Beautiful and Political:
The Narrative ofToni Morrison's Jazz
Abstract
Toni Morrison is one of the most important contemporary African叫American
writers in the United States. Her achievements in using the narrative to manifest the cultur巴， hist。句， and life experience of A企ican-American people have been widely recognized. This s位ldy analyzes her sixth novel, Jazz, to show how her narrative
s甘ategies subvert some of 也e values in Anglo-European culture and high1ights the significance ofthe minority people's existence. In this way, she not only explores the
possibili丘es that h在ve not yet developed in the westem tradition but also a伍rms the
sul伊拉vityof African也nericanculture.
Part 1 examines how Morrison uses the absent characters as the uni
fY
ing force of the story and stresses the significance of absence. Part II demonstrates how the minor characters are highlighted in the narrative and break the major-minor dichotomy as well as expound the meaning of community for black people. Part III of the study shows Morrison's efforts to create a history for African-American people by emphasizing memory an述自己 characters' life history in the novel. Part IV reveals the oral quality in Morrison's narrativ巴， which subverts the written tradition of the West and characterizes A企ican-American culture. In all, reading Morrison, one should attend to elements of both the white and the black cultures because she is a mediator between the two. Only from this perspectiv巴 can one e句 oy her work as being beautiful as well as political.f冉、
I.
lntroduc位onSpeaking of Toni Morrison and her work, one immediately thinks of black culture and subjectivity. Morrison's achievements of creating a black presence and speaking
“
the unspoken" in American literature have been widely recognized According to Peterson,“
Morrison has become the American and African American (woman) writer to reckon with" (464). This statement highlights Morrison's accomplishment by placing her in the American canon. Some critics have accessed her work 企'Omthis perspective. Kolmerton, for examp峙， affiliated her with Wi1liam Faulkner. Nowlin also stated that“
Morrison's deep familiarity with classic American literature and modemist aesthetics has become increasingly difficult to deny" (153-154). Such 組 evaluation helps secure Morrison's literary status, but it also creates uneasiness. Ludigkeit ar♂led 也atKolmerton's perspective "fails to appreciate Morrison's novel on its own terms and ignores 也etext's unique cultural background" (167). The white cu1ture and values consequently become a taboo in discussing Morrison's work because they are what the writer seeks to downplay in the narrative.The two critics' points of view look contradictory, but both of them are correct. In fact, an important feature of Morriso且 's work is the coexistence of the white and the black cultures. As Madden pointed 0剖， Morrison
“
has access to more than one discourse" (592). But, why 吐oesa writer dedicated to African-American culture al10w the elements of the oppressing culture-the white c叫Íl叮告一into the narrative? One reason is Morrison's education and career. She was educated and has been serving in the prominent academic institutions in America. She studied humanities at Howard and Comel1 Universiti郎， followed by an academic career at Texas Southemby the canon so much as to disp1ay westem literary forms, particularly realism anι
modemism, in her narrative. A recent study by J ane Li1ienfeld argued that Morrison is allied to Virginia Woo1f in using 也enarrative strategy to criticize cu1tura1 structures of
I吋ustice and oppression (43). This alliance also confirms Morrison's connection with westem literary tradition.
The other, and, the more important, reason to exp1ain the cu1tural hybrid in Morrison's narrative is her role as a minority writer. She needs to meet the criteria of the dominant culture in order to express the theme of cultura1 oppression.
on
the one凶nd， minority writers need to succumb to the aesthetic and ideologica1 standard of the dominant class so that their work can be received. The compromise, however,
must not go too far for fear that the work might become another product of cultural oppression. How to
“
use" the dominant culture to foreground their own culture and its su吋 ectivity， therefor巴，becomes a challenge for minority writers. In也issense, writing is not mere1y an artistic creation. It is a mediation between cultures and Morrison's writing is an excellent examp1e of such a mediationAlthough Morrison adopts the westem language and form, she is aware of their cultural bias. As she says in Playing in the Dαrk:
1 am a b1ack writer struggling with and through a language that can powerfully evoke and enforce hidden signs of racial superiority, cultural hegemony and dismissive
“
othering" of people and 1anguage. . . . The kind of work which 1 have a1ways wanted to do requires me to leam how to maneuver ways to 企ee up the 1anguage from its . . . racially informed and determined chains. (x去i)This passage reveals Morrison's purpose for writing. She is not writing to continue the
tradition that inscribes hegemony and oppression. By digressing from the criteria of the dominant culture, sh昀eintends to create another t甘radi沮tion-tωodemonstrate what s油he
c1a創lmsν‘、 cultural s叩:pecif豆icαJty t由ha泣t is A企0←-Americans旭s" (
i並nn宜mova瓜甜tJ昀on aJms a叫t s剖19r伊1世if兮削扯圳ingthe exist凹的， the components, the significanc且， and the values of black culture. In other words, there is a political purpose in her narrative. Being political does not bother 孔10rrison，because she believes
“
the best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political an社 i叮叮ocablybeautiful at the same time" (“Rootness" 332)To explain how political and artistic purposes coexist in a text, Chatman's discussion of the rhetoric of fiction may throw some light
Rhetoric working to esthetic ends suades us to something interior to the text,
particularly the appropriateness of the chosen means to evoke a response appropriate to the work's intention. Rhetoric working to ideological ends,
suades us to something outside the text, something about the world at large. The latter need not be a proposition: even nondidactic fiction radiates ideology. (52)
In his artic峙， Chatman used Mrs. Dollow句J as an example to show how a certain narrative techniqu巴， such as limited shifting access, can work to both aesthetical and ideological ends. It not only intensifies the illusion of the novel but also expresses a specific argument (54-55). The statement reconciles the dispute of aesthetics and ideology under
“
art for a泣's sake." Narrative, therefore, can be both beautiful and political.To realize how Morrison makes the narrative bo血泊在utiful and politic祉， one
her narrative structures and methods is to obscure her always careful relation of character to theme, shape to focus, voice to effect" (203). This dedication to form itself also embodies a trait of Afìican-American cultu凹. As Ludigkeit proc1aimed, “Mo世ison deliberately engages in a process of assimilati月 form and altering content that is consistent with an established pa吐em of adaptation in African-American
culωre" (175).
The emphasis on form facilitates the expression and acceptance of Morrison's cultural message. From the perspective of westem aesthetics, her adoption of Afìican-American elements is new to th巴 tradition and interpreted as innovation and
experimentalism. 四lework is deemed beautiful. On the other hand, the acceptance of the form leads the reader to recognize the values and knowledge that are originally
“discredited," as Morrison phrased (“Rootness" 330), and therefore exc1uded or suppressed in the dominant culture. Recognition ofthe values and knowledge leads to the recognition of the culture and the people. In this way, Morrison achieves her political purpose.
τhis study argnes 也且tMorrison works to both the aesthetic and the political ends by using the narrative structure to reverse some existing values in westem tradition. The following discussion focuses on one of her novels, Jazz, to show how her narrative highlights 由己的sent， the minor characters, the past, and the oral quality of the text, which are
“
discredited" elements in westem narrative structure. By exploring the form for more possibilities, Morrison offers the reader with a different aesthetic experience. Meanwhile, the exploration justifies the value of A企ican-Americanculture anιblack people's experience. By bringing the experience to her reader, both black and white, Moηison cultivated a cultural literacy and generates responsible
citizenship to ultimately achieve her goal ofmulticulturalism (Nowlin 153).
Jazz
, Morrison's sixth novel
,
continues her pursuit of a unique form for blackcultu詣， and is most revealing of her formal preoccupation. This can be proved by the title of the novel. From The Bluest 砂es (1970)， 泌的 (1973)， Son
01
Solomon (1978),Tar Baby (1 981)， ω Beloved (1987), the titl的 all refers to the main character in the story. J，αzz is different. The content of the story has little to do with the music. The jazz music is used as a metaphor. As Morrison points 0前， she wants to “have the text represent the anarchy, the originali句， the improvisation, the practice, the anger, the daring of the music" (“Blues, Love and Politics" 19). Her purpose is to present black people's life during an enormous political shi立 in the 1920s with a focus on
“
its compositional qualities, its ferocity, i包 seduction， its temptation and the fact that it was so enormously complex" (“Blues, Love and Politics" 19)Morrison intends to capture black people's life with narrative structure, which has been noticed by critics. They generally agree that jazz provides Morrison with a compositional model. It includes the way the story is told, the vocal natur岳， the fragmentation, the collective creation, the participation of the audienc巴， etc. As Grandt dug into the history of jazz and found the motifs of cutting, hunting, and chasing,
which are part of the jazz tradition (312), he also pointed out that the narrative voices and the fragmentary storylines constitute the aesthetic gesture in Morris阻 's novel (315)
Rodrigues considered jazz music not so much a content element as a feature of form in the novel. He stated
,“
Jazz is made up of a number of such rhythmic paragraphs, subsections and sections that together compose a musical score" (155).adds (155). Perhaps Peach's statement is most revealing:
In the novel, various characters relate their versions of what has happened,
mirroring the group nature of jazz music, exempli
fY
ing how a singular art work is constructed 企om several solo vo泌的. There is an improvised quality ofthe book even by the standards ofMorrison's previous novels, in its use of time and ellipses as well as in the way the narrator frequ削Iy han也 overtodifferent voices. (114)According to Ludigke泣， the narrative structure of the novel shows a
“
collective improvisation." It tries to“
integrate the voices of assertive individuals in a cohesive narrative so that it reveals more than any one individual voice could by itself" (174).Undoubtedly, Morrison a吐opts the forrn and the spirit of jazz to express her cultura1 concems. With the structural connecti凹， she manifests some important aspects of African American literary tradition. It affirrns
“
individual and group wo吋1:the soul's manifestation of its love for its complement, the rejected flesh" (Brown 629). Moreover, it invites the reader to do self-exploring and shape an identity (Lesoinne 151).
Creating her story with the structure and theme of jazz music, Morrison does not simply highlight African American culture. As jazz music is a cultural hybrid, the narrative displays a mix-cu1ture nature. 百1e music does not belong to black people exc1usively. As Burrton pointed out,“J azz is a 'mixed rac巴， aesthetic which一-despite
its popular association with black culture--is either a wholly white nor wholly black tradition" (175). Since it
“
was influenced, played and appropriated by white musicians, and later adopted by mainstream white culture, that its sta缸lS within b lack culture has been ambivalent," he added (1 76). 的 Ludigkeit explores the origin of jazz,form and is put in different content (172).
The fact that jazz possesses a
“
mixed race" nature proves that Morrison's narrative is mediation between black and white cultures. To be more precis巴， the writer assimilates the structural criteria of the white narrative tradition and then reverses it. Some critics,
like Ludigkeit,
may be reluctant to focus on the 仕aces of white culture in Morrison's work. Nevertheless, the uniqueness needs to come 企omcomparison with others. As Nowlin proposed, the originality of Morrison's text
“
cannot be located exclusively in a blackness alien to outside (predominantly white) readers but rather in the collision she stages between this blackness and the blackness familiar to the white literary imagination" (156). With the revision of form, Morrison awakens the reader to the blackness in the white literary imagination. Furthermor巴， by reversing the form, she reverses the values of white culture and creates values for black culture.II. The Absent/ the Present
In her article 也at discusses the A企o-American presence in American literatu況，
Morrison said:
We can agre巴， 1 thi此， that invisible things are not necessarily
“
not-there"; that a void may be empty, but is not a vacuum. In addition, certain absences are so stressed, so omate, so planned, they call attention to themselves; arrest us with intentionality and pu中ose， like neighborhoods that are define位 by the population held away from them. (“Unspeakabl巴"210)With this statement, Morrison questions the white writers' flight and evasion from blackness in American literary history. This concept of absence can also be applied to artistic creation. With an emphasis on the absent, Morrison challenges westem
condition
,
and creates a cultural specificity.The stress of the absent challenges 位le 甘泌ition of westem aesthetics. In the tradition，甜的 defined as an expression “of pu巾的巴， feeling, or thought 'into a sensuous medium
,
where they can be experienced again by the one who expresses himself and communicates to others" (Parker 13). Under the defmition, things that do not appeal to our senses cannot constitute art. According to Morrison, however, things or people not perceived still exist and they are even more significant than those perceived because they reveal some will, some form的ablepower that lurks behind the sensual world.Other than subverting the art 甘adition， Mo臼'Ìson's foregrounding of the absent points to a trait ofblack culture, which values concealment rather than exposure. This trait can be proved by black people's language. According to Sidran,“In languag巴，the A企ican tradition aims at circumlocution rather than exact defmition.τbe direct statement is considered crude and unimaginativ皂 the veiling of all contents in ever-changing paraphrase is considered the criterion of intelligence and personality"
(可d. in Ludigkeit 174). This a說itude also leads black people to believe in ghosts and the supematural. The uncanny elements in Morrison's novels somehow embody this concept of absence in black culture.
The concept of absence is important in Morrison's text not only because of its cultural meaning but also because of its reference to black people's living situation. It justifies the existence of black people, which is usual1y unperceived and ignored. As they do exist, no matter how invisible they ar巴， absence, therefore, is a kind of presence. It's a legitimate being and cannot be denied. Morrison plays with the idea of
the absent in her novels. Reviewing Jazz, O'brien states,“the absence of a baby一-or should 1 say the presence of an absent baby-form the undertow of this book." The character representing the baby Violet cannot have is Dorcas. She and another character, Wild, best exempli
fY
Morrison's stress of the idea of absence. Dorcas is dead and Wil社 is never found. The story, however, is hinged on these two characters. Their role fulfills aesthetic function on the one hand. On the other hand，也ey help articulate Morriso且'scultural concerns.Considere正! from structural perspective
,
Dorcas is not a dominating part of the narrative. First, she is dead, physically non-existing, in the beginning ofthe story. The reader sees her mainly in Joe's memory and Violet's imagination. Second, and most importantly, the story told 企umher point ofview only takes ten pages (J 77-87). The reader has little contact with her as a subject and even less access to her thought and feeling. Structurally speaking, she is nearly an absence. But, this is not the whole plcture.Dorcas' absence is obvious, but the effect she casts on other characters' life can be felt everywhere. This is because Morrison uses her as the uni秒ing force in the narrative. First, she causes the big chang巴 in Joe and Violet's peaceful but emotionally-sterile life. The girl energizes Joe.
“
With her, 1 was fresh and new again,"said Joe (J 148). According to the man, Dorcas makes him experience the fi蝕1 change in his life. For Violet
,
who ceased to talk to her husband,
Dorcas causes a strange obsession in her. She wants to know everything about her, even her hairstyle. The influence ofDorcas is so great as to arouse their violent disposition. Joe, a mild, good man, picks up a gun to shoot, and Violet grabs a knife to cut a body during a funeral.(“B泊的， Love and Po1itics" 19), Dorcas is the force that gives the coup1e courage,
which has been weakened by city 1ife.
Dorcas is significant because she not on1y shatters the coup1巴，s 1ife but a1so repairs it. After her death, Dorcas becomes a part ofthe coup1e's 1ife. A portrait ofher in the mante1piece suggests both her absence and presence. It seems to remind the coup1e of their waning yeaming for 1ife. In their rooms, which
“
are 1ike the empty birdcages wrapped in c1oth,"“a dead gir1's face has become a necessary thing for their nights" (J 21). At the end of the story,
the commitment to the gir1 eventually reunites the coup1巴， who have been drifting away from each other. They r巳gain a 10ve that is“
tranqui1 and de巳p1y satisfY
ing" (Furman 92).百leimportance ofDorcas can a1so be proved by the meeting ofVio1et and A1ice. For A1ice, Vio1et and Joe killed her niece and shou1d not be forgiven. But, Vio1et's visit to Alice surprisingly s個rtedan intimate relationship between the two women. In A1ice's house, Violet found
“
somewhere to sit down" (J 104). According to Mitchell,“
Violet's who1eness occurs after she establishes a sisterly bond with Alice Man企ed"(58). Talking to Vio1仗， Alice remembered her own past and realized how women would pick up a knife (J 108). Dorcas, though not present, connects the two characters. As Adadi-Nagy analyzed the characters on the basis of narratology, he found that Dorcas is
“
the most intriguing agent at the fabula level." She goes through an“
actantial role-reversa1，"企oman opponent to Vio1et to her helper (17).Dorcas as a uni
fY
ing force ofthe novel can be seen from the structure. The novel begins with Dorcas' death. Gradually it moves back to the past, to Violet and Joe's childhood. The digression culminates with Golden Gray's sto句; which takes fifty pages in the middle of the narrative. Then it is 吐le party scene where J oe shootsWorks Cited
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