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Samra Rai
Dr. Waseem Anwar
ENGL 499
May 29, 2012
Types of Desires Depicted in Toni Morrison’s Jazz
Abstract
With reference to Toni Morrison’s Jazz, this paper explores that Afro-American
people, after getting freedom from the tag of slavery, stayed emotionally enslaved not by
the society, but their own desires. Morrison depicts a civilization where freedom brings
psychological enslavement for Afro-Americans. In Jazz, violent actions exhibited by
different characters, Joe, Violet, Dorcas, Wild, and Felice actually portray a reaction to
their suppressed desires which constantly haunt them. Moreover, this paper shows that
Morrison’s Jazz is influenced by Freudian theory which says that desire is not just a
temporary feeling rather it holds a reflective effect on human behavior.
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Before exploring role of desires in Jazz, we must know what desire is. We can
simply say that desire is a strong feeling or wish for something. According to Freudian
theory, desire is not just a temporary feeling rather it holds a reflective affect on human
behaviors. Freud’s theory is basically divided into conscious, unconscious1, and sub-
conscious. It is further composed of three major components; the id, the ego and the
superego. Id is situated in the unconscious and consists of the basic biological drives2.
The ego constitutes our conscious self and obeys the reality principle and the superego is
the internalized representation of the values and morals of society. Morrison’s Jazz is to
some extent influenced by Freud’s theory. Morrison depicts that desires are more close to
id which seeks pleasure and also create internal or external disturbance when they remain
unfulfilled. We can observe the exploration of desires in every aspect of this novel such
as in its plot, style, themes, and characters’ actions. This paper theorizes desire for
reputation, desire for sex, desire for motherhood, desire for parents, desire for identity,
and desire for prosperous life throughout in the novel which leads the characters toward
psychological death of their “self” inside them. Moreover, it explains nature of desires
under the influence of Freud’s theory.
Toni Morrison wrote Jazz after the period of Harlem Renaissance which is
considered as “one historical enactment of desires [of Afro-Americans].”(Canon, 237)
Morrison depicts a Black and White civilization where freedom from physical slavery
brought psychological enslavement for Black people through their unrequited desires and
they were constantly haunted by them. After Civil War of 1865, the Americans
questioned: “What more does the Negro want? The War is over; now he is free.” The
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It is storehouse of impulses, passions, and inaccessible memories that affect our thoughts and behaviors.
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the need to eat, drink, eliminate wastes, avoid pain, gain sexual pleasure, and aggression
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answer to the question is, “The freeman wanted to try out his freedom. He wanted to see
he could move from place to place without asking permission. He wanted enough to eat,
a place to live, a way to earn living.” (Drisko and Toppin, 1) In Jazz Toni Morrison
presents that Afro-American people stayed unsatisfied because of their subordinate
position in White society and their desires for prosperous life, even after getting freedom
from slavery. For Example in Jazz, Joe and Violet met when they were both working in
the fields in Vesper County, Virginia. By working together in fields they develop
understanding with each other and plan to begin a new life after getting married. They are
not satisfied with urban life. Fully intoxicated by their hope, love, and their dreams of
urban life, they decide to leave for city and reach at station. Their eyes were full of hope
and dream of happy life and when they imagine about their future in city, “the train
shivered with them at the thought but went on and sure enough there was ground up a
head and the trembling became dancing under their feet.”(30) When they left for city they
were “terrified of what was on the other side” (30) but they do not lose their hope and
keep on traveling through the journey of their dreams.
This novel also depicts a desire of Afro-Americans for prosperous life, at the end
of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, when a great number of
Afro-Americans from all over the country migrated to City, to escape field labor, racism,
and the expectations of rural life. As mentioned in the novel, “the wave of black people
running from want and violence crested in the 1870s; the 80s; the 90s but was a steady
stream in 1906.”(33) Joe and Violet also join this steady and smooth stream in 1906 and
decided to move toward city for the better life. It is stated in the text that prosperous and
luxurious life of city is enough to heal past wounds of country people like Joe and Violet
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and like other country people it was enough for them to forget their past sufferings soon
because country people “ fall in love with a city, it is for forever, and it is like
forever.”(33) Morrison reflects that for country people upon arrival in the metropolitan
area it is easy to forget about their previous existences and these migrants feel that the
city had always been their home. Same is experienced by Joe and Violet on their arrival
on city they feel,
They were not yet even there yet and already city was
speaking to them. They were dancing. And like a million
others, chest pounding, track controlling their feet, they
stared out the window for first sight of the city that danced
with them, proving already how much it live for them. Like
a million more they could hardly wait to get their and live it
back. (32)
This extract demonstrates that how City creates a spell on Joe and Violet when they
nearly see fulfillment of their dreams in City. Their eyes are brightened with the hope of
content life and they celebrate their happiness with “dancing City”.
Moreover, another desire behind migration of Afro-American people from rural to
urban area is to escape from racial discrimination. History tells that sometimes black
slaves were treated badly by their masters because of their color. They have desire to go
to city because they thought that they would not be treated on the bases of their color.
They have a dream for discrimination free life and they were near to achieve their dream
because,
Now, that they were out of Delaware and a long way from
Maryland there would be no green-as-poison curtains
separating the colored people eating from the rest of the
diners. The cooks would not oblige to pile extra helpings
on the plate headed for the curtain; three lemon slices in
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iced tea, two pieces of coconut cake arranged to look like
one- to take the sting out of the curtain; homey it up with a
little extra on the plate. Now, skirting the city, there were
no green curtains; the whole car could be full of colored
people and everybody on a first-come-first-serve basis. (31)
This little extract contains a whole philosophy of desires behind the psychology of Afro-
American people. They want freedom from racial differentiations, freedom from
discrimination on the base of color, freedom from their huger or sufferings, and freedom
from the tag of slavery. They come at City with a desire for luxurious life and respect. It
is stated that, “The historical trend of radical transformation in the black settlement
conflates with the private story. Joe’s desperate search for a consistent identity leads him
through the stages of a painful process of shedding skin, like the snake the voice keeps
alluding to.”(Anne Marie, 224) It means, to begin a new life most of Afro-Americans
living in rural area have to get rid from their past identities. Similarly, Joe Trace tries to
escape from his past experiences for the beginning of a new life in City. In short,
Morrison depicts that Afro-Americans migrated from rural to urban life only for the
fulfillment of their desires of contended life. They were fascinated by City life though
they were not sure but have dreams in their eyes and hope to achieve their aims.
However, Afro-Americans desire for luxurious life in directs by their id according to
Freud’s theory and they start their journey in the light of their buried dreams without
being conscious of its consequences.
In the very beginning of the novel, desire for love is depicted. Cannon says in an
article that we can observe role of desires in Morrison’s novel “from richness of her style
to content matter of her love triangle.” (235) In the first chapter, Morrison explores the
nature of desire in Joe towards his younger beloved Dorcas and Violet’s desire towards
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her husband Joe. We can observe plot of the novel unfolds with the murder of Dorcas by
Jeo who “ fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deep down, spooky loves
that made him so made and happy he shot her just to keep the feelings going.”(3) The
novel also depicted that Violet lives with birds to reduce the burden of her loneliness and
there was a parrot who confess “I love you” relief her pain of being ignored by her
husband. When she comes to know about her husband’s affair with a teenage girl she was
overwhelmed by her unfulfilled desire for love from Joe and a sense of jealousy for
Dorcas that is why she “cut her face” at her funeral. After returning from funeral she
throws all birds from window “including the parrot who said, “I love you” It can be
considered as a reaction against her suppressed desires of love or sex which were not
fulfilled. Moreover, According to Cannon,
Morrison suggests that sexual desire becomes the only
desire operative when the fulfillment of other desires is
denied and that what African-American women currently
most desire, and what is currently most denied to them, is
subjectivity, the consciousness needed to act as a subject.
(235)
It can therefore be argued that Violet desire for being subject of love is one reason behind
her violence behavior. It is not her desire only for love but more than love. Her
unsuccessful marriage life and ignorance from her husband causes a gap in her
personality. She tries to fill this gap by loving and caring for birds. Parrot’s confession of
love for her helps to fill her gap to some extent. When she comes to know about her
husband’s affair with Dorcas, her suppressed desires for being a subject of love and
sexual desires dwell in her mind and come out in the form of violence and to overcome
these desires she cuts the corps and discharges the birds. It can be argued that in this love
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triangle of Joe, Dorcas and Voilet there is something beyond sex which makes them
restless. Therefore, in the light of Freud’s theory it seems to us that there is a reflective
role played by id behind Joe’s violent act of killing Dorcas and Violet’s violent act of
cutting the face of corpse as a reaction against their suppressed and unrequited desires.
There is another kind of desire in Jazz, the desire of mother’s love. The theme of
absent mother’s love is very important in this novel because it affects life of its characters
specially Joe, Dorcas, and Violet. Jazz portrays that most of psychological problems are
created because of the lack of maternal care and love. All those characters that grow up
without their mother’s love are unable to fill their personality gaps throughout their lives.
They grow up without a sense of self and this causes many of their problems throughout
their lives. O’Reilly says that Jazz’s “emphasis is upon the reclamation of the lost
selfhood of the unmothered child” ( 153) Her statement points out that characters
growing up without maternal love have to struggle a lot through their whole life to collect
pieces of their divided self. For instance, suicide of Rose Dear, Violet’s mother, creates
bareness in Violet. She could not get maternal love even in the life of her mother. Suicide
of her mother haunts Violets throughout her life. As stated in text, “she didn’t want to be
like that [(her mother].”(97) She could not get love from her mother but still she loves her
and does not want to leave the place belonging to her mother as mentioned in the text,
“As she grew older, Violet could neither stay where she was nor go away. The well
sucked her sleep, but the notion of leaving frightened her.”(102) Thus, Violet is
constantly haunted by that well in which her mother jumped to commit suicide.
Memories of her mother’s death do not even let her to sleep but still she loves that place
and does not want to leave her. It can therefore be argued that it is her desire for maternal
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love which does not let her to go away from the place belonging to her mother even after
her death.
Moreover, Joe’s mother is isolated from him since his birth due to which he has a
personality gap. Joe’s desire for maternal love creates sense of selflessness as it is stated
“Joe does not seem to have ever had an original self because at birth he was abandoned
by his mother” (O’Reilly, 161). His desire for maternal love inflicts an emotional pain
but still he was compelled to stay alive with “inside nothing” He feels emptiness,
selflessness but at the same time feels shame and aggression when he comes to know
about his mother but still he has desire for maternal love and he wants to find out his
mother. As stated in text, “he wrestled with the notion of a wild woman for a mother.
Sometimes it shamed him to tears. Other times his anger messed up his aim….” (176)
However, “Wild was always on his mind, and he wasn’t going to leave for Palestine
without trying to find her one more time.”(176) These lines depict Joe’s utmost desire for
her mother’s love and he decides to find her out. His desire for maternal love cause him
to be “lint-headed fool, and crazier than she and just as wild as he slipped into mud,
tripped over black roots, scuff trough patches of dirt crawling with termites.”(177)
Moreover, his desire for maternal love compels him to “love woods” because he was told
that his mother lives in woods. He starts to contradicts the opinion of other people
regarding Wild and shows utmost love for her as stated in the text, “ the small children
believed she was a witch” and Joe thinks “they were wrong. This creature hadn’t the
intelligence to be witch. She was powerless, invisible wastefully daft. Everywhere and
nowhere.”(179) It shows that Joe’s mind is occupied by his love for her mother and it
does not matter for him what other people think about his mother. Narrator also depicts
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Joe’s desire for her mother’s love and he says, “I feel things just like everybody else.”
(183) and he also says
She’ll be all alone. She’ll turn to me. She’ll hold out her
hand, walk toward me in ugly shoes, but her face is clean
and I am proud of her. Her too tight braids torture her so
she unlooses them as she moves toward me. She’s so glad I
found her. Aching and soft, wanting me to do it, asking me
to. Just me. Nobody but me. (184)
This extract states Joe’s extreme love for her mother and his quest to find her. He also
paints a picture of a family life as mentioned in text he talks about, “a rocking chair
without arm. A circle stone for cooking. Jars, baskets, pot: a doll, a spindle, earnings, a
photograph, a stack of sticks, asset of silver brushes and a silver cigar case. Also. Also a
pair of man’s trousers with buttons bones.”(184) All these materialistic things depicts
Joe’s buried dreams for a complete family life but these things are useless for him
without maternal love and it is very important for him to find out “where is she?” for
complete the picture of a happy life.
Dorcas is also haunted by missing love of her parents who died in race riots.
Lack of maternal love also creates a gap in Dorcas personality. As Felice said,
Dorcas said I was lucky because at least they( Felice’s
parents) were there, somewhere, and if I got sick I could
call on them or get on the train and go to see them but of
her parents died in a very bad way she saw them after they
died and before the funeral men fixed them up.”(200)
This extract shows the emptiness created in the life of orphans and even those whose
parents are alive but they do not have time for their children. We may say that every other
character in Jazz longs for unrequited desires for their maternal or paternal love.
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Morrison further depicts desire for parenthood in Jazz through Joe and Violet’s
unsuccessful marriage life. It is stated that they do not have children both Joe and Violet
“liked them. Loved them even. Especially Joe, who had a way with them. But neither
wanted the trouble.”(106) .With the passage of time, missing of their children creates a
sense of bareness in their life and they long for them. As stated in the text, “Years later,
however, when Violet was forty, she was already staring at infants, hesitating in front of
toys displayed at Christmas.”(106) It means, that missing of her children has a reflective
affect on Violet’s behavior proceeding by her psyche. We may say that because of their
past experiences of unrequited desires for their parents, both Violet and Joe are frightened
of taking responsibility of parenthood. They try to fill up their personality cracks by
caring for each other after wedding as stated by Violet, “We don’t have children. He’s
what I got. He’s what I got.”(111) but in fact they fail to fill up their personality cracks.
When Violet is ignored by her husband her suppressed desire for having children burst
out through her actions. As stated in the text, “By and by longing became heavier than
sex: a panting unmanageable craving.”(108) It means she was constantly haunted by her
desire for being a mother. It also affects on her state of mind and she begins to imagine
about the age of the last miscarried child. She imagines of having “a girl, probably.
Certainly a girl” She imagined about baby girls dressing and food. She imagines “cooling
[food] down for the tender mouth.”(108) It shows her suppressed dreams which she has
for her children. Memories of miscarried children affect Violet a lot and “she started
sleeping with a doll in her arm”(129) Morrison notes “mother hunger had hit her like a
hammer. Knocked her down and out.” and she was “drowning in it, deep dreaming.”
(108) In short, Violet is scared of her deprivations in life and it is her love for her
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children because of which she does not want to give them birth and wants to put them
aside from all sufferings and deprivations in the life. She has longed for children
throughout her life but she tries to sacrifice her longing in the love of her unseen children
which ultimately hits her psychologically.
Besides, in the love triangle of Joe, Violet, and Dorcas there is not only a sexual
desire but a hidden desire for mother’s love because they had passed through the same
experience of orphanhood. As stated in the text the absence of Joe’s mother eventually
leads him toward Dorcas. Being a female, Dorcas is able to fill the “inside nothing” that
Wild has left. Similarly, there is a huge age difference between Joe and Dorcas but she
still tries to fill her emptiness, created because of the absence of her parents, with Joe. On
the other hand, Violet also tries to find out her child in Dorcas and loves her as her own
daughter as she says to Alice, “I would have loved her too. Just like you did. Just like
Joe.” (109) In Jazz, Death of Dorcas may be compared with the death of their parents
which symbolizes a kind of deprivation for Joe and Violet. Joe tries to find out a mother’s
love in Dorcas and Violet tries to satisfy her utmost desire for being a mother. Just like
their parents, Dorcas’s death creates a sense of deprivation for them as did their parent’s
death which haunts them throughout their life. In short, it is an unreturned desire for their
mother’s love buried in unconscious of all these orphans which create selflessness and
bareness within them. They try to fill their bareness in the company of one another.
In Jazz, Morrison also depicts orphan’s desire to find out their identity. Being
orphan has created a split personality or split self within them. For example, Violet’s
personality splits into two when she comes to know about her husband’s affair with a
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teenage girl. The “cracks” in Violet’s personality have created two different kinds of
characters within the same body behaving differently on different circumstances. It is
stated in the text that Violet perceives one of these characters as “that Violet” She
compares “That Violet” with other Violet and sees “that Violet” is the one who went to
Dorcas’s funeral and cuts up her face. Violet says that “whenever she thought about
that Violet, and what that Violet saw through her own eyes, she knew there was no
shame there, no disgust. That was hers alone...” (95). It seems that “that Violet” is
completely different from the original Violet. Moreover, “that Violet” is preoccupied by
her unrequited desire and do not have conscience which lead her to cut the face of a dead
girl. In the light of Freudian theory we may say that “that Violet” is always directed by id
and she always seeks for the filament of her own desires. On the other hand, original
Violet is directed by her ego or sometimes by super ego. She does not show her lust
rather she loves her husband. She also has a desire for being mother and loves Dorcas as
her child. She wants to get rid from “that Violet”. As in the text, Felice asks, “How did
you get rid of her?” Violet replies, “Killed her. Then I killed the me that killed her.”
When Felice asks Violet, “Who’s left?” Violet replies, “Me” (208-209). Violet is finally
able to get rid of “that Violet.” She kills her and is left with the old Violet. It seems that
Violet’s split personality depicts a sense of loss of identity and her utmost desire to find it
out by recognizing the original Violet in herself.
Joe is born without a mother and because of this he does not has identity. He is
unable to find himself because he was unable to find Wild. His lack of a name is
symbolic of the fact that Joe really has no sense of self. Without his name and without a
mother to get his name from, Joe starts out life without identity. He gives himself his
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own name and identity. He was told about their parents that “they left without a trace”
(124) and he symbolizes himself as a “trace” that was left by his parents. At his first day
at school he names himself as “Joseph Trace”. He gives himself his own identity by
giving himself a second name as “Trace”. His identity is changed many times. First time
he changed when he named himself and says, “The first time was when I named my own
self, since nobody did it for me, since nobody know what it could or should have be.”
(123) Second time he changed when he was picked out and trained to be a man. Third
time he changed when there racial riots and Vienna burned to the ground. Fourth time he
changed when he got married and took his wife to Rome. Fifth time he changed when he
left “the stink of Mulberry Street and Little Africa.”(127) Sixth time he changed when
“crackers in the South mad cause Negroes were leaving, crackers in the North mad cause
they were coming.”(128) and seventh time he changed after War and thought this time it
is his last change. It seems that Joe has to change many times just to fulfill his desire to
discover his real identity. He also tries to find his mother in the woods to fitful his desire
for identity and he pleads with her, “You don’t have to say nothing. Let me see your
hand. Just stick it out someplace and I’ll go; I promise. A sign....You my mother? Yes.
No. Both. Either. But not this nothing”(178). It seems that all Joe wants to know is the
identity of his mother. He does not want to talk to her or spend time with her. He just
wants to know Wild is really his mother or not. He could not find his mother which
creates a sense of lack of identity throughout his life.
Moreover, in Jazz, suppressed desires of Afro-Americans are symbolically
represented through performance of jazz music. Joachim Brendth, in his The Jazz Book:
From Ragtime to Fusion and Beyond, also sees a connection of jazz music with desires.
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He describes sound of jazz as “the human voice, plaintive and complaining, crying and
screaming, sighing and moaning.”(Cannon, 236) Significance of jazz music, running as a
motif throughout the novel and as a title of the novel, is seemed to be functioned as a
voice of silent desires of Afro-Americans. As we know that literature, music or any other
art is a creativity mostly based on human experiences in their life. Similarly, jazz music is
a classical and most celebrated genre of North Americans. Study of jazz tells that it is not
created by selecting different tones. Basically, it is an ideal that is created first in the
mind of artists inspired by their passions and experiences. Its sole expressions are a kind
of portrayal of life experience and emotions of the artist. Besides, it invokes suppressed
desires of its listeners as well. Therefore, it can be argued that Morrison depicts a
connection of Afro-Americans desires with jazz music. As Cannon says, “She[Morrison]
sees desire, like jazz, as both a creative and violent force and also like jazz, she sees
desires creating solo voices with a community” (236) It means, Morrison sees blueprints
of jazz as a symbolic representation of unrequited desires of Afro-Americans.
From the discussion above, it can be concluded that Toni Morrison’s Jazz is a
representation of how Afro-Americans were enslaved by their unrequited desires, after
getting freedom from slavery. Moreover, it represents different types of desires like
desire for reputation, desire for sex, desire for motherhood, desire for parents, and desire
for prosperous life through different characters. For example, Joe, Violet, and Dorcas are
filled with longing for their parent’s love and their identity. Violet also longs for the
children she has never been able to bear because of miscarriages and the busyness of city
life. Dorcas desires for Joe and later for Acton in search of love. Joe seeks in Dorcas his
lost mother. Similarly, Violet seeks in Dorcas her miscarried children. We may say that
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there are different types of desires represented thorough different characters but they have
similar haunting affect on the psychology of characters. In the light of Freudian theory, it
can be stated that there are Morrison reflects different types of unrequited desires buried
in unconscious of Afro-Americans which are represented through their behaviors. All
these suppressed and unreturned desires have hunting affect on their psychology.
Sometimes, these desires are directed by their id and become the cause of violence.
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