1920년대 뉴욕의 재즈/문화 다시 읽기:『위대한 개츠비』와 『재즈』의 비교를 중심으로

Abstract

Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby was published 67 years before Morrison's publication of Jazz in 1992. A closer look into the latter will reveal that Morrison subtlely criticizes the former in which we can get to know more of New York culture in the 1920s. It is likely that Morrison searches from Jazz the role and function of Afro-Americans' jazz which are quite different from those of the music in The Great Gatsby. In other words, Fitzgerald and Morrison understand the jazz music in the very different ways. The ways that they understand the music are reflected in their novels. Morrison seems dissatisfied with Fitzgerald's interpretation of the jazz music, and she insinuates in Jazz that the jazz has been being passed into Whites' in The Great Gatsby. Interestingly, many of the comparison points can be found between The Great Gatsby and Jazz, both of which deal with the same space of New York City, and with the same period of the 1920s. The features of the city in the period look apparent in the seemingly different two communities: Long Island where the rich reside and the Harlem where the poor blacks live. Although those who live in the two places seem to enjoy the New York culture together, the conflicts lie between the whites and the other whites, between the whites and the blacks, and between the other immigrants regardless of the ethnicity. Jazz was originally African Americans', but the music has been appropriated by the whites and become a symbol of pleasure and corruption. In Jazz, however, it becomes certain that the role and function of jazz are much different from those in The Great Gatsby.