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Chapter 8
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
The narrator observes that it is “sweetheart weather” in New York City, warm and comfortable. Everyone is outside, preening and flirting; the cars have stopped honking, not wanting to spoil the perfect day. A confident brass band is playing, with clarinets that sound almost “holy.” Even Violet, who normally covers herself with coats because she is embarrassed by her thin body, has shed her layers today. But Joe is still crying, even through the music.
The novel began in winter, and now spring is turning into summer, perfect for romance and flirting—though Joe and Violet still seem removed from the city’s infectious weather. For the first time, the narrator acknowledges the full emotional power of the “holy”-seeming brass band, jazz music, even if Joe struggles to let these feelings seep in.
Themes
Violet has recently returned the picture of Dorcas to Alice Manfred, but that does not mean she has stopped thinking about Dorcas herself. So when Felice climbs Violet’s stairs, carrying a record under her arm and dressed so similarly to her murdered friend, Violet almost imagines that it is Dorcas in the flesh. The narrator confesses that for reasons she cannot quite explain, Felice always makes us nervous.
At last, Felice’s arrival on the scene signals that this second “scandalizing threesome” (which the narrator warned would lead to a second murder) has formed. If the narrator is right, it is fitting that Felice arrives with a record under her arm, a symbol of unbreakable destiny. But the narrator has to admit that Felice makes her nervous as a storyteller, the first hint that this trio’s relationship might not turn out like she predicts.
Themes
Felice now tells her story. She lived with her grandmother while her parents worked in Tuxedo, New York; they would come to visit once every three weeks. Felice’s father was an avid reader of Black newspapers, and from him Felice learned how frequently police killed Black people with impunity. In her visits to “the City,” Felice’s mother always had to run errands for her bosses in Tuxedo, even though it was her day off.
Felice gets her solo now, just like Joe, Violet, and Dorcas before her. Though Felice’s story is separate from the web of the rest of the characters’ lives, her family’s life, too, has been shaped by the rampant anti-Blackness in America.
Themes
Felice admits that her grandmother was constantly critical of Dorcas. Dorcas loved to gossip about who was pretty and who wasn’t, and she would sometimes get into fights with the other girls at school. But Felice felt that life with Dorcas was always more fun—until she started seeing Joe.
Unlike the narrator, who tries to flatten people into archetypes and stories into inevitabilities, Felice is capable of recognizing Dorcas’s flaws even as she feels deeply affectionate towards (and admiring of) her bolder, more gossipy friend.
Themes
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At first, Felice thinks Dorcas is seeing Joe for the presents and keeping it secret because she is embarrassed. But even though Joe is old, Felice has to admit that he is good-looking. Felice reflects that Dorcas is not pretty, though “she had all the ingredients of pretty.” And though Dorcas is charming, boys at school never seem interested in her. Felice thinks this is because there is something pushy about Dorcas. The reason Dorcas likes Joe, Felice decides, is because he is married and it feels illicit.
Felice understands that there is something almost desperate in the way Dorcas approaches Joe, as if she is dating him more for assurance about her own worth than she is for reasons of attraction or comfort. After all, if Dorcas views going to parties as “war,” what more thrilling relationship could she find than an illicit one?
Themes
When she was a child, Felice went with her mother to Tiffany’s, as part of one her mother’s errands for work. Felice and her mother tried to try on some of the rings, but the salespeople were rude and suspicious of them. After Felice got home, her mother gave her an opal ring that she claimed her boss had given to her—though Felice knew it was stolen.
Earlier, Alice Manfred has described one way that racism shows up in department store shopping, as the clerks touch her as if she is merchandise or refuse to call her (as would be respectful) by her last name. Now, the suspicion that Felice and her mother face from the salesclerks in Tiffany’s signals yet another way that anti-Blackness is woven into the daily fabric of life for Felice and her community.
Themes
When Dorcas started dating Acton, she borrowed that ring. Dorcas used to spend hours trying to find presents for Acton; Felice reflects that Dorcas treated Acton like Joe treated her, and Acton took Dorcas for granted like Dorcas took Joe for granted. Felice’s grandmother says Dorcas “brought it on herself.”
Felice’s reflections here make Dorcas’s death seem cyclical and inevitable in every way. Dorcas is transferring the behavior she has learned from Joe to Acton, a repetition that Felice’s grandmother sees as Dorcas bringing her own murder “on herself.” And in borrowing the ring Felice’s mother stole, Dorcas almost wears the pain of that moment (with the suspicious salesclerk) on her body, as if marking herself for doom.
Themes
After Dorcas’s death, Felice goes to Joe’s house to get her ring back. Felice wants to show the ring to her family again; her mother is retired now, while her father has a job he likes on the Pullman, where he can read about the Black baseball leagues. But Felice, who didn’t go to Dorcas’s funeral, has another reason for visiting Joe. She has heard he still cries about Dorcas all the time, and she wants to tell him that Dorcas is not worth all of these tears.
In contrast to the unfortunate destiny that the narrator and many others have attributed to Dorcas’s life, Felice’s family seems to have a more hopeful story: her parents leave their oppressive, inequitable jobs for retirement or more fulfilling work. Perhaps, then, Felice’s decision to help Joe end his crying jag is motivated by a desire to extend some of that same hopefulness to the Trace family.
Themes
When Felice arrives, the first thing Violet says to her is that Dorcas “was ugly. Outside and in.” Felice is taken aback by this, but she respects Violet’s honesty. Felice thinks Violet is just jealous, but she also notices that Violet is very pretty. And when Felice meets Joe, she is surprised to discover that he “likes women”—not just to flirt with, but as people to talk to. Felice thinks Joe seems to especially like his wife.
While the narrator is determined to make people match up with her preconceptions of them, Felice allows herself to be surprised not only by Joe and Violet as individuals but by the intimacy they seem to have settled in with each other. Though this bond is a new development within the context of the novel, it is entirely possible that this closeness has existed beyond this moment—and the narrator was just too wrapped up in her own imagination to see it.
Themes
After that first visit, Violet invites Felice back for dinner, and Felice goes; she wants to see Joe and hear Violet talk. Violet tells Felice that she feels like she messed up her life, spending too much time wanting to be younger and lighter-skinned and not enough time being “the woman my mother didn’t stay around long enough to see.” Violet even tells Felice about Golden Gray.
Violet’s growth over the course of the story is evident here. Early on, she was determined to change herself, obsessing over Dorcas and her past decisions and forcing herself to eat malteds to change the shape of her body. Now, Violet is more focused on the future, trying to move forward from both her personal history and some of her familial trauma.
Themes
Sometimes, Joe struggles to be around Felice, and Violet snaps to Felice that “your ugly little friend hurt him and you remind him of her.” But Felice is firm that she is different from Dorcas. She resents Dorcas for letting herself die so easily, and as Felice confesses this, she starts to cry. Joe asks her if this is the first time she has ever cried over her friend, and Felice realizes that it is.
This scene reveals two important details. First, while the narrator believes that the Felice-Joe-Violet trio merely repeats the Dorcas-Joe-Violet trio, Felice is firm that this could not be further the case; she is different, and she wants to build a different relationship with the Trace couple. And second, Joe helps Felice process Dorcas’s death even as Felice does the same for Joe, a more reciprocal relationship than almost any the novel has previously shown.
Themes
Even after Felice learns that her mother’s ring was buried with Dorcas instead of left with Joe and Violet, she returns to the Trace household. She looks forward to the way Violet talks about herself; in her mouth, the word “me” is not “somebody she had put together for show” but rather “somebody she favored and could count on.”
Just a few months ago, Violet was dissociating into two versions of herself, pitting her regretful, rational side against the person she called “that Violet.” But now, Felice sees that Violet is confident in the word “me,” and therefore in her sense of herself; rather than telegraphing some image to the world, Violet is proud of all of the facets and contradictions of her personality.
Themes
One visit, Joe sits next to Felice on the sofa, which makes Felice nervous at first. Joe argues that Dorcas was kinder than Felice gives her credit for, more “soft.” Felice believes that Dorcas used people, but Joe confesses that he probably wanted to be used. Felice then tells Joe that Dorcas’s last words were about him, which moves Joe greatly.
Even as Felice’s narrative emphasizes the surprising intimacy between Violet and Joe, this exchange makes it clear that Joe retains a great deal of feeling for Dorcas. And there are sides of Dorcas, it seems, that readers will never know—yet one more testament to the idea, so terrifying to the narrator, that everyone is ultimately unknowable to outsiders.
Themes
At the end of the evening, after Violet has curled a last-minute client’s hair, Felice puts on a record and the Traces start to dance with each other. It’s a little funny to Felice, but she also feels touched, as if she is witnessing a private moment. When the couple invites Felice to dance, she doesn’t join in, even though she wants to. As she leaves, Violet tells her to come back soon, and Joe remarks that the house needs birds.
Here, two of the novel’s key symbols invert their meaning. Records originally represented the idea of inevitable fate. But now, as Joe and Violet dance in this intimate, awkward way to a record, it is clear that nothing is pre-ordained, as even the most broken relationships can heal and get stronger. Moreover, the birds, which once stood in for the isolation Joe and Violet felt from each other, now come to represent their newfound closeness.
Themes
Felice decides to tell her mother the truth about what happened to the ring. She reflects that she loves the ring not because of the fancy opal, but because it represents a rare moment when her mother “broke the rules.” Felice thinks back to the party, and to the fact that she didn’t have a boy of her own there; she was just accompanying Dorcas and Acton. It’s warm outside, and Violet’s catfish is good, though too spicy. Felice needs to drink water to “ease the pain.”
In “breaking the rules” to take the ring, Felice’s mother simultaneously flouts the white supremacy baked into her everyday life and proves that she is capable of bucking expectations, of improvising. And Felice, working through the grief of Dorcas’s death and the strangeness of this new friendship with Violet and Joe, seems to feel a similar commitment to the future—to letting herself surprise herself, to doing what she needs to do to “ease the pain.”
Themes
