Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient and Toni Morrison's Jazz
Textual, mnemonic, and physical gaps leave room in which identity is found through body and environment in Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient and Toni Morrison's Jazz. Ondaatje's characters retrieve their absent personas by mutually colonizing lovers' bodies, thus developing a metaphor for the body as topography. Morrison spins this in reverse, personifying and merging the City's infrastructure with human structure as the characters synergistically carve out their selves through the City's spaces. Though geographical boundaries do impede characters' ability to connect, both novelists optimistically argue that the bonds of human affection can span the physical borders of the world, for between these no chasm exists.
In The English Patient, empty spaces are represented by Almasy's and other characters' porous memories of history, their bodies, and geography. Ondaatje draws a parallel between human memory and written texts: "So the books for the Englishman, as he listened intently or not, had gaps of plot like sections of a road washed out by storms" (7). The use of a geographical simile also foreshadows the connections between humans and environment Ondaatje will explore. Hana's self-identity, too, is endangered by her unwillingness to recognize or celebrate her body: "She had refused to look at herself for more than a year, now and then just her shadow on walls...She peered into her look, trying to recognize herself" (52). Hana's "shadow" is illustrative of her problem; in her eyes, her body's sensuality has been squeezed out of a voluptuous three-dimensional form "the way maps compress the world onto a two-dimensional sh...
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Eckard Paula Gallant. "The Interplay of Music, Language and Narrative in Toni Morrison's Jazz." CLA Journal 38.1 (1994): 11-19.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., and K. A. Appiah, eds. Toni Morrison: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York: Amistad P, 1993.
Kubitschek, Mary Dehn. Toni Morrison: A Critical Companion. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998. 139-161.
Morrison, Toni. Jazz. New York: Penguin, 1992.
Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient. London: Pan Books, 1993
Page, Philip. Dangerous Freedom: Fusion and Fragmentation in Toni Morrison's Novels. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1995.
Peach, Linden. Toni Morrison. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.
Rice, Alan J. "Jazzing It Up A Storm: The Execution and Meaning of Toni Morrison's Jazzy Prose Style." The Journal of American Studies 28 (1994): 423-32.
Rushdy, Ashraf H.A. "'Rememory': Primal Scenes and Constructions in Toni Morrison's Novels." Contemporary Literature 31.3 (1990): 300-323.
3. Davis, Nathan T. Writings in Jazz. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. Dubuque, IA. 1996. p. 152-153, 163, 166.
When researching the history of a specific topic, the viewpoints of historians can widely differ. My findings have concluded that each critic or historian has his own way of arguing who or what made jazz a beloved genre within American pop culture. Some even contend the location of its early origins. Throughout the text, several other sources remain indifferent in summarizing jazz. Paying no regard to any of the authors’ stance, the sources mentioned within my writing have provided beneficial information that will be used within my research assignment.
“American Crisis.” The American Tradition in Literature, 12th ed. New York: McGraw Hill 2009. Print
Many jazz artists as we know it are quite talented. Their talents are unique in that they can translate human emotion through singing or playing their instruments. Many have the ability to reach and touch people’s souls through their amazing gifts. Although this art of turning notes and lyrics into emotional imagery may somewhat come natural, the audience must wonder where their influence comes from. For Billie Holiday, her career was highly influenced by personal experience, the effects of the Great Depression, and the racial challenges of African Americans during her time.
Fast. Risky. Intriguing. The upbeat tempo, clashing of high-hats, and randomness in the seduction of jazz draws in an audience during a performance. The musical art form of jazz uses key elements that mainstream music normally use to draw an audience in. However, the added emphasis of improvisation sets jazz apart from mainstream music. Improvisation calls for a musician to create new music on the spot. Musicians use elements like tempo changes, tone, riffs, and etc., to express improvisation. As jazz originates from the African American
Murphy, Bernice M. Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &, 2005. Print.
Wyatt, Jean. “Body to the Word: The Maternal Symbolic in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” PMLA, Vol. 108, No.3 (May, 1993): 474-488. JSTOR. Web. 27. Oct. 2015.
The flood story that is told in The Epic of Gilgamesh has the same principle as the story of Noah told in the book of Genesis in the Bible, but there are some major differences. In the epic, Utnapishtim is immortal and, although Noah was extremely old when he died, he wasn’t immortal. Utnapishtim was a human, but because he saved mankind, Enlil said, “Hitherto Utnapishtim has been a human, now Utnapishtim and his wife shall become like us gods.” (Gilgamesh 11.206-207) In the Biblical story, God told Noah that he was going to send a flood and asked him specifically to make the ark in order to save mankind. In Genesis 6:13-22, God tells Noah why he’s flooding the earth and exact instructions to build the ark. “13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress[a] wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.[b] 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit[c] high all arou...
A good number of people know the famous story of the Genesis flood, but do they know how it resembles to the Gilgamesh flood story? It is mind bending how the main stories are so alike. The main theme is the biggest similarity between the two. They also differ greatly in the smaller details in the events that take place. In both stories the number of days for events are different, but the same basic event takes place. Along with many other similarities and differences. The stories are very much the same, but when comparing the details within they are very different.
Parker, Emma. "A New Hystery: History and Hysteria in Toni Morrison's Beloved." Twentieth Century Literature 47.1 (2001): 1. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.
In Langston Hughes’ poem, the author gives us vivid examples of how dreams get lost in the weariness of everyday life. The author uses words like dry, fester, rot, and stink, to give us a picture of how something that was originally intended for good, could end up in defeat. Throughout the play, I was able to feel how each character seemed to have their dreams that fell apart as the story went on. I believe the central theme of the play has everything to do with the pain each character goes thru after losing control of the plans they had in mind. I will attempt to break down each character’s dream and how they each fell apart as the play went on.
In 1983, Toni Morrison published the only short story she would ever create. The controversial story conveys an important idea of what race is and if it really matter in the scheme of life. This story takes place during the time period of the Civil Rights Movement. The idea of civil rights was encouraged by the government but not enforced by the states, leaving many black Americans suffering every day. In Morrison’s short story Recitatif, Morrison manipulates the story’s diction to describe the two women’s races interchangeably resulting in the confusion of the reader. Because Morrison never establishes the “black character” or the “white character”, the reader is left guessing the race of the two main characters throughout the whole story. Morrison also uses the character’s actions and dialogue during the friend’s meetings to prove the theme of equality between races.
In Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, Morrison uses universal themes and characters that anyone can relate to today. Set in the 1800s, Beloved is about the destructive effects of American slavery. Most destructive in the novel, however, is the impact of slavery on the human soul. Morrison’s Beloved highlights how slavery contributes to the destruction of one’s identity by examining the importance of community solidarity, as well as the powers and limits of language during the 1860s.
Pain can trigger many intense emotions, having a big effect on someone. Some people respond differently to pain, but others experience an emotional transformation. Each text possesses a transformation that allows the reader to well understand the identity of the characters. Throughout “The Interior Castle,” the reader is not aware of the personality of Pansy before the accident, but as a result of the pain she chooses to isolate herself from the rest of the world seeking to stay secluded in her own thoughts. Contrasting from Pansy, Lucy Grealy in Autobiography of a Face has a different spin. Lucy suffers a progressively different change including her reconstructive surgeries and her desire to find her sense of self. It is unclear whether Lucy overcame her deformity and found herself, but the reader can gather that the pain she felt altered her state of mind in a deep way. “Pain Has an Element of Blank” describes the building blocks of pain that causes the transformation in Pansy and Lucy. Emily Dickinson presents pain as being an all-consuming world with infinite ends. The reader sees this element of physical and emotional pain as being the key to the transformation in both women. It is clear that pain possesses a certain power over people and their experiences in