How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
When the woman, her name is Violet, went to the funeral to see the girl and to cut her dead face they threw her to the floor and out of the church. (1.1)
The nonchalance with which Violet's violence is presented is a symptom of just how much violence goes down in Jazz—the tone of this quote is pretty unemotional. The really crazy action (cutting a dead girl's face) is buried in the fairly sane action of throwing old Violet out of the church.
Quote #2
He was pulled off a streetcar and stomped to death, and Alice's sister had just got the news and gone back home to try and forget the color of his entrails, when her house was torched and she burned crispy in flames. (3.9)
Ugh, this quote is a one-two punch of evil violence. This kind of insanity was so prevalent in the lives of turn-of-the-century African Americans (especially in the South—this quote refers to St. Louis) that, from Alice's point of view, it's remarked upon in kind of a conversational, quiet tone.
Quote #3
Toward the end of March, Alice Manfred put her needles aside to think again of what she called the impunity of the man who killed her niece just because he could. It had not been that hard to do; it had not even made him think twice about what danger he was putting himself in. He just did it. (3.53)
According to Joe, all's fair in love and war, even shooting his lady love. Alice, who has seen a fair share of violence and doesn't trust the authorities to do anything about it, just chills out in the wake of her niece's death and thinks "The nerve!"
Quote #4
Did police put their fists in women's faces so the husband's spirits would break along with the women's jaws? (3.64)
Yet another ugly symptom of racism in turn of the century America, folks. But this gross observation is embedded in what Alice finds comfort in: that God's wrath will smite down those who do evil. We guess you need to find comfort in something if you live in such a mixed-up world.
Quote #5
She had never picked up a knife. What she neglected to say—what came flooding back to her now—was also true: every day and every night for seven months, she, Alice Manfred, was starving for blood. Not his. Oh no. For him she planned sugar in his motor, scissors to his tie, burned suits, slashed shoes, ripped socks. Vicious, childish acts of violence to inconvenience him, remind him. But no blood. Her craving settled on the red liquid coursing through the other women's veins. An ice pick stuck in and pulled up would get it. (3.83)
And this is why Alice doesn't hate Violet: She knows what it's like to feel violent urges after being cheated on or left for another woman, and like Violet, she directs the anger and violence not at the man but at other women. Turns out Alice is not as sickly-sweet as she lets on. And to that we say: Hooray! Complicated characters are so much better than plain old good or bad ones.
Quote #6
It bounced off, making a little dent under her earlobe, like a fold in the skin that was hardly a disfigurement at all. She could have left it at that: the fold under the earlobe, but that Violet, unsatisfied, fought with the hard-handed usher boys and was time enough for them, almost. (4.2)
You have to feel badly for Violet here. She's trying to exact revenge on a dead girl (newsflash: Violet is not the sanest crayon in the box) and she ends up just giving her a glorified ear piercing. So she does the next-best thing and engages in a little boxing match with the ushers. Oh, Violet.
Quote #7
I don't know exactly what started the riot… that party, he said, where they sent out invitations to whites to come see a colored man burn alive. Gistan said thousands of whites turned up. (5.29)
It's quotes like these that make the smaller-scale violence of the individual characters in Jazz look like the behavior of relatively stable people. It's one thing to go shooting your lover or cutting a dead girl's face if you live in a world without disgusting acts of hate-fueled, racist violence—but when there is a "party" to see a "colored man burn alive," well, the entire world is freaking horrific. We just threw up in our mouth a little bit.
Quote #8
He isn't thinking of harming her, or, as Hunter had cautioned, killing something tender. She is female. And she is not prey. (7.38)
Here we have the testimony that would have gotten Joe a few less years in prison for Dorcas's murder: It was not premeditated. He doesn't want to harm her, because she is both way younger than he is (tender) and female.
Quote #9
In his coat pocket is the forty-five he pawned his rifle for. He had laughed when he handled it, a fat baby gun that would be loud as a cannon. Nothing complex; you'd have to fight your own self to miss, but he isn't going to miss because he isn't going to aim. (7.41)
And here's the testimony that would have complicated Joe's trial (if there had been one) big time. He says he doesn't intend to kill her, but he swapped his hunting rifle for a forty-five? Hmm… that's fishy, Joe.
Quote #10
"He's here. Oh, look. God. He's crying. Am I falling? Why am I falling? (8.15)
Yikes, this one hurts. We get Dorcas's point-of-view of getting shot, and it's confused and upsetting. She's just dancing with sleazeball Acton, and then her fifty-year-old former lover shoots her. Not pretty, guys.
Quote #11
"I read about white policemen who were arrested for killing some Negroes and said I was glad they were arrested, that it was about time. He looked at me and shouted 'The story hit the papers because it was news, girl, news!'" (9.10)
Poor Felice. She's trying to bond with her Dad over current events and gets a horrific dose of reality when he tells her that, um, most policeman that kill black people get away with it, circa 1926. Are you as furious as we are right now?
Quote #12
"Dorcas let herself die. The bullet went in her shoulder, this way. […] She bled to death all through the woman's bed sheets on into the mattress." (9.46)
Sometimes Felice isn't the best friend. It's true that Dorcas bled to death at what sounds like a raging party with awesome music (worse places to die, right?) but it's kind of hard to stop yourself from bleeding to death. Just another quote that proves that, when you're surrounded by senseless death and dying you get a little too used to it.