vate magic and power, tells the same story from her point of view. The main line of action is the Native Americans' confinement to a reservation, lack of acceptance by the white community as equal citizens, sporadic dependence on government largess for food and sustenance, and loss of their land to a lumber company. By the end of the novel, Fleur and Pauline have both left the reservation--Pauline to enter a convent and Fleur to abandon pristine woods being clear-cut by the lumber company. Thus the historical inevitability of decline and dispersement of modern Native American life between 1912 and 1924.
In Jazz, the main influence of history on the narrative comes about because of the burdens it imposes on experience. The narrative line itself is simple, straightforward, and shocking: a married, mild-mannered 54-year-old man, Joe Trace, takes up with 18-year-old Dorcas for several months, then shoots her when he spies her with another man. At the funeral, Joe's wife Violet tries to mutilate the corpse. Joe is not prosecuted for the murder "because nobody actually saw him do it, and the dead girl's aunt didn't want to throw money to helpless lawyers or laughing cops" (Morrison 2).
Joe Trace's murder of young Dorcas, who as Furman notes is not sympathetic but manipulative (86) and self-absorbed, can be interpreted as his slightly insane wish to freeze time itself by assuring that Dorcas will always be remembered in her youth, never subject to the ravages of age and time. The affair itself has a very brief history, but it has implications for the whole lives of Joe and his wife Violet, as well as for Alice, who is the aunt of the murdered girl.
According to Furman (97), music is in the background of the murder, sending "competing messages" of happiness and hostility, and influencing people in Harlem, including but not limited to Joe, to do, as Alice recalls, "distorted things" (79). However, the evidence of the text is that histor...