An Analysis Of Jazz From The Perspectives Of Psychology And Black Culture

Toni Morrison (1931—), the Nobel Prize Winner of Literature in 1993, is one of the most prestigious black female writers in the American literature. She commits herself to the creation of black literature and uses her own words to depict the real stories happened in the black's lives by using her extraordinary efforts and the unique vision. Till now, she has written nine fictions including The Bluest Eye (1970),Sula(1974), Song of Solomon(1977), Tar Baby(1981), Beloved(1987), Jazz(1992), Paradise(1999), Love(2003) and the new published The Mercy (2008). In these works, Morrison uses delicate words and rich imagination to portray the characters and story vividly. This reveals the black inner worlds in front of the readers.Jazz is the sixth fiction of Toni Morrison's. It is published in 1992. Together with Beloved(1987) and Paradise(1999), these three fictions are regarded as Morrison's trilogy. World magazine once speaks highly of it. In this fiction, the writer focuses on Violet and Joe' marriage. By adopting the improvisational method, the characters' life processes and psychological obstacles are displayed completely in front of the readers. This discloses the causes of the success and failures of the black's marriages in Harlem period. In addition to it, as the spokesman of African Americans, Morrison considers identity cognition is the most serious problem that the black face. The problems of the marriage in Jazz are not only derived from the individuals but also from the society. Although Harlem period improves the black's positions, this new life doesn't bring more improvement for their lives. In this new life, Afro-Americans suffer the loneliness invisibly. They lose themselves but simultaneously seek for themselves. Under the confliction of white and black cultures and the impact of the metropolis, they expect to find out their ways of accessing to the happiness.The thesis will deeply study the two themes of marriage and the black's self-loss and self-identity based on psychology and black culture. It aims to disclose the psychological causes of the success and failure of the marriage and the social ones of the black self-loss and self-identity.This thesis is composed of five parts:The first part provides a brief introduction of Toni Morrison, her work Jazz and the study trends on Jazz in literature. The purpose of it is to make readers have a deep understanding on Morrison and her work Jazz by introducing the writer's life, experience, main works, writing styles, the source and writing method of Jazz.The second part presents the theoretical base for this thesis. It introduces the psychology and black culture including Freud's personality theory, Carl Jung's unconsciousness theory, African culture and African American culture.The third and the fourth parts are the main bodies of this thesis. The third part mainly studies the causes of the break and repair of Violet and Joe's marriage; while the fourth part explores the causes of the black's self-loss and detect the ways of their self-identity from the information reflected from the theme of marriage.The fifth part summarizes the whole thesis and draws the conclusion of the study.