Jazz Music: a racial Therapy in Toni Morrison’s Jazz

Abstract

Abstract: Thanks to stylistics and narratology, this paper examines the aesthetics of jazz music in Jazz before shedding light on the function of this musical genre in Toni Morrison’s novel. From Jazz stylistic devices that invade the novel, the paper sets a parallel between Jazz, the literary text and Jazz, the musical genre. It also shows the role of Jazz music in the lives of the characters by analyzing it as a racial therapy that enables Blacks to heal their American racial disease, which is racism. Jazz music not only enables oppressed characters to protest, resist and transcend their racial oppression, but it also helps them to construct and assert their African American identity. From the similarity between the novel and the musical genre in terms of aesthetics and philosophy, the paper concludes that Morrison’s text can be read and listened to as well as jazz music. Keywords: aesthetics, identity, jazz music, oppression, race.