63 pages • 2 hours read
Jazz
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Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
CHAPTERS 1-2
Reading Check
1. What is the primary setting of the novel?
2. What is Violet’s job?
3. What do Joe and Dorcas have in common?
4. How long did the affair between Joe and Dorcas last?
5. What did Malvonne find that was hidden by her nephew?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What are examples of some of Violet’s strange behaviors?
2. Where did Joe first see Dorcas?
Paired Resource
- This 4-minute video from PBS discusses how Harlem changed during the 1920s and points out the influence of the city on Black people’s experiences.
- How did Harlem’s changes shape Black people’s lives? Based on this video, why might Morrison have selected this place and moment in history? How does the move to the city influence characters like Violet, Joe, and Dorcas?
CHAPTERS 3-4
Reading Check
1. What does Alice blame for the “Imminent Demise” of America?
2. How did Violet’s mother, Rose Dear, die?
3. How did Joe and Violet first meet?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What happened to Dorcas’s parents?
2. Who is “that Violet”?
Paired Resource
- Humantold Management offers this article on the transfer of intergenerational trauma.
- This article connects to the theme of Relationships and Trauma.
- How are characters such as Joe, Violet, Alice, and Dorcas impacted by the legacy of slavery? How might their behavior reflect the transgenerational trauma caused by slavery? What are some of the events of the book, whether in the plot or in the historical allusions, that might be traced to this trauma?
CHAPTERS 5-6
Reading Check
1. Why did True Belle return to her hometown?
2. Who were Golden Gray’s parents?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How did Joe get his last name, Trace?
2. What are the seven changes that Joe goes through?
3. How did Golden Gray react to finding out about his parents?
Paired Resource
“Who Is Black? One Nation’s Definition”
- This article by F. James Davis for Frontline explains the historical definition of Blackness based on the “one-drop rule,” the practice of passing, and its historical context.
- How did America define Blackness at the time the novel is set? How might Morrison, the narrator, or the characters of the novel define Blackness differently? What is passing, and what are some of the reasons that people have historically passed?
CHAPTERS 7-8
Reading Check
1. What did LesTroy and Honor think of Golden when they first saw him?
2. What were the two things that Joe hunted?
3. What was Dorcas doing when Joe found her?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How did Wild get her name?
CHAPTERS 9-10
Reading Check
1. Why doesn’t Felice see her parents?
2. What does Felice want back from Dorcas?
3. How does Violet nurse the bird back to health?
Short Answer
1. According to Felice, what was Dorcas’s death like?
2. Why did Felice’s mother steal the opal ring?
3. What is Joe and Violet’s relationship like at the end of the novel?
Paired Resource
- This article from Scientific American discusses the effects of love on memory. (Subscription may be needed to view.)
- This resource might be discussed in connection with the themes of Violence as an Act of Love and Desire and Possession.
- What are the positive and negative effects of love on memory? How do these ideas relate to Violet’s, Joe’s, Dorcas’s, and Alice’s memories of the past? How does this further contribute to the subjectivity of the novel?
Recommended Next Reads
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- Written during the Harlem Renaissance, this classic novel is set during the early 1900s. Janie Crawford, a Black woman in her forties, returns to her hometown after a long absence and tells her life story to her friend Pheoby. Janie discusses her sexual awakening, romantic relationships, and movements through Florida.
- Shared themes include Relationships and Trauma and Desire and Possession.
- Shared topics include the experience of Black women in America, racial oppression and violence, and community.
- Their Eyes Were Watching God on SuperSummary
Cane by Jean Toomer
- In this 1923 novel of loosely connected vignettes, Toomer describes the Black experience during the early 20th century in the American South.
- Shared themes include Relationships and Trauma and Desire and Possession.
- Shared topics include desire, the Black experience, and nature.
- Cane on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
CHAPTERS 1-2
Reading Check
1. The novel is set in 1926 in the Harlem neighborhood in New York City. (Chapter 1)
2. Violet is an unlicensed hairdresser. (Chapter 1)
3. Neither Joe nor Dorcas has a mother. (Chapter 2)
4. The affair between Joe and Dorcas lasted three months. (Chapter 2)
5. Malvonne found a sack filled with undelivered mail. (Chapter 2)
Short Answer
1. Violet reclined in the middle of the street for an hour, slept with dolls, attempted to steal a baby, and goes “silent” around Joe. She also attacks Dorcas’s body at the funeral. (Chapters 1-2)
2. Joe first saw Dorcas when she was buying candy at the drugstore. (Chapter 2)
CHAPTERS 3-4
Reading Check
1. Alice blames music. (Chapter 3)
2. Violet’s mother died by suicide when she jumped into a well. (Chapter 4)
3. Joe and Violet first met when they were young in Palestine, Virginia. Violet slept under a walnut tree after working picking cotton in the fields. Joe fell out of the walnut tree he was sleeping in, and the pair talked all night. (Chapter 4)
Short Answer
1. Dorcas’s parents were murdered during the East St. Louis Massacre. Her father was pulled of a streetcar and beaten to death. Her mother died when her house was set on fire. (Chapter 3)
2. “That Violet” is the version of Violet that acts strange and violent. “That Violet” is the one who attacked Dorcas’s body at the funeral. (Chapter 4)
CHAPTERS 5-6
Reading Check
1. True Belle returned to her hometown to care for her daughter, Rose, and her granddaughters. (Chapter 6)
2. Golden Gray’s parents were Vera Louis Gray and Henry LesTroy. (Chapter 6)
Short Answer
1. Joe gave himself the name Trace after misunderstanding that his parents disappeared without a trace. (Chapter 5)
2. Joe’s seven changes are naming himself, learning from LesTroy, buying land after the burning of Vienna, seeing Booker T. Washington in the White House, moving north, being beaten by white men, and marching with Black troops. (Chapter 5)
3. Golden Gray reacted with anger. He destroyed his mother’s clothes and left to kill his father. (Chapter 6)
CHAPTERS 7-8
Reading Check
1. When LesTroy and Honor first saw Golden, they both thought Golden was a white man. (Chapter 7)
2. Joe hunted for his mother and Dorcas. (Chapter 7)
3. Dorcas was dancing at a party with a young boy named Acton. (Chapter 8)
Short Answer
1. Wild got her nickname from LesTroy when she bit him while giving birth. (Chapter 7)
CHAPTERS 9-10
Reading Check
1. Felice’s parents work in another town, where they live with their employers for the majority of the year. (Chapter (9)
2. Felice wants her opal ring back. (Chapter 9)
3. Rooftop music heals the bird. (Chapter 10)
Short Answer
1. Dorcas’s death was a choice. She slowly bled out after refusing medical attention. No one called the police because of their fear of police; also, the ambulance won’t come for a Black person. Acton did not comfort her, but he was instead concerned with the blood on his clothes. Dorcas shared a message for Joe about an apple and then died. (Chapter 9)
2. Felice’s mother steals the opal ring in retaliation toward the racist salespeople; her theft is significant because Felice’s mother does not usually break the rules. (Chapter 9)
3. Joe and Violet’s relationship has been rejuvenated, and they are deeply in love again. (Chapter 10)
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