Toni Morrison Jazz Character Analysis

I found this passage in the last section of the novel to be very applicable to the personalities of Morrison 's characters. The quote can be interpreted in many different ways; however, I believe that Morrison is trying to explain a cycle of the “powerless” black man due to coming from a broken past. Many of the characters in Toni Morrison 's Jazz (1992) originate from “broken pasts.” Their pasts have been negative due to the lack of a stable foundation in their childhood. The characters in the novel have parents who are either dead, or missing in their lives. This has created an emptiness in the soul, which has created a long cycle of emotional oppression in urban environments. The characters are removed of their power because they are stripped of control in their life situations. Searching for an identity is a common …show more content…
Even in current times, a high percentage of African-American homes are stripped of a mother/father figure. Throughout this movement, Africans have tried hard to make new locations their home. American locations that are thought of as black communities (e.g. Atlanta,Chicago,Philadelphia) have a reputation of being less than ideal. It is also hard for African-Americans to feel a sense of home in these cities because many were forced to migrate from the south to the north, leaving behind their families, in order to escape social prejudices. Black Harlem is an environment that can evoke the best and the worst out of the characters. For example, the novel is set during the Harlem renaissance, when jazz music was becoming a popular thing and created an ability to seducing people like Dorcas, or making people like Alice fear. There is also the apparent economic and social disparity that African-Americans faced in a poverty-ridden city like Harlem, which has been a common theme in many of our