Jazz

1
Jazz

• Author Toni Morrison
• By Chelsea O. Jane Z. Whitley J. Jasmine W.

2
Do Now What are your first thoughts when you
hear the word Jazz?

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Toni Morrison

• Born Chloe Anthony Wofford in Lorain, Ohio
  1931-Great Depression
• Nickname is Toni and Morrison is her ex husbands
  name.
• Lived with her grandparents sharecroppers.
• In 1910 they left Alabama and moved North in
  hopes of a better life.
• 1949 - Morrison enrolled in Howard University to
  study English.
• Morrison received a B.A. in English from Howard
  in 1953, then earned a Masters degree in English,
  from Cornell University in 1955.
• 1958 - she married Harold Morrison. They had two
  children, Harold and Slade, and divorced in 1964.
• She wrote her first novel at the age of 30 and
  has completed 6 novels and a collection of essays
  and lectures.
• Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for
  Beloved and the Nobel Prize for Literature in
  1993.
• She is the FIRST African American to win the
  Nobel Prize, first woman to win in 55 years and
  eighth woman to win since the Nobel Prize was
  created.
• Throughout her life she was a teacher, a textbook
  editor and an editor.
• Her writing targets the African American
  community and the hardships they face. She uses
  vivid dialogue and powerful characters to get
  across her dynamic themes.

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Dramatic Reading

• Killing people. Alice sucked her teeth. Makes
  me sick to my stomach. She poured the tea, then
  lifting the cup and saucer, held it back while
  she looked at Violet.
• If you had found out about them before he killed
  her, would you have?
• Alice handed her the tea. I dont understand
  women like you. Women with knives. She snatched
  up a long-sleeved blouse and smoothed it over the
  ironing board.
• I wasnt born with a knife.
• No, but you picked one up.
• You never did? Violet blew ripples into the
  tea.
• No, I never did. Even when my husband ran off I
  never did that. And you. You didnt even have a
  worthy enemy. Somebody worth killing. You picked
  up the knife to insult a dead girl.
• But thats better aint it? The harm was already
  done.
• She wasnt the enemy.
• Oh, yes she is. Shes my enemy. Then, when I
  didnt know it, and now too.
• Why? Because she was young and pretty and took
  your husband away from you?
• Violet sipped her tea and did not answer. After a
  long silence, and after their talk had turned to
  trifles then on to the narrowness of life, Violet
  said to Alice Manfred, Wouldnt you? Wouldnt
  you fight for your man?
• Seeded in childhood, watered every day since,
  fear had sprouted through her veins all her life.
  Thinking war thoughts it had gathered, blossomed
  into another thing. Now, as she looked at this
  woman, Alice heard her question like the pop of a
  toy gun.

5
Details

• The customer flinched and the skin discolored
  right away. Violet moaned her apologies and the
  woman was satisfied until she discovered that the
  whole curl was singed clean off. Skin healed, but
  an empty spot in her hairlineViolet had to forgo
  payment to shut her up. pg 108

• Reader is able to create a vivid image of whats
  happening in the scene.
• We understand both characters points of views.
• We are given many facts of an unimportant
  character in such a small passage.

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Imagery

• The walls were white with silver and turquoise
  draperies at the window. The furniture fabric was
  turquoise too. And the throw rugs the hostess
  rolled up and put in the spare bedroom were
  white. pg 215

• Morrison obviously explains the characters
  surroundings.
• Her descriptions use every thing possible.

7
Diction

• Women answers Violet. Woman wore 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 pg.16

• Morrison emphasizes the girls ages by calling
  them hungry
• She puts in descriptions that show the contrast
  between a girl and a woman.
• Woman use lipstick and see through stockings etc.
  Girls stick to little boys their own age.
• Her diction shows the anger in Violets words. We
  can tell shes looking down on Dorcass actions.

8
Language

• I chose you. Nobody gave you to me. Nobody said
  thats the one for you. I picked you out. Wrong
  time, yep, and doing wrong by my wife. But the
  picking out, choosing. Dont ever think I fell
  for you, or fell over you. I didnt fall in love,
  I rose to it. I saw you and made up my mind. My
  mind.
• Pg. 135

• Morrisons language in this dialogue allows the
  reader to feel the coldness of this quote.
• Its something someone would say in real life.
• It makes the story all the more real because we
  can visualize the character actually saying it
  easily.

9
Syntax

• When I look over strips of green grass lining
  the river, at church steepless and into the cream
  and copper halls of apartment buildings, Im
  strong. Alone, yes, but top notch and
  indestructible like the City in 1926 when all
  the wars are over and there will never be another
  one. The people down there in the shadow are
  happy about that. At last, at last, everythings
  ahead. The smart ones say so and people listening
  to them and reading what they write down agree
  Here comes the new. Look out. There goes the sad
  stuff. The bad stuff. The things-nobody-could
  help stuff. The way everybody was then and there.
  Forget that.

• Morrison sets a tone in this passage based on the
  structure of her sentences.
• She is best known for her sentence variety.
• Has a mix of run on, short, long, medium
  sentences and unique sentence beginnings.

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Shifts

• Alice waited this time, in the month of March,
  for the woman with the knife. The woman people
  called Violent now because she had tried to kill
  what lay in a coffin. She had left notes under
  Alices door everyday beginning in January a
  week after the funeral and Alice Manfred knew
  the kind of Negro that couple was the kind she
  trained Dorcas away from. The embarrassing kind.
  More than unappealing, they were dangerous. The
  husband shot the wife stabbed. Nothing. Nothing
  her niece did or tried could equal the violence
  done to her. And where there was violence wasnt
  there also vice? Gambling. Cursing. A terrible
  and nasty closeness. Red dresses. Yellow shoes.
  And, of course, race music to urge them on. Pg.79

• Morrison uses dashes to indicate a change in
  narration of the story .
• Her chapters are split by one blank sheet and the
  sentence from the chapter before is continued.
• Her sentence structure changes constantly. She
  uses long sentences, short sentences, etc.

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ALWAYS REMEMBER!

• When looking at DIDLSS for Morrison pay most
  attention to her language and use of shifts.
• Her characters and story lines are mostly based
  on African Americans.