Deceptive First Impressions in Morrisons Jazz Essay -- Toni Morrison

Deceptive First Impressions in Morrisons Jazz The novel Jazz by Toni Morrison is an extremely well compose account of black life during the mid 1850s to the late 1920s. Morrison manipulates the three main characters personas while analyzing their lives to show the effect that a persons history has on their present day life. The most interesting thing I found concerning this novel has the way in which Toni Morrison was able to present you with a first impression of the characters, then deal by history, to give you a new conception of their character. This is seen through three important individuals Violet, Joe, and Dorcas. At the beginning, Violet is pictured as crazy and foolish, but through the interpretation of her history, a clearer picture of a woman in love is presented. At first, Joe is seen as a man without standards who is simply a cheating economize who kills his girlfriend, but this also is abolished when the extenuating circumstances of his history are described. Dorc as plays the role of the piteous,innocent woman who is stuck in the middle of this crisis at the beginning, but is relieved of this generalized motion picture through her actions towards Joe and her search for self-satisfaction. Even though the history that is recounted in this novel is more gossip than fact, it presents a more accurate story than the one depicted in the offical story located at the beginning of the novel. Toni Morrison attempts, through these three characters to illustrate how the narrators perception of each characters history can alter the subscribers understanding of a characters actions. Through this technique, she is able to demonstrate that circumstances andevents are not always as simple or truthful ... ...th explanations for certain behavior and prohibits the reader from saltation to unsound conclusions. Through knowing their personal history the readers perception of the three characters is distinctly changed Violet is no longer seen as crazy Joe isn ot seen as the cold-hearted, adulterous murderer anymore and Dorcas transforms from an innocent young girl to a more callous, immature, child solely concerned with self-satisfaction and a longing for belonging. Although the chronological style Toni Morrison uses is not unique, the reader finds it very useful for it allows them to experience the events as though they were being remembered by the characters. Through the characters in this novel, Toni Morrison is able to teach the reader a familiar lesson about life not to judge a book by its cover.Works Cited Morrison, Toni. Jazz. New York Plume, 1992.