jazz
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Jazz. By Toni Morrison Eric A. Yael A. Annie B-L Leighton B. Julien S. Warm Up: Why do you think Toni Morrison decided to reveal the plot of the story in the beginning?. Toni Morrison. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Jazz
Jazz
By Toni MorrisonEric A.Yael A.Annie B-LLeighton B.Julien S.
Warm Up: Why do you think Toni Morrison decided to reveal the
plot of the story in the beginning?
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison was born to a working class family in Lorain, Ohio,
in 1931. Morrison began writing in an unofficial group in Howard
University, where she majored in English. She got her Master of
Arts degree from Cornell University. There, she wrote a thesis on
suicide in the writings of William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf.
Morrison has written many honored books that have been nominated
and won awards, such as The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and
Beloved. In 1988 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and in
1993, she won the Noble Prize in Fiction.
Details
"That was Dorcas, all right. Young but wise. She was Joe's personal
sweet--like candy. It was the best thing, if you were young and had
just got to the City. That and the clarinets and even they were
called licorice sticks. But Joe has been in the City twenty years
and isn't young anymore. I imagine him as one of those men who stop
somewhere around sixteen. Inside. So even though he wears
button-up-the-front sweaters and round-toed shoes, he's a kid, a
strapling, and candy could still make him smile. He likes those
peppermint things last the live-long day, and thinks everybody else
does too. Passes them out to Gistan's boys clowning on the curb.
You could tell they'd rather chocolate or something with peanuts."
(Page 120-121)
Explanation
Morrison uses a lot of detail when describing the characters
personal feelings, mostly because the book is from the point of
view of the characters, and not one of a third person narrator.
While the descriptions are vague, they still give the reader a good
idea of what is going on without telling every single detail.
Morrison leaves the interpretation of what things in a given
setting look like up to the reader.
Imagery
"Animals are somewhere; he can smell them, but the little house
looks empty, if not cast-off completely. Certainly the owner never
expected a horse and carriage to arrive--the fence gate is wide
enough for a stout woman but no more. He unharnesses the horse and
walks it a way to the right and discovers, behind the cabin and
under a tree he does not know the name of, two open stalls, one of
which is full of shapes. Leading the horse he hears behind him a
groan form the woman, but doesn't stop to see whether she is
walking or dying or falling off the seat. Close up on the stalls he
sees that the shapers are tubs, sacks, lumber, wheels, a broken
plow, a butter press and a metal trunk. There is a stake too, and
he ties the horse to it. Water, he thinks. Water for the horse.
What he thinks is a pump in the distance is an ax handle still
lodged in a stump." (Page 151)
Explanation
Morrison uses a lot of vague imagery, which allows you to interpret
the scene as you would like. She does not go into specifics like
color, and appearance of objects, she just tells you the minimum
you need to know so you can visualize the scene for yourself. She
is usually very vague at first, then as the descriptions continue,
she tells you a little more so you can figure out what is going on.
This is seen when she says "one of which is full of shapes." This
leaves the reader very confused at first because full of shapes can
mean anything, but then she continues to mention that there were
wheels, tubs, and sacks, which were obviously the shapes she was
talking about. Morrison also appeals to the five senses, like in
this passage she mentions smell, sight, and hearing to give the
reader a full sensory experience when reading.
Diction
Ive seen the eyes of black Jews, brimful of pity for everyone not
themselves, graze the food stalls and the ankles of loose womenA
colored man floats out of the sky blowing a saxophone, and below
him, in the space between two buildings, a girl talks earnestly to
a man in a straw hat. He touches her lip to remove a bit of
something there. Suddenly she is quiet. He tilts her chin up. They
stand thereThe man puts his hand on the stone wall above her head.
By the way his jaw moves and the turn of his head I know he has a
golden tongue. (Page 8)
Explanation
Toni Morrisons writing is in between informal and formal. The words
that she uses arent difficult to understand. She also uses a number
of abstracts. For example in the quote she says A colored man
floats out of the sky blowing a saxophone and By the way his jaw
moves and the turn of his head I know he has a golden tongue. Toni
Morrisons vocabulary is also euphonious; she uses words that arent
harsh such as floats and golden.
Language
Women, answers Violet. Women wear me down. No man ever wore me down
to nothing. Its these little hungry girls acting like women. Not
content with boys their own age, no, they want somebody old enough
to be their father. Switching round with lipstick, see-through
stockings, dresses up to their you-know-what Thats my ear, girl!
You going to press it too? Sorry. Im sorry. Really, really sorry.
And Violet stops to blow her nose and blot tears with the back of
her hand. (Page 14)
Explanation
This quote shows Toni Morrisons use of language in her stories.
Characters speak in a way so the reader can visualize a scene
perfectly. Morrison also uses language to portray her characters as
strong women. This is something that is in many of Morrisons texts.
Morrison uses many idiomatic expressions in her writing, although
none are visible in the selected quote. The characters all speak in
very specific ways. Language of the time and setting is spoken by
characters and adds to the readers ability to visualize the scene.
Morrison made a point to have the language in the story similar to
the books namesake, jazz. In jazz, there are calm parts that can be
interrupted abruptly and there is a lot of improvisation. When
people speak emotionally, this is how they act.
Syntax
She forgot which way to turn the key in the lock, that Violet not
only knew the knife was in the parrots cage and not in the kitchen
draw, that Violet remembered that what she did not: scraping marble
form the parrots claws and beak weeks ago. She had been looking for
that knife for a month. Couldnt for the life of her think what shed
done with it. But that Violet knew and went right to it. Knew too
where the funeral was going on, although it could not have been but
one of two places, come to think of it. Still, that Violet knew
which one of the two, and the right time to get there. (Page
90)
Explanation
In this passage, Toni Morrison uses a lot of repetition, which it
makes the passage sound more poetic. The repetition of the word
that really drives the purpose of what the character is thinking in
to our heads. Each sentence is a continuation of what that Violet,
compared to the old Violet, was doing. Morrison uses very long
sentences. There are many paragraphs in the book that consist of
just one sentence. These sentences are broken up by commas, making
them seem more well written than a run of sentence. Heads are
turning to look where I am falling. Its dark and now its light. I
am lying on my bed (Page 192). That is one of the few places where
short sentences are used. When short sentences are used, they are
typically in a part of the plot that is dramatic and
suspenseful.
Shift
Eighteen ninety-three was the third time I changed. That was when
Vienna burned to the ground. Red fire doing fast what white sheets
took too long to finish; emptying us out of our places so fast we
went running from one part of the country to another or nowhere. I
walked and worked, worked and walked, me and Victory, fifteen miles
to Palestine. Thats where I met violet. We got married and set up
on Harlon Ricks place near Tyrell. He owned the worst land in the
county. Violet and me worked his crops for two years. when the soul
ran out, when rocks was the biggest harvest, we at what I shot.
Then old man Ricks got fed up and sold the place along with our
debt to a man called Clayton Bede. The debt rose from one hundred
eighty dollars to eight hundred under him (Page 126)
Explanation
In the beginning of the passage Morrison gives an over view of
events that express the mood and emotion of the passage. This
allows the reader to get completely relaxed with the scene and to
feel what the character is feeling. This also helps the reader
interpret what the later part of the passage is. By setting the
mood and emotion the reader will interpret what the text how the
author intends it to be interpreted. Morrison shifts to a more
specific text subject. Going from emotional events to how the
character is feeling and why brings the reader back to the story
and advances the plot further on.