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Racism Related to the Novel Jazz

In the novel Jazz, written by Toni Morrison, racism was a strong

issue that was presented in the novel. The novel relayed the issue of
racism to its beginnings and to how it is today. Although, at that time
black males regaurded jazz as the essence of the Harlem Renaissance,
the age of the New Negro, for many black women it represented the
disenchantment of urban life. The age that emphasized reacial pride and
equality but often overshadowed black women’s equality. In the novel,
examples from Joe and Violet’s encounters with racism can be
compared to Toni Morrison’s dealings, how and when racism got its
start, and how it is today.

In Jazz, Joe and violet were intially dazzeled by the prospect of life
in New York, the center of the age of the New Negro. They were people
enthalled, the decived in Jazz, by the music. The images of the music
were encompased in the young girl Dorcss, whom Joe fell in love with
despite his attachement to Violet. The story opens with Dorcas’s funeral,
where Violet had tried to slash the poor dead girl’s face, now the town
reffered to her as “Violent”. Joe had killed the girl because she had tried
to leave him. From that point on the story became a struggle of
suffering and survival after the deception of
“jazz”.

Jazz symbolized the music that bloomed along with the Harlem
Reniassance between the years of 1920 and 1930. Like the harlem
Reniassance, it claimed to offer a better life foe southerners with new
hopes of opportunities in the North. Violet was embraced by this image,
but recalled a different view of “jazz”. Like many black women of her
time, it did not provide the promised opportunities but rather a source of
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the problem. “It wasn’t the war that disgruntled the veterans; it wasn’t
the droves and droves of colored people flocking to paychecks and
streets full of themselves. It was the music. The dirty get on down
music…” (Morrison, 58). It challenged the southerner’s religious faith,
which meant it could only breed evil. Violet argued “I messed up my
life . Before I came to the North I made sense and so did the world. We
didn’t have nothing and we didn’t miss it.” (Morrison, 207)

Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a
literary work.
Intolerance
The Crucible is set in a theocratic society, in which the church and the
state are one, and the religion is a strict, austere form of Protestantism
known as Puritanism. Because of the theocratic nature of the society,
moral laws and state laws are one and the same: sin and the status of an
individual’s soul are matters of public concern. There is no room for
deviation from social norms, since any individual whose private life
doesn’t conform to the established moral laws represents a threat not
only to the public good but also to the rule of God and true religion. In
Salem, everything and everyone belongs to either God or the devil;
dissent is not merely unlawful, it is associated with satanic activity. This
dichotomy functions as the underlying logic behind the witch trials. As
Danforth says in Act III, “a person is either with this court or he must be
counted against it.” The witch trials are the ultimate expression of
intolerance (and hanging witches is the ultimate means of restoring the
community’s purity); the trials brand all social deviants with the taint of
devil-worship and thus necessitate their elimination from the
community.
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Hysteria
Another critical theme in The Crucible is the role that hysteria can play
in tearing apart a community. Hysteria supplants logic and enables
people to believe that their neighbors, whom they have always
considered upstanding people, are committing absurd and unbelievable
crimes—communing with the devil, killing babies, and so on. In The
Crucible, the townsfolk accept and become active in the hysterical
climate not only out of genuine religious piety but also because it gives
them a chance to express repressed sentiments and to act on long-held
grudges. The most obvious case is Abigail, who uses the situation to
accuse Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft and have her sent to jail. But
others thrive on the hysteria as well: Reverend Parris strengthens his
position within the village, albeit temporarily, by making scapegoats of
people like Proctor who question his authority. The wealthy, ambitious
Thomas Putnam gains revenge on Francis Nurse by getting Rebecca,
Francis’s virtuous wife, convicted of the supernatural murders of Ann
Putnam’s babies. In the end, hysteria can thrive only because people
benefit from it. It suspends the rules of daily life and allows the acting
out of every dark desire and hateful urge under the cover of
righteousness.
Reputation
Reputation is tremendously important in theocratic Salem, where public
and private moralities are one and the same. In an environment where
reputation plays such an important role, the fear of guilt by association
becomes particularly pernicious. Focused on maintaining public
reputation, the townsfolk of Salem must fear that the sins of their friends
and associates will taint their names. Various characters base their
actions on the desire to protect their respective reputations. As the play
begins, Parris fears that Abigail’s increasingly questionable actions, and
the hints of witchcraft surrounding his daughter’s coma, will threaten his
reputation and force him from the pulpit. Meanwhile, the protagonist,
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John Proctor, also seeks to keep his good name from being tarnished.
Early in the play, he has a chance to put a stop to the girls’ accusations,
but his desire to preserve his reputation keeps him from testifying
against Abigail. At the end of the play, however, Proctor’s desire to keep
his good name leads him to make the heroic choice not to make a false
confession and to go to his death without signing his name to an untrue
statement. “I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” he cries to
Danforth in Act IV. By refusing to relinquish his name, he redeems
himself for his earlier failure and dies with integrity.
Goodness
In The Crucible, the idea of goodness is a major theme. Almost every
character is concerned with the concept of goodness, because their
religion teaches them that the most important thing in life is how they
will be judged by God after they die. They want to be found good,
because being good will make them right with God. Their neighbors’
opinion guides them, too. The characters want to be seen as good by the
whole village. From the opening of the play, when the Rev. Parris is far
more concerned with what his parishioners will think of him than his
daughter’s illness, this theme is clear. Parris bullies his niece and slave
to get them to reveal what they’ve done to tarnish his reputation. When
Abigail follows Tituba’s example by falsely confessing to witchcraft,
she does so because she sees an opportunity to convince the residents of
Salem that she is a good person. Other characters, such as Mary Warren,
confess, because being seen as good is more important to them than
telling the truth.
Several characters’ concern over goodness goes beyond how they are
seen and requires that they actually examine what it means to be good.
We see the struggle in the Rev. Hale, Elizabeth Proctor, and John
Proctor,. Hale enters the play convinced he’s a good man who can spot a
witch easily. By the end of the play, he has examined his conscience and
realized that if he wants to be at peace with himself, he has to encourage
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the prisoners to falsely confess. Elizabeth is also convinced of herself as

a good woman, but by the end of the play, she has reconsidered her
treatment of her husband after he confessed to an affair, and realizes that
she was unforgiving. John struggles the most with goodness: it takes
signing a false confession, then ripping it up, for him to recognize that
the only way he can be good is by being honest and true to himself.
Judgment
Another major theme in The Crucible is that of judgment, especially
seen in the characters of Danforth and Rev. Hale. In the third act of the
play, Deputy Governor Danforth sits in judgment over the accused and
imprisoned residents of Salem. Danforth’s judgments, which he is
always firm and resolute about, are clearly wrong: Elizabeth, Martha
Corey, Rebecca Nurse, and many others are not witches at all. Danforth
is unable to change his mind, even when all evidence and logic points
him towards concluding he is incorrect. Danforth mistakenly believes
that a reliable judge never reconsiders his stance. Hale, on the other
hand, Hale learns the foolishness of sitting in judgment over his fellow
humans. By the end of the play, he no longer cares about the official
judgments of the court of the land, only about saving peoples’ lives.
Danforth has not learned the danger of judging others, while Hale has.