Character Clues
Character Analysis
Physical Appearance
Dang, this is super-important in Jazz. We're going to start with the most obvious example of physical appearance informing character: That's right, Golden Gray.
Dude, this guy's first name is Golden. After his skin tone. And boy does it fit more than his complexion. He's brought up showered in gold, almost literally. He's a super-privileged kid who gets three baths a day and wears the finest clothing Baltimore has to offer. He's also, by virtue of his ambiguous skin tone, not born into slavery. If he had been darker, he would have been enslaved, guys.
This novel reflects a historical reality that physical appearance decides so much about your life.
Besides the importance of skin color, Jazz uses physical appearance to characterize in other ways. Take skinny Violet, who is always trying to fatten herself up. She wants to regain the bodacious curves of her youth, sure, but she's also baby-crazy. As in: She wants to get big with child. Her skinniness underlines her baby hunger (if you're always hungry, you're probably skinny, right?) and her lack of fertility.
The primarily physical identifier for Dorcas, besides her light skin, are her acne scars. Joe loves these acne scars, and no wonder. First of all, they highlight the fact that Dorcas can't stay away from sugar (read: temptation), and they also point to the emotional scarring that Dorcas has as a result of her mom getting burned to death and her father getting stomped to death. The acne scars are a constant reminder of who Dorcas is below the surface.
Sex and Love
Ah, the ever-important sex and love. Because this book focuses on that decade of sin, the 1920s, there's a little more sex than there is love acting as characterizing tool.
Like physical appearances, the characterizing elements of sex are rooted in historical reality. The 1920s saw hemlines leave the soil and soar into the stratosphere, or at least get around the knees. Those sweet, sexy knees.
So in a very concrete way, women's presentation of their sexuality acted as a characterizing tool in the 1920s in general. And in Jazz, if you are young and adventurous, like Dorcas, you wear your skirts short and let your freak flag fly. If you are of the old guard, however, like Aunt Alice, you keep buttoned up and prim and proper.
One of the interesting things about Jazz's characterization is the way it both adheres to and bucks stereotypes concerning female sexuality. Aunt Alice, who doesn't believe in female sexytimes, is both a total prude and a woman who has vast resources of fiery anger. Dorcas, who loves to be provocative, is both a gleeful adventure-seeker and a scared, vulnerable girl.
Thoughts and Opinions
It's no surprise that a book that spends so much time floating about in its characters' heads would be big on thoughts and opinions acting as characterizing elements. We don't have to rely on a series of symbols to figure out what these guys are really like: We're inside their heads. Which, frankly, is a little claustrophobic sometimes. So. Much. Crazy.
What's particularly interesting about the opinions of the characters, however, is their opinions of each other. Call it their internal gossiping. We recognize Violet's capacity for forgiveness because of the way she starts to love Dorcas's memory; we recognize Felice's hurt and frustration through the way she talks disparagingly about her mom; and we gain insight into Joe's epic abandonment issues through the way he lumps Dorcas and his mom together in his mind. For more on how this all unfolds, be sure to check out the "Narrator Point of View" section.