A Narratological Study Of Jazz

As a winner of Nobel Prize of Literature in 1993, Toni Morrison has written 9 novels by now. Jazz, the second novel of Morrison's History Triology, was published in 1992. This dissertation aims at applying the classical narratological theory of Wayne C. Booth to analyze how and why Morrison revises conventional narrative types, how the narrative truth is attained in Jazz and the importance of reader's active participation in reading Morrison's novels. At the same time, this study tries to find out the explanation in response to the critics'complaint about the "problem" of Morrison's novels:"lack of resolution".The dissertation first analyze the uncertain identity of the narrator and its first-person omniscient narration. In the process of narrating, the narrator gradually reveals its unreliablity in the narration of the black characters' story. At the same time, the black characters in the novel assumes the role of narrator- agents and take turns to narrate their own stories. Thus the narrative truth is attained by the collective narrating of both the narrator and the characters. In much of the canon of literature, African Americans are seen as objects, not as individuals with subjectivity. By applying such a unique narrative strategy, Morrison intends to endow the black characters with their own voice. What's more, Morrison emphasizes the significance of the collective power in the healthy development of the African American community in the American society.In Jazz, Morrison deliberately created confusion for the readers by applying the fragmentary narrative structure and making suspense in the narration of an event. The deliberate confusion presents Morrison's intention to demand the readers'active participation in constructing the novel. Jazz aesthetics and metaphors, which function as the author's implicit commentary in Jazz, also contribute a lot to the theme of the novel. At last, the dissertation draws a conclusion that Morrison's problem of "lack of resolution" is intentional, because she wants to leave this task of resolution in the readers' hands.