Racial Identity And Gender Oppression In Toni Morrison’s Jazz

Abstract

In the late 20th century, Black literature, feminism and prejudice played significant parts in American literature. Toni Morrison, the Nobel Laureate, is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20^th century. A good deal of her fictional work has enthusiastically challenged the stereotypes that have been imposed on African American women throughout history. The socio-economic identity struggle of Black brings about race, gender, and class and presents Harlem as a biased space in the novel. Jazz (1992) narrates the struggles of African American women who settled in Harlem in the early twentieth century. Jazz gives a range of wide gaps between what appeared to be the satisfaction, everything being equal, a feature of the Harlem Renaissance and what it ended up with for all intents and purposes. Jazz spotlights the severe financial factors confronted by African American community in the city where racial brutality is disguised, made noticeable in the inferiority of their lives, experienced each day and in Morrison’s Jazz turns into the voice of unconvinced yearning.