An Analysis Of Toni Morrison’s Jazz From The Perspective Of Jazz Theme

Toni Morrison is regarded as one of the most outstanding novelists in contemporary society. As an African American female writer, Morrison pays much attention to the black’s life and history. Jazz, published in 1992, is a typical novel to show the black’s spiritual life in Harlem Renaissance. Jazz is a novel to depict the black’s emotional life and it is also a discovery of African American’s trauma in contemporary era. It records the history from the 1860 s to the 1930 s, including Slavery, Reconstruction and the Great Migration. Jazz is also a kind of music form that expresses a feeling of lostness, freedom love and harmony, which are the same as African American’s emotional change and experience. Jazz acts as a theme to narrate Jazz. Thus, this thesis aims to focus on the African American’s spiritual trauma, arouse self-recognition and guide a bright future with love and communication like a jazz song. This thesis is divided into five parts:The first part is an introduction of Toni Morrison’s life experiences, her achievements and literature review on her and Jazz at home and abroad. Chapter one focuses on the definition and features of jazz, discusses jazz historical background and the essence of jazz. From Chapter two to Chapter four, each chapter is a part of jazz playing. Jazz song includes prelude, solo and tutti and every part contains the black’s experience that implies the growth of recognition. Chapter two is the prelude of jazz. The theme of lostness is like a blue song and Morrison is the singer of blues. Chapter three analyzes the black’s self-recognition and awakening after lostness. It is the same as the theme of solo with freedom and searching for self. Chapter four focuses on the the theme of love and harmony in tutti to analyze the black’s love in community. Only love and harmony can performers play a wonderful tutti and so does the black community. Living in harmonious atmosphere, the black can walk out of the well of lostness and find their own cultural identity. The final part is the summary of the thesis.