, AABA is the most representative form. The AABA form of jazz contains a short introduction (A), the development of the main theme (A), the digression from the main theme (B) and a short reinforced conclusion (A). The AABA form, just like many features of jazz music, is employed in Morrison’s Jazz although the structural musicality of Jazz has gained less attention in current academic studies. The first chapter of the novel briefly introduces the main theme, the triangulated love among Joe, Violet, and Dorcas. Chapter two and three allude to A as they demonstrate the development of the love story. Chapter four to nine resemble B since they digress to the childhoods of Joe and Violet with the technique that frequently appears in the musical digression of jazz, improvised call and response. The last chapter is A as it returns to the love theme with a harmonious conclusion. The AABA structure of the novel resembles Joe’s relationship with women, such as his lovers and mother: “A” alludes to his triangulated love while “B” stands for his mother. This structure, presenting the development of Joe’s relationship with women, suggests that Joe is finally consoled by women and he is able to re-form his black masculinity since the ending shows a harmonious love relationship through Joe’s awareness of familial bond and his masculinity. Last but not least, all these features of jazz music are for one purpose—to deliver their inner feelings. The black have suffered from experiences too painful for any verbal expressions since slavery; thus, they spontaneously employ black oral tradition, the music that they are accustomed to in their living and working environment (i.e. cotton fields), as an easier way to express their pain and rage caused by the oppression of the dominant society. Therefore, as a music form invented in the oral tradition of self-expression, jazz aims4 to deliver true feelings, rather than to commercialize black.

(32) Lai 31. culture. It rejects the stereotypical image of the black represented by the white and it serves as the irreplaceable role to re-form the deformed image of the black (Gilroy; hooks, Let’s Get it on). Black men, because of their participation in jazz music, can express themselves and communicate with women so that they are able to re-form their masculinity. Jazz music records not merely the life in the 1920s but the black culture, tradition, and aesthetics. With the techniques of call and response, improvisation, jazz music illustrates the pain of black people best. With the features of compatible discord and the themes, jazz music indicates black expression. Since jazz music demonstrates the true feelings of the black men, it can be the medium for the black men to search for and then re-form their identity. Jazz, with these musical techniques, provides a possible way for the black men and women to improve their relationships.. II.. Communication in Jazz Music Jazz music, in addition to interpreting the black culture, embodies men’s. communication with women in terms of performance. Although jazz music seems to be dominated by men in terms of expression and performance, women are not excluded from the performance; instead, women’s interactions with men enrich jazz music. Jazz music, associated with black men, demonstrates men’s interactions with women for three reasons. First of all, jazz music was composed and performed by male musicians who invite women in their performance. In a social environment in the 1920s, black women had limited chances for musical performance (Li 46). However black men invited women to perform in the musical band despite the harsh social restrictions. Therefore, in the jazz music in the 1920s which was mainly performed by black men, men’s relationships with women diversified the musical.

(33) Lai 32. expression. Second, jazz music was about emotional expression. Jazz music, as it was for black men to express their inner feelings, was a kind of male expression free from the dominant white oppression. Through jazz, men’s inner thoughts and pain could be released so that they could be understood by others. Musical expression, thus, made men interact with their women who participated in the musical performance and who suffered from similar racial trauma. Most important of all, jazz music shows the tradition of men’s competition. Traditionally, black men were denied by financial success, so they used various forms of competitions, such as musical performance, to attract women (Staples 101-15). In addition to do that, men needed jazz music to exhibit their masculinity and also to manifest their gentleness to women which made jazz music a linkage between men and women. Historically, when jazz was performed in bars in the North, the bands usually needed to battle to get a position in the bar (McLeod 209). Additionally, in terms of musical competition, the musical performance was involved in men’s competition since the jazz performance contained musical competition of the skills. The musical competition was men’s competition—the players aimed to show their talent instead of hurting others. Male competition in jazz music, therefore, aimed to draw women’s attention by men’s communication in their musical performance. Jazz music is important for black men because of the involvement of communication with women in call and response. Through jazz music, men’s communication with women, which is essential for forming a family, is encouraged. The healing power of jazz is evidently employed in Morrison’s Jazz because, as the structural musicality of Jazz shows, Joe is healed and then able to re-form his masculinity with the help of women.. III.. Musicality, Healing and Consolation from Woman.

(34) Lai 33. The re-formation of Joe’s masculinity is shown in jazzy musical structure, the AABA form, as Joe’s relationships with women, community, and the black culture are demonstrated with the sequence of AABA. As Jazz “[pays] attention on the racist and economic oppression that they confronted and that shaped their identities,” Joe creates new social identities several times, like “the American self-made and new man,” the “new Negro” (Bouson 171-2). In his search for identity, race, and gender unavoidably traumatize and emasculate him. Only when women relieve Joe’s traumas in their cooperative relationship can he re-form his identity. In Joe’s re-formation of black masculinity, jazz music connects him to women who lead him home. For instance, as the musical digression leads him to his traumatized childhood with Violet, call and response in the digressive section of the novel also alludes to Joe’s mental connection with Violet. Arranged in the AABA form of jazz music, Jazz displays the development of Joe’s relationships with women which is important for the 2 reformation of his masculinity. As each section of Jazz resembles the musical AABA form of jazz music, Joe is healed by women, Violet, Dorcas and Felice in particular, and then able to re-form his black masculinity.. 1. A. In terms of musicality, the first section, chapter one, resembles the introductory A of the AABA form of jazz music because of onomatopoeia of the first word, “Sth,” and the first chapter’s role as a brief introduction of the main theme. At first, the first word, “Sth,” according to Elizabeth Ann Beaulieu, is “the sound of sucking teeth, often made in judgment on some person or event in African-American communities” (229). It announces its adoption of the tradition of jazz music, the chatting and gossip in the black community with a certain perspective. The following sentence, “I know that woman,” in addition to presenting the love tale, also proves that Jazz is.

(35) Lai 34. thematically parallel to the jazz music of love and sex (3). Additionally, “Sth” is also “fanfare--the first sounds a musician makes to announce that he or she is to take over the next solo” and the “s” sound, particularly, “produced may resemble the sound of a cymbal” (Beaulieu 229). In addition to the “Sth” foretelling the musical resemblance to jazz music, the first paragraph in chapter one alludes to the “A” section of jazz music by introducing the whole story briefly. The first chapter shortly introduces the main theme of the triangulated love in Jazz, as the first paragraph summarizes the whole story. Moreover, it illustrates the background of the story, such as the indifferent community, the hostile relationships between men and women. With the sound effect and the functional introduction, the first chapter, resembling the “A” of jazzy AABA form, draws readers’ attention to the themes of love and sex. As the musical resemblance of jazz music of the first chapter of Jazz demonstrates, Joe’s masculinity, without a cooperation of women and community, is traumatized and deformed in the City. It is depicted in the first chapter that the neighbors are unsupportive, gossipy and indifferent to each other. When Violet feels stressful in the community and experiences mental breakdown, she is considered mad in the community. Moreover, Violet is provoked by Joe’s betrayal while Joe, crying for the loss of Dorcas, is indifferent to Violet’s jealousy. Hence, Joe’s relationship with her deteriorates: when Violet brings a boyfriend home, Joe doesn’t even notice. As it is illustrated, Violet uncages her bird which is able to say “I love you” in cold winter, which symbolizes Violet’s abandonment of their decayed love. Dorcas, on the other hand, used to console Joe by listening to him attentively. But her betrayal not merely destroys her relationship with Joe but also triggers his motive to shoot her. After the death of Dorcas, Joe’s bereavement implies that the loss of Dorcas, who used to console him, nearly defeats him. Therefore, in the introductory chapter, Joe is considered violent when he kills Dorcas. Additionally, Violet’s lunacy and her.

(36) Lai 35. decayed relationship with Joe also make Joe unable to be have a consoling relationship with women.. 2. A. The second section, chapter 2 and 3, is the second A of the AABA form of jazz music, which serves as the development of the main theme. This section continues the main theme of the conflicting love triangle, just like the second A in jazz music developing the main melody. In addition to the thematic resemblance to jazz music, it demonstrates another jazzy feature, the unharmonious notes. Jazz music, unlike classical music searching for harmony, merely avoids disharmony by following the principles of chord-scale compatibility to compose the compatible discords. In Jazz, the musical discord is represented in two ways. The first discord is the love triangle as Staples states that the triangulated love, involved with jealousy and betrayal, can’t form a harmony (109-14). The second discord is reflected by the conflicts of the characters like Alice and Violet in Jazz, who dispute and paradoxically discuss with each other. However, most of the time, men and women in the community are either indifferent or hostile to each other, which shows the alienated modern urban life. Implied by the musical structure, Joe’s relationships with women continue to conflict in this section and his masculinity is depicted as effeminate in the City: he cannot be with women around him, such as Violet, with harmony and he is associated with women due to his job as a cosmetic seller. As the main theme is developed in the structural musicality of jazz, the indifference in the community is further elaborated by having an unsure attitude toward jazz which can embrace people’s pain. Joe, without the access to the jazz music, cultural bond, and ancestral culture, cannot develop an intimate relationship with the community and women. Music, as the singing-dancing scene on the train to.

(37) Lai 36. the City implies, represents the black culture connecting the South to the North. Nevertheless, in the City, people have conflicting attitudes toward the meanings of “the music,” jazz: Dorcas and Alice have conflicting attitudes toward music: Alice despises music while Dorcas finds her soul in it (56). Without music as the shared and ancestral culture of black people, black people fail to have harmonious relationships with others. In the indifferent City, black men and women’s relationship is tense. Women in the community, out of fear of men, armed to protect them from men’s attack as it is depicted that “[. . . ] unarmed black woman in 1926 was silent or crazy or dead” (78). Hostile though men and women are, Joe develops a healing relationship with Dorcas. In spite of the fact that Joe can tell Dorcas his childhood trauma of motherlessness, Joe’s relationship with Violet becomes worse and they don’t communicate as it is illustrated that twenty years after Joe and Violet train-danced on into the City, they were still a couple but barely speaking to each other, let alone laughing together or acting like the ground was a dance-hall floor. (36) Although Joe’s attempt to communicate with Violet is frustrated, he desires a bond with Violet: Joe is “convinced that he alone remembers those days, and wants them back” (36). However, the neighbors’ gossips about Violet’s insanity further damage her mental well-being. Conventionally, the community in Morrison’s novels plays a significant role in healing people’s pain with racial bond. As Schreiber indicates, “[i]n Morrison’s novels community, family, and other connections create the psychic support or home that can allow characters to safely relive trauma and survive it” (11). The bond to the family and community has the power to relieve the racial traumas. Morrison also affirms the community’s function to help each other in an interview with Childress (Childress 11). Even in the City with the atmosphere of suspicion, there is still communal bond growing in the dysfunction of the community—the.

(38) Lai 37. healing power of the sisterhood between Violet and Alice. In spite of Alice’s dislike of music, Alice is linked to the sisterhood as she does needle work with other women. Being accustomed to the sister bond makes her able to have a way to communicate with Violet. When Violet talks to Alice, Alice represents the power of the community which develops into a sisterhood healing Violet’s pain. Despite the quarrels at the beginning, Violet feels comfortable and gradually shares her emotions with Alice so that she is consoled in their sisterhood. This section, therefore, continues the main theme of the triangulated love and the indifference in the community. However, the sisterhood between Violet and Alice is also a prelude to the possible remedy for Violet, which further heals Joe in this section. Without cooperation with women, Joe’s masculinity is effeminate for two reasons: his job as a cosmetics seller and his childlessness. Joe sells women’s products to the rich women who “laughed, tapped the tablecloth with their fingers and began to tease, berate and adore him all at once” (70). Being with women who “thought men were ridiculous and delicious and terrible, taking every opportunity to let them know that they were,” Joe makes them “feel like women” (70-1, 76). Joe, knowing how to satisfy every man and woman, behaves in the ways they expect. However, his masculinity is effeminate due to his occupation as a cosmetics seller which is regarded as women’s job. Moreover, his childlessness marks him unmanly. As Collins argues in Sexual Politics the Black buddy template often draws upon the family as a frame for explaining appropriate social relationships. [. . .] Having a wife and children at home takes on special for the character of the Black buddy, for his ability to commit to one heterosexual relationship within a family unit is a sign of his ability to assimilate. (170) The passage shows that possessing a child is a token of being an “assimilated man.”.

(39) Lai 38. Although childlessness does not trouble Joe, it appears as a mark of unmanliness. Thus, when Violet sleeps with a doll in her arms, Joe feels emasculated not merely by the society but by his wife. Therefore, due to Joe’s lack of cooperative relationship with women, this section shows the need for Joe’s masculinity to be re-formed.. 3. B The B in the AABA form of a jazz music, the digression, is the most intriguing part of jazz music because it, with wordless communication, is composed of improvised call and response. In Jazz, chapter 4 to 9 serve as the digressive B since it deviates from the main theme of the triangulated love to talk about Joe’s and Violet’s childhood in the South. Joe and Violet, wordless though they are, embark on a kind of “textual communication.” The account about the traumas in their childhood forms a “call and response” which in jazz music, contains not verbal words but a real understanding as the soloist expresses his or her feeling responded by another player tacitly. In chapter 4 to 9, Joe and Violet trace back to their childhood separately and the flashbacks become interwoven. In chapter 4, Violet reveals her childhood and the romantic story between her and Joe from her own perspective. Violet’s story is followed by a chapter of Joe’s monologue on his childhood story and his romantic story with Dorcas. Chapter 6 and 7 illustrate the story of Golden Gray, who is associated with Joe’s mother and Violet’s grandmother, to connect Violet’s story to Joe’s childhood. These four chapters resemble jazz call and response because chapter four is Violet’s call of her childhood, chapter five is Joe’s response of his childhood, and chapter 6 and 7 are the chord showing the interaction of their childhoods. The connection of their childhood functions to be a way for their communication— whenever Joe’s childhood is revealed, it is followed by that of Violet’s and vice versa. Despite the wordlessness, it is a means of communication in a traditional jazz form..

(40) Lai 39. Additionally, musical call and response has a healing power by creating a communal bond and identity. Mori argues that “[c]ommunal racial music, jazz, plays a significant role in healing the wounded and restoring the communication which has been lost between them” (327). In Jazz, Joe and Violet’s childhood traumas are healed in this communication: Joe’s story responded by Violet’s builds a bridge for them to console each other. Violet, who has been healed in her sisterhood with Alice in the development, has her childhood trauma revealed and healed in the digression. Joe, who has told his trauma of motherlessness to Dorcas in development, reveals his story of being abandoned by Wild in the digression. By revealing his trauma, Joe is able to cooperate with Violet to form a family. Therefore, both Joe and Violet are healed in the jazzy call and response in the digression. Joe traces back to his childhood, which helps him cooperate with Violet in this section, while his relationships with male friends and other women are revealed in various forms. His relationship with his male friends appears to be intimate as he plays cards with them. However, male friendship in a form of playing and working together doesn’t help him to face his pain (Gurian 53). Joe confesses that he will be teased by his male friends for taking his affairs with Dorcas seriously. Women, on the other hand, heal Joe in various ways: Dorcas heals Joe’s motherless trauma in the past; Felice consoles his pain of losing his lover in the present and Violet supports him with a family in the future. First, Dorcas heals Joe’s motherless trauma by listening to him carefully. Second, after her death, Felice tells Joe Dorcas’s last words, which make Joe move on. Most important of all, Violet is healed in a sisterhood and her childhood is interwoven with Joe’s childhood. Their interwoven childhood links them together which supports each other and to face their pain together. With the mental support of women, hence, Joe is able to heal his pains and to form a family. Joe used to be educated to emphasize the physical strength of his masculinity.

(41) Lai 40. while he learns from his relationship with Violet that mental strength is essential for the re-formation of black masculinity. In the South, Hunter’s Hunter distinguishes the black man from the white man by defining black masculinity as being strong enough to live in the countryside. When Joe is chosen to be “a man,” and a hunter, Hunter’s Hunter teaches Joe to be “smart” to know “way before what the prey would do” (125). Hunter’s Hunter warns Joe “never kill the tender and nothing female if you could help it” when he hints Wild is Joe’s mother (175). However, Hunter’s Hunter doesn’t teach Joe how to face Wild and his motherless trauma. Not until Joe reveals his childhood trauma and communicates with Violet is he healed. When Joe’s childhood trauma is healed, he is able to live with his family in the City and re-form his masculinity. Being consoled by women, thus, is irreplaceable for the re-formation of Joe’s masculinity.. 4. A As Joe is healed by his relationship with Violet, he is able to re-form his black masculinity with his family. Chapter 10, the conclusive chapter of Jazz, is parallel to the last A of musical AABA form for it provides a repetition of the main theme and an inviting end to imply that family is the solution to the triangulated love among Violet, Joe, and Dorcas. In jazz music, the conclusion is usually a short repetition of the main theme. Jazz resembles jazzy structural musicality since in the conclusive chapter, the triangulated love is re-formed as a family. Surprising though it seems to be, the dancing scene of Joe, Violet, and Felice represents the family which is the solution of both the music and novel. The dancing scene, showing the three people supporting each other, represents a family unit in which Felice consoles Joe’s pain of losing Dorcas, Violet and Joe cooperate to form a family and Joe financially supports the family. Besides, jazz music usually ends with a musical repetition to play the tune again. In Jazz, there is also a musical repetition as the narrator invites the readers to.