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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Jazz, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Romantic Love
Jazz, Improvisation, and Reinvention
Motherhood
Racial Violence and Protest
Gossip vs. Knowledge
Summary
Analysis
“Sth,” an unnamed narrator gossips, “I know that woman.” This narrator is talking about Violet and her husband Joe Trace, a middle-aged couple who live on Lenox Avenue in New York City and keep birds. Joe fell in love with a much younger woman, then he killed her in a moment of jealousy; later, Violet went to her husband’s mistress’s funeral just to stab the already-dead girl in her coffin. After the funeral, Violet went home and set all her birds free, even the parrot who used to chirp “I love you” all day long.
This opening line (“sth, I know that woman”) immediately sets up several of the novel’s most essential themes. First, the musical sound of the first word, “sth,” links the form of the novel to the jazz music that inspired it. Second, the narrator’s confidence in “knowing” Violet just from gossip and observation sets her up for possible disappointment later, if her predictions about Violet and Joe fail to come true. And finally, the parrot with its unreciprocated “I love you” acts as a mirror for the unrequited love between Joe, Violet, and the girl Joe fell in love with.
Themes
Even though Joe killed the girl, he still cried every day in mourning for her. For her part, Violet—not shamed even after her outburst at the funeral—took up with another man, sleeping with him in front of Joe. The narrator reflects that though Violet was thin and pretty, Joe paid no attention to her, no matter how jealous she tried to make him or how many meals she cooked. Eventually, Violet gave up trying, and she “decided to love—well, find out about—the eighteen-year-old whose creamy face she tried to cut open even though nothing would have come out but straw.”
It is important to note the story’s unusual structure: rather than keeping readers in suspense about the juiciest plot points, Morrison reveals most of the most essentials twists right away. In doing so, she suggests that Violet’s quest to “find out about” the girl Joe killed is where the real surprise lies, not in the sordid details of Joe’s affair. The mention of the girl’s youth (she appears to Violet as “the eighteen-year-old” with the “creamy face”) also hints at possible maternal feelings that Violet has towards this girl.
Themes
At first, Violet knew almost nothing about the girl (later revealed to be named Dorcas). To learn more, Violet asked Malvonne, the neighbor who had rented Joe her apartment as a “love nest”; she also asked at the “legally licensed beauty parlor” Dorcas used to frequent. When that wasn’t enough, Violet asked Dorcas’s former schoolteachers and the girl’s dignified old aunt. Violet even learned the girl’s favorite dance steps, and she would do them herself, much to the horror of everyone around her (including Joe and her now-ex-boyfriend).
Like the narrator, Violet is obsessed with learning everything she can about Dorcas and the circumstances that tied her to Joe. But unlike the narrator, Violet intuits that understanding somebody cannot come merely from observing them; instead, she feels determined to sit in the places where Dorcas sat, to dance the steps Dorcas used to dance. In giving so much of herself to Dorcas, however, Violet seems to be losing touch with her own identity.
Themes
One day, Dorcas’s aunt Alice gives Violet a picture of the dead girl, and Violet sets it on the mantle so she and Joe can both look at it whenever they want. But though the narrator assumes this picture on the mantle makes Violet’s apartment feel like a funeral home, things change that spring when Violet meets a girl Dorcas’s age. “That’s how that scandalizing threesome on Lenox Avenue began,” the narrator reflects. “What turned out different was who shot whom.”
In making this vague, frightening threat about another shooting in relation to the “scandalizing threesome,” the narrator creates a sense of foreboding for her readers, framing Violet and Joe as fated for doom.
Themes
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The narrator announces that she is “crazy about this city.” She loves the tall buildings and the fancy stone architecture; to her, the city feels like it’s always “1926 when all the wars are over and there will never be another one.” Everybody is always “thinking future thoughts” in New York City, and there is always music, always people falling in love. And though there is a great deal of anti-Black racism, there are more Black nurses and doctors and clerks than ever.
From the mentions of Lenox Avenue and the descriptions of the architecture, it is clear that the novel is set in Harlem, New York City at the height of the Harlem Renaissance (an era where Black art, music, literature, and theater flourished). Though the narrator sees Harlem as a kind of oasis, her description is not altogether hopeful. Instead, the story notes just how much racial discrimination and violence still persists—and though the narrator is excited about the “future,” contemporary readers know that the post-World War I era the narrator describes is merely the prelude to the even bloodier World War II.
Themes
As long as you are careful in the city, the narrator explains, none of its criminality or chaos can hurt you. For her part, the narrator mostly stays inside, watching city life rather than participating in it. In the first days of 1926, when Violet attacked Dorcas’s funeral, the “doomsayers” saw it is a sign that the year was cursed. But the narrator sees things differently—in New York, she thinks, you have to know “when to love something and when to quit.”
The narrator has already introduced her audience to her own methods of prediction and gossip, but this passage suggests that there are many different kinds of “doomsayers” in the neighborhood. She’s also very convinced that her advice to know “when to quit” something is the only correct advice, highlighting her self-confidence.
Themes
Though winters are cold in Harlem, the people there adore it. Everyone is neighborly, willing to gossip or lend cooking ingredients. Segregation is still the norm, but in Harlem, anyone of any race can hail a cab or sit in a restaurant. Only Violet and Joe seem removed from this swirl, staying up all night to take turns looking at the picture of the dead Dorcas on their mantle.
The joy the narrator feels in the simple fact of being able to hail a cab or sit at a restaurant speaks to the otherwise pervasive, deforming nature of racial segregation beyond the Black enclave of 1920s Harlem. Tonally, the narrator’s emphasis on the picture of Dorcas creates a sense of claustrophobia and adds to the dread that the story ascribes to this couple.
Themes
Violet’s apartment used to feel bustling, filled with birds and the customers who came to get their hair done for cheap (Violet can’t charge as much as the beauty parlors because she doesn’t have her license). But now the birds are gone, and since the funeral, most of Violet’s clients have started doing their own hair. So Violet has started traveling door-to-door, tending to “women who wake in the afternoon, pour gin in their tea and don’t care what she has done.”
In the first sentence of the narrative, Violet’s birds appeared to be a symbol of loneliness and unrequited love. But in earlier (pre-Dorcas) times, it is clear that the noisy birds signaled the companionship and business of Violet’s relatively happy life. The reference to “women who wake in the afternoon” suggests that Violet now mostly cuts hair for sex workers.
Themes
As Violet curls her clients’ hair, she talks about what happened between Joe and Dorcas. Sometimes she cries and sometimes her hand slips, and she burns her clients’ heads. These women tip well and listen well, and they advise Violet that “you can’t rival the dead for love.” Violet knows this is true, and that Joe is still in love with Dorcas. Violet also worries that she, too, is “falling in love” with Dorcas, obsessing over her light skin and dark eyes and split ends.
Though the narrator initially presented Violet as angry rather than distraught, Violet’s shakiness with the hair iron points to the depth of her pain. More importantly, it is crucial to track how Violet’s emotions and affections get confused; her care for Joe now seems to be partially transferred onto Dorcas, and Violet can no longer tell how or why her feelings originate.
Themes
Now, Violet soaps a client’s head, and the narrator wonders if Violet became a hairdresser because of her grandmother, True Belle. True Belle lived in Baltimore and worked for Miss Vera Louise in a fine, fancy house. True Belle spent most of her time washing soft baby curls, and Violet had always loved hearing stories of her grandmother playing with this beautiful blonde hair.
Joe’s affair has muddied Violet’s feelings in one way, but True Belle’s stories of the soft baby curls also demonstrate how racism and colorism have impacted Violet’s affections.
Themes
The narrator decides that no one in Harlem should have been surprised by Violet’s outburst at the funeral. Years earlier, Violet had suddenly sat down in the middle of the street, and she wouldn’t get up even when a policeman came. Finally, Violet had roused herself, dusted herself off, and made it to her next appointment a full hour late.
For the first time, it appears that Violet’s pain might not stem only—or even primarily—from Joe’s betrayal with Dorcas. Instead, the fact that Violet sat down in the street speaks to both her stubbornness and a deep sense of malaise, or meaningless.
Themes
And it wasn’t just the sitting incident—“quiet as it’s kept,” the narrator has not forgotten the rumors that Violet tried to steal a baby. The story goes that Violet was waiting for an appointment with the Dumfrey women, a wealthy mother-and-daughter duo who tried to hide their country roots. Violet was gossiping with a neighbor, biding time—and then the baby was in her arms. Violet cradled the child and felt a surge of peace, imagining bringing the baby home to Joe. In her joy, Violet then started laughing out loud.
The narrative will strongly hint that Violet is menopausal, so her desire for a baby is a biological impossibility. Still, Violet’s hunger for motherhood adds another layer to her relationships with Dorcas; is this girl Violet’s enemy, or a young woman she wants to care for? Interestingly, the phrase “quiet as it’s kept” is the opening line of Morrison’s debut novel The Bluest Eye, another book interested in how gossip and community can impact private life.
Themes
To this day, some people think that loud laugh confirmed that Violet was a baby thief, while others think that the laugh proved she was just holding the baby as a favor. When a crowd gathered to accuse Violet, she defended herself well, calling the claims that she would try to take somebody’s baby ridiculous. But every so often, Violet still fondly recalls the warmth in her veins when she held that baby. In her worst moments, Violet imagines moving that warmth around in her body, “distributed, if need be, into places dark as the bottom of the well.”
The gossipy neighbors here act almost as a jury, trying to decide whether Violet is crazy or misunderstood even as the narrator seems to embark on a similar quest of characterization. Violet’s reference to the “bottom of the well” will be important to keep in mind for later. Her complicated feelings about motherhood—and her desire to have a baby—are thus intimately linked with her own childhood loss.
Themes
Joe never learns of these “cracks” in Violet’s behavior, though sometimes his best friends Stuck and Gistan imply things. Violet used to be so reliable, calmly deciding to marry Joe, come to New York, and start a hairdressing business. But the cracks had started to appear years earlier, including once when Violet noticed Joe looking too long at a pretty girl in a drug store. And Joe had felt her silences, how mostly Violet spoke to her parrot who said, “I love you” in response.
Implicitly, the narrator seems to suggest that if someone pays attention to the “cracks”—or irregularities—in the people around them, they can predict how those people will behave. (Though the narrative will later contest this claim). The parrot’s unanswered “I love you” to Violet is now even more explicitly a stand-in for Joe’s own feelings of loneliness in his marriage.
Themes
