The Author
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 439.
BEFORE READING
Brainstorming Ideas
| Making suggestions I suggest we use the noise of the plane engines. How about if we emphasise the importance of … What if we chose the photos of famous people? I think we should show … I don't suppose we could make use of … Perhaps we could draw on … Why don't we agree on … | Responding to suggestions Right. I've got that. What else? That's a good idea! But don't you think …? I don't know what good it would do … Sounds great / interesting / difficult |
Work in groups of four. Choose a city and describe it using the ideas from your brainstorming list. Let the other students guess the name of this city.
| Toni Morrison (1931) is an American author, editor, and professor. In her fiction she powerfully evokes the legacies of displacement and slavery of the African-American community. Her major themes are racism, violence, sexuality, suffering, redemption. In her novels, Toni Morrison focuses on the experience of black Americans, particularly emphasising black women's experience in an unjust society and the search for cultural identity. She uses fantasy and mythic elements along with realistic depiction of racial, gender and class conflict. |
The Story
Jazz is the story about a middle-aged couple who migrated to Harlem from the South in the early 1900s. Joe Trace was a waiter and a cosmetics salesman, and his wife, Violet, was a hairdresser. At first, Joe and Violet are excited about the idea of living in New York. However, their lives are nearly destroyed by Joe's infidelity with 18-year-old Dorcas whom he shoots to death. Because there are no witnesses, Joe is not arrested or made to pay for his crime in the traditional sense. His wife Violet, humiliated and outraged by Joe's betrayal, attends Dorcas' funeral and tries to attack the corpse with a knife. Now both Joe and Violet are the subjects of ridicule in their community.
Jazz explores the topics of love, passion, tragedy, jealousy, and survival. The novel doesn't fit the classic novel format in terms of design, sentence structure, or narration. Just like the music this novel is named after, the work is improvisational.
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