A Signifying Analysis Of Jazz

Jazz is written by Toni Morrison, a celebrated African-American female writer. It is Morrison’s second novel of a historical trilogy published in1992, the year before she was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. New York Time Book Review sets a high value on the novel and considers it as an unprecedented and astonishing invention, a landmark on the American literary landscape—a novel unforgettable and for all the time. The novel unwinds the narration and develops the story plots by means of improvisation of jazz music, which makes readers find themselves in the midst of the appealing melody played by jazz musicians in the Harlem area of New York City in the twenties of the last century. The post-modernist novel has become an immortal masterpiece in the literary history of America. The thesis aims at a systematic analysis of the novel mainly based on the signifying theory of Henry Louis Gates Jr. so as to find out the exhibition of the signification and the main ideas of the novel.The study of this thesis on Jazz is from a new angle, the perspective of signifying analysis. The majority of the previous studies deal with The Bluest Eye, Sula and Song of Solomon, while few studies touch upon the analysis of Jazz. In addition, most previous studies lay more emphasis on comparative American/western culture, narrative strategies, post-colonialism, psychological analysis or feminist consciousness than the application of signification. Thus, the present study tries to make a different exploration into Jazz from the aspect of signifying analysis in order to demonstrate the possibility of analyzing literary works by means of signifying theory and expand the field and range of studies concerned.Combining with modern linguistics especially semiotics and researching into African-American folk tradition, Henry Louis Gate Jr. who is a distinguished African-American literary critic advances the signifying theory, which is an inclusive literary theory between linguistic analysis and cultural analysis. The theory provides a unique methodology and perspective of exploring into African-American literature and penetrating into African-Americans’deep cultural and psychological world in the literary works. Signification demonstrates itself in African-American literary works as implicit themes and figures of speech primarily signifying on language and images within a text as well as signifying on another text by means of figurative repetition or revision based on the literary tradition. Thus, the present study will analyze Toni Morrison’s Jazz from the three aspects including language use, images and inter-textuality in order to have a profound understanding about and a fresh insight into the thematic significance in the novel and provide a unique perspective to appreciate Morrison’s fiction.Though following the signifying tradition, the novel reflects that Morrison has a deep understanding about the physical and psychological world of African-Americans and is concerned about their living situation. In the novel Morrison attaches great importance to the returning to black traditional culture, the quest for self-identity and self-fulfillment as well as the appeal for national complex. Through revealing the application of signification, the novel also demonstrates that Morrison pays high attention to the value of black traditional culture to black nation especially the black people who have been deeply influenced by the mainstream culture in America. Identifying with black traditional culture can contribute to the construction of self-identity and maintaining a sense of belonging. What is more, Morrison’s art of description shows that she lays much emphasis on the influences of domestic relationships as well as community relationships on an individual and even black nation. Love embodied in the beautiful melody full of signification enlightens people to promote mutual communication and understanding. These are the realistic significance of the themes in the novel reflected by the art of description, which is worth deep exploration.