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Chapter 7
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Jazz, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Romantic Love
Jazz, Improvisation, and Reinvention
Motherhood
Racial Violence and Protest
Gossip vs. Knowledge
Summary
Analysis
Dorcas has arrived at an “adult party,” and she is thrilled to be in a place where “no dancing brothers” are anywhere. Dorcas feels excited and alert, dancing closely with her new lover Acton. Their bodies move perfectly in sync, and though Dorcas has to chase this man—buying him presents instead of having presents bought for her—she feels she has won the ultimate prize. After all, this boy is young and “selective,” and Dorcas has never been so happy.
Dorcas treats Acton with much of the same devotion Joe shows her, though neither of these loves are reciprocated. It is telling, though, that Dorcas is happier chasing after someone disinterested than she is in the calm of her relationship with Joe. This is perhaps a testament to the way in which she repeats the feeling of abandonment from her youth even as she tries to distance herself from it. Dorcas’s mention of the “dancing brothers” shows that their rejection months ago still stings her, shaping her actions even to this day.
Themes
Dorcas starts to narrate her own story. A few days ago, she had asked Joe to leave her alone, telling him she was “sick” of him in what became an awful fight. Now, she knows he is coming for her; he might even arrive soon to this party, where she is with Acton and her best friend Felice. Dorcas is proud that Acton judges her when she wears glasses or goes back for seconds, and she likes that he is cold to her in public. Joe’s acceptance of Dorcas used to frustrate her.
The fact that Dorcas begins narrating her own story here, much like the moments in which Joe or Violet have taken hold of the story, act as solos—much like the ones a saxophonist or piano player might take in a jazz band.
Themes
To Dorcas, the party feels like “war”; nothing that happens after will feel as real. Suddenly, without realizing what is happening, Dorcas notices that Joe has arrived and that he seems to be crying. Dorcas feels like she is falling. Acton seems annoyed, and Felice is begging Dorcas to explain what happened, what Joe did. Dorcas feels herself drifting off into sleep. The music sounds extra loud. “Listen,” Dorcas instructs. “I don’t know who is that woman singing but I know the words by heart.”
Having been shaped, early on, by the almost war-like violence of the East St. Louis Massacre, Dorcas does not intuitively know how to seek peace. The fact that she dies because of her craving for romantic “war” thus suggests that history is doomed to repeat itself, as she chases the very pain that marked her childhood. It is only fitting, then, that she dies while listening to a record—the pre-taped music will never change, so even if Dorcas doesn’t recognize the singer, she feels she already knows the words of the song “by heart.”
Themes
