How the vicious ways of social categories and conditions affect the lives of ordinary individuals, and disrupt familial and interpersonal relations is a persistent theme in Toni Morrison. Her characters consist of those who perform unexplainable behaviors and commit violent acts, at times so unbelievably shocking, as though drawn to purposefully appall the readers. Yet, given that Morrison often bases the story elements for her novels on actual incidents, it is important to understand how and why things happen as they are in Morrison's fictional spaces. With the overwhelming personal histories of her characters that intersect with the larger social oppression of African Americans, Morrison tries to conceive and map out relationships, communities, and ways of life that may present hopeful, unconventional alternatives to painful situations of dehumanization, and emotional and psychological trauma. In this regard, Morrison's novel Jazz (1992) is not a conspicuous deviation. However, the novel's accomplishment also lies in the nuanced intersection and complementarity between the novel's experimentalist style and its thematic suggestiveness. As a substantial body of criticism has intelligently studied, Jazz takes a distinctive narrative style, where the novel upsets traditional role of the narrator, unsettling the familiar separation between the narrator, the characters, and the readers. The unexpectedness of the novel's style complements the content, the unanticipated twists and turns in the story.
Several commentators have accordingly attended to Morrison's literary style—making sense of the culturally and politically meaningful title of the novel Jazz. This paper attempts to build on the critical work, by concentrating chiefly on the possibilities of Morrison's characterization, in particular how the portrayal of Violet corresponds to the stylistic and the thematic possibilities present in the novel. As suggested in Morrison's metaphor of “cracks,” Violet is defined by her unusual and unauthorized conduct. In reading Violet, I examine how uncustomary behaviors that are stigmatized and unacceptable to communal norms--as Violet's self-developed, distinct responses to her reality--can in effect work toward regenerative ends. I argue that in Jazz, it is the paradoxical situation of the evidently defective, problematic, and destructive which lead to the creative remaking and reconstruction of damaged selfhoods. Violet's oddity also becomes the basis of her interpersonal relationship with Alice Manfred, a bond between two women who seem to be irreconcilably at odds, in common, conventional thinking and expectations. As such, while the theme in Jazz of women coming together is not notably new in Morrison, I consider how Morrison's characterization of Violet--and the cracks that function as an empowering alternative to devastated subjectivities and severed relations--is defining and constitutive of the novel's attention to improvisation, unpredictability, self-remaking, and recreation.
KCI 등재
Working with ‘Public Craziness’ and ‘Private Cracks’: Toni Morrison’s Jazz
현대영미소설
약어 : -
2010 vol.17, no.1, pp.167 - 202
DOI : 10.22909/smf.2010.17.1.008
발행기관 : 한국현대영미소설학회
연구분야 : 영어와문학
Copyright © 한국현대영미소설학회
약어 : -
2010 vol.17, no.1, pp.167 - 202
DOI : 10.22909/smf.2010.17.1.008
발행기관 : 한국현대영미소설학회
연구분야 : 영어와문학
Copyright © 한국현대영미소설학회
Toni Morrison, Jazz, African American women's literature
토니 모리슨, 재즈, 미국 흑인 여성문학
토니 모리슨, 재즈, 미국 흑인 여성문학
- 1. [학술지] Albrecht-Crane, Christa / 2003 / Becoming Minoritarian : Post-Identity in Toni Morrison's Jazz / The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association / 36 (1) : 56 ~ 1
- 2. [학술지] Cannon, Elizabeth M. / 1997 / Following the Traces of Female Desirein Toni Morrison's Jazz / African American Review / 31 (2) : 235 ~ 2
- 3. [단행본] Furman, Jan / 1996 / Toni Morrison's Fiction / U of South Carolina P
- 4. [학술지] Hardack, Richard / 1995 / 'A Music Seeking its Words' : Double-Timing and Double-Consciousness in Toni Morrison's Jazz / Callaloo / 18 (2) : 451 ~ 2
- 5. [학술지] Kim, Yeonman / 2001 / Involuntary Vulner ability and the Felix Culpain Toni Morrison's Jazz. / Southern Literary Journal / 33 (2) : 124 ~ 2
- 6. [학술지] Jones, Carolyn M. / 1997 / Traces and Cracks : Identity and Narrative in Toni Morrison's Jazz / African American Review / 31 (3) : 481 ~ 3
- 7. [학술지] Ludigkeit, Dirk / 2001 / Collective Improvisation and Narrative Structure in Toni Morrison's Jazz / LIT / 12 : 165 ~
- 8. [학술지] Mbalia, Doreatha / 1993 / Women Who Run with Wild : The Need for Sisterhoods in Jazz / Modern Fiction Studies / 39 (3) : 623 ~ 3
- 9. [학술지] Mitchell, Angelyn / 1998 / 'Sth, I Know that woman' : History, Gender, and the South in Toni Morrison's Jazz / Studies in the Literary Imagination / 31 (2) : 49 ~ 2
- 10. [단행본] Morrison, Toni / 1992 / Jazz / Knopf
- 11. [학술지] O'Reilly, Andrea / 1996 / In Search of My Mother's Garden, I Found My Own ; Mother-Love / African American Review / 30 (3) : 367 ~ 3
- 12. [학술지] Otten, Terry / 1993 / Horrific Love in Toni Morrison's Fiction / Modern Fiction Studies / 393 : 651 ~
- 13. [학술지] Ryan, Judylyn S. / 1998 / Jazz...on 'The Site of Memory.' / Studies in the Literary Imagination / 31 (2) : 125 ~ 2
- 14. [학술지] Page, Philip / 1995 / Traces of Derrida in Toni Morrison's Jazz / African American Review / 29 (1) : 55 ~ 1
- 15. [학술지] Sherard, Tracey / 2000 / Women's Classic Blues in Toni Morrison's Jazz : Cultural Artifact as Narrator / Genders / 31 : 1 ~
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Working with ‘Public Craziness’ and ‘Private Cracks’: Toni Morrison’s Jazz
@article{ART001439852},
author={
김민정
},
title={
Working with ‘Public Craziness’ and ‘Private Cracks’: Toni Morrison’s Jazz
},
journal={
현대영미소설
},
issn={1229-7232},
year={2010},
number={1},
pages={167 - 202},
doi={10.22909/smf.2010.17.1.008},
url={http://dx.doi.org/10.22909/smf.2010.17.1.008}
TY - JOUR
AU - 김민정
TI - Working with ‘Public Craziness’ and ‘Private Cracks’: Toni Morrison’s Jazz
T2 - 현대영미소설
PY - 2010
VL - 17
IS - 1
PB - 한국현대영미소설학회
SP - 167 - 202
SN - 1229-7232
AB - How the vicious ways of social categories and conditions affect the lives of ordinary individuals, and disrupt familial and interpersonal relations is a persistent theme in Toni Morrison. Her characters consist of those who perform unexplainable behaviors and commit violent acts, at times so unbelievably shocking, as though drawn to purposefully appall the readers. Yet, given that Morrison often bases the story elements for her novels on actual incidents, it is important to understand how and why things happen as they are in Morrison's fictional spaces. With the overwhelming personal histories of her characters that intersect with the larger social oppression of African Americans, Morrison tries to conceive and map out relationships, communities, and ways of life that may present hopeful, unconventional alternatives to painful situations of dehumanization, and emotional and psychological trauma. In this regard, Morrison's novel Jazz (1992) is not a conspicuous deviation. However, the novel's accomplishment also lies in the nuanced intersection and complementarity between the novel's experimentalist style and its thematic suggestiveness. As a substantial body of criticism has intelligently studied, Jazz takes a distinctive narrative style, where the novel upsets traditional role of the narrator, unsettling the familiar separation between the narrator, the characters, and the readers. The unexpectedness of the novel's style complements the content, the unanticipated twists and turns in the story.
Several commentators have accordingly attended to Morrison's literary style—making sense of the culturally and politically meaningful title of the novel Jazz. This paper attempts to build on the critical work, by concentrating chiefly on the possibilities of Morrison's characterization, in particular how the portrayal of Violet corresponds to the stylistic and the thematic possibilities present in the novel. As suggested in Morrison's metaphor of “cracks,” Violet is defined by her unusual and unauthorized conduct. In reading Violet, I examine how uncustomary behaviors that are stigmatized and unacceptable to communal norms--as Violet's self-developed, distinct responses to her reality--can in effect work toward regenerative ends. I argue that in Jazz, it is the paradoxical situation of the evidently defective, problematic, and destructive which lead to the creative remaking and reconstruction of damaged selfhoods. Violet's oddity also becomes the basis of her interpersonal relationship with Alice Manfred, a bond between two women who seem to be irreconcilably at odds, in common, conventional thinking and expectations. As such, while the theme in Jazz of women coming together is not notably new in Morrison, I consider how Morrison's characterization of Violet--and the cracks that function as an empowering alternative to devastated subjectivities and severed relations--is defining and constitutive of the novel's attention to improvisation, unpredictability, self-remaking, and recreation.
KW - Toni Morrison, Jazz, African American women's literature
DO - 10.22909/smf.2010.17.1.008
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.22909/smf.2010.17.1.008
ER -
김민정 (2010). Working with ‘Public Craziness’ and ‘Private Cracks’: Toni Morrison’s Jazz. 현대영미소설, 17(1), 167 - 202.
김민정 . 2010, “Working with ‘Public Craziness’ and ‘Private Cracks’: Toni Morrison’s Jazz”, vol.17, no.1, pp. 167 - 202. Available from: doi:10.22909/smf.2010.17.1.008
김민정. “Working with ‘Public Craziness’ and ‘Private Cracks’: Toni Morrison’s Jazz“ 현대영미소설 17.1 pp. 167 - 202. (2010): 167.
김민정 . Working with ‘Public Craziness’ and ‘Private Cracks’: Toni Morrison’s Jazz 현대영미소설 [Internet]. 2010; 17(1), : 167 - 202. Available from: doi:10.22909/smf.2010.17.1.008
김민정 . “Working with ‘Public Craziness’ and ‘Private Cracks’: Toni Morrison’s Jazz“ 현대영미소설 17, no.1, (2010): 167 - 202. doi: :10.22909/smf.2010.17.1.008