Themes and Motifs

One of the chief characteristics of Morrisons novels is that they are peopled with
characters of various descriptions and each character has his or her own peculiar
sstory behind them.Despite these multiple characters, we perceive that no two
individuals possess
at least some distant resemblance. However minor the
character may be ,it possesses certain traits distinctively peculiar to it; as such
we cannot mistake any one character for another.
Many of the characters in the novel are orphans; for instance, Joes father
left his mother and his mother lives in the woods alone and Joe is zdopoted y znoth
er parents and Ddorcas paents ied in fire accisent and golden SDGray, an
interracial child was by his parents. The absence of a moth er or both the parents in
childhood makes childen s life insscure and grow with no identity of their own.A
sense of inssescurity and moralrecklessness,land thus they become socially
irresponsible and often they t hey become juvenile delinquenets.They develop
inferiority complex and become aggressive, recalcitrant an often rebellious.Left to
themselves, they become antisocial elemens and a menace to society as a whole.
Morrisons treatment of his characters is sympathetic, although they are wild
and violent on occasions;most of them are orphans, brought up either my adoptive
[parenta or by some near relative.. for instance Joe(Joseph trace) ho is rejected by
his mother who lives in the wood;Dorcas is also an orphan whose father died in an
accient and her mother was burnt in a fire accident; thus she laws ldeprived of the
natural love and affection of her parents, especially of her mother; and when she
was looked agter by her aunt,Alice Manfred, a widow in her lae fifties,is a morally
very rigid and believes that the youth of he timeare quite corrupt ; so she kept her
niece Dorcas in a puritanical mral rigidity. Thus she is love-straved.; but by
temperament she is active and a bit romantic; (To be contd)

A note on the Narrator: The narrator says No one knows all thee is to know
about me.( P. )
The narrator talks too much; comments on every
charater, especially of the protagonists: of their public activities and of their
privte life.The narrator frequents pubs,saloons and heighbouring places; She
is a kind of Mdrs. Grundy as far as the charaters inquisitiveness is
concerned;Nohere does the Narrator refers to the gender to
which the
narrator belongs.In a word, the idntit of he narrator is shrouded in mystery. It
is anybodys guess, critics themselves have stopped discussing this aspect
in a mood of despair.
.Some guess that the narrator is female because of the way she
speaks and because f the special concern that the narrator has
for the women in the narrative.The narrator overhears the gossip;
The narrator has the knowledge of things that happen in he privacy

of Violet- Joe home in the months following the funeral scandal.The

narrator takes the reader back in time and gets the reader
acquainted with certain episodes connected with the life of Violet
when she displayed jer sadness or acted rather crazily.the way the
narrator speaks is like a jazz tune that evolves with improvisation
and adheres to no set rules.Thus the most problematic part of the
novel by far is the Narrator Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his review of
the novel,, Jazz observes: A final word about Morrisons narrator:
Despite its extensive ruminations
about iis characters
consciousness it remains indeterminate;it is neither male nor
female; neither young nor old, neither EThus critics rich nor poor,.
It is both and neither.Even critics like,Henry Louis Gates Jr.plead
ignorance as to the identity of te narrator; and it seems that
Morrison wantonlt creates such an ambiguous or inderminate
situatin just to tease the readers as well as the critics out ot their
tought! Now let us see what John Leonard while rewiewing this
novel Her Souls High Song The Natin, May 25,1992. 706-18)
.says: he keeps the epiitaph aside as being of no use in the game
of detecting the true identity of the Narrator,, concludes with these
words: The Narrrator was the Book itself.This observation of his is
corroborated by the Narrators concluding words, You are free to
do it and I am free to let you because look. Look,. Look where your
hands are. Now. Bring the novel to a close.
Barbara Williams Lewisin her essayThr Function of Jazz in Toni
MorrisonsJazz, while admitting that her referece to her( thee
Narrator) female is unpopular,asserts, rather half willingly,that
there is some merit in his argument when we considethat the
Narrator the Book itself , Barbara William Leiwis comes forward with
her own argument rearding the idendtity o the Narrator;.