LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 17:10 October 2017
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Multifaceted Love as Reflected in Toni Morrison’s Love and Jazz

B. Selvalakshmi, M.A., M.Phil.


Abstract

Toni Morrison is one of the most sophisticated novelists in the history of African American Literature. She is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, editor and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogues and richly detailed African American characters. She gives a clear description about the multifaceted love in her novels Love and Jazz. The novel Love is about the central character Mr. Cosey, who shows his love as a Husband, Friend, Father, Lover, Guardian and Stranger to his respective characters – Heed, his second wife; Sandler Gibbons, his friend; Billy Boy, his son; Celestial, his lover; May, his daughter-in-law; Christine, his granddaughter and Junior, his stranger. Most of them are women, who are obsessed with him, love him, fight over him, make him miserable and finally drive him to his grave. Cosey married his granddaughter Christine’s friend Heed, and so Christine thought that she was betrayed by Heed. Both are good friends until Heed’s marriage. But at the end of the novel, both the friends are betrayed by Cosey for giving all his belongings to Celestial- his lover, before his death. The novel Jazz is about the marital relationship between Joe and Violet, who lead a happy life in the beginning. Later Violet pays less attention to her husband, Joe. This makes Joe to find a girl named, Dorcas. Joe’s love for Dorcas become horrific, when Dorcas gets bored of an aged old man, Joe. Instead Dorcas prefers a young and a good looking man named Acton. Joe follows Dorcas wherever she goes with Acton. At one point of time, Joe cannot tolerate his obsession towards Dorcas and so he shoots her. Later, Violet realizes her mistakes and gets united with her husband, Joe with the help of Dorcas’ aunt Alice. Therefore, in both the novels, Love and Jazz, the multifaceted love leads the life of the protagonists, Mr. Cosey and Joe to disaster.

Keywords:

Introduction

African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. The genre traces its origin to the works of such late eighteenth-century writers as Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano. African American literature reached early high points with slave narratives of the 19th century. The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was a time of flowering of literature and the arts. Writers of African American literature have been recognized by the highest awards, including the Noble Prize to Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison is the most formally sophisticated novelist in the history of African American Literature. Indeed, her single accomplishment as a writer is that she has managed, uncannily, to invent her own mode of literary representation.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

B. Selvalakshmi, M.A., M.Phil.
Assistant Professor of English
P.S.R. Engineering College
Sevalpatti
Sivakasi - 626140
Tamilnadu
India
selvalakshmi2093@gmail.com

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