Joe Trace In Jazz Analysis

A person can be on the top of their game, feeling as if the world is their oyster, full of hope and possibilities. But those possibilities could have the likeness of a building block tower; take away one piece and it all comes falling down, leaving that person yearning for that life back. Similar attributes are mirrored in Joe Trace in Jazz by Toni Morrison. He dealt with pangs of longing for his previous life, before he married his wife, Violet, where he was a free and able-bodied young man with hopes and dreams for the future. Joe’s impulse for his youthful life echoes the popular theme of desire and the fallout it can reap such as adultery and death.
One of the central issues is Joe Trace indulging in adultery. He is a man in his fifties, conducting an affair with an eighteen-year-old girl named Dorcas who symbolizes his youthful life, which he misses. Referring to how Dorcas made him feel, Joe said, “you would have thought I was twenty, back in Palestine satisfying my appetite for the first time under a walnut tree” (Morrison 129). His time in Palestine, Virginia
Violet, Joe’s wife, got rid of Dorcas’s photo which had symbolized a fresh start (Morrison 197). Felice, a friend of Dorcas’, starts visiting Joe and brings a season of happiness with her, as her name implies, which allows renewal to come about for Joe (Morrison 215). Felice’s visits get Joe and Violet to talk, interact, and essentially jumpstart their previously crippling relationship. For example, Violet, Joe, and Felice get to talking about music during one conversation and Violet verbally indicates that she is going to rely on Joe more, to which Joe responds that he needs to pick himself up out of his rut and move on with his life and his wife (Morrison 214-215). So the tragedy that had overcome Joe opened his eyes to the problems in his life and brought him to acceptance and a desire to mend his