Jazz (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Toni Morrison
- First Published: 1992
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: The 1920’s, with flashbacks reaching back to 1873
- Setting: Harlem, New York, and rural Virginia
- Principal Characters: Joe Trace, Violet Trace, Dorcas, Alice Manfred, Rose Dear, True Belle, Vera Louise Gray, Golden Gray, Hunter’s Hunter (Henry Lestory), Wild, Felice
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: African Americans, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Blacks, Murder or homicide, South or Southerners, New York City, Harlem Renaissance, 1920’s, Adultery
- Locales: Virginia, Harlem, NY
The Novel
Jazz, Toni Morrison’s sixth novel, is a lyrical, multifaceted narrative that explores the Harlem lives and back-country roots of a number of African American characters in the years from 1873 to 1926. In keeping with the loose, improvisational nature of the music that gives the book its title, Jazz is composed of ten untitled, unnumbered chapters. The principal first-person narrator is an unnamed omniscient observer with a distinctly subjective personality who knows Harlem and the main characters well. The novel also includes first-person passages...
[The entire page is 3093 words long]
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