Gaze In Toni Morrson’s Jazz

Toni Morrison’s (1931—) Jazz, set in1920s in Harlem, is the second novel ofMorrison’s trilogy. Jazz depicts the theme of Afro-Americans migrants who lost theiridentity under the gaze of the white hegemonic culture, reconstruct identity and self inthe oppositional gaze. The thesis applied Jacque Lacan’s Gaze theory to analysis Jazz.Afro-Americans migrate from the rural south to the urban north to get rid of traumaticpast and build new identity. But under the gaze of white-urban culture, theyinternalize the white hegemony culture and are uprooted from African tradition,which lead to Afro-Americans’ and split identity. The sense of lack drives them topursuit the “object petit a”: the long-absent mother and white identity. Their strugglein filling the lack resulted from racism is futile. Whereas gaze is bilateral, they areboth the object and subject of gaze. When they band together to communicate andconnect to each other, they begin to revalue the relationship between past and present,individual and community with oppositional gaze. They reassess their racial Other,the white, and reconcile with the intro-racial Other, their fellow blacks. The whiteinvasion of their mind is annihilated thus they reconstruct their identity and self.Coming out of the past does not mean forgetfulness, but facing up trauma bravely andcreate a new identity via love and black unity.