Toni Morrison’s Jazz

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: perfected4% picked this

   In Jazz, Morrison has perfected a style of narration that had been attempted with little success by other North American

   This is just too exaggerated in making it sound like "everybody else in North America pretty much failed at this; meanwhile, Morrison perfected it." We don't have support for the extreme wording of the insult or the compliment.

   4%
2. B

   Too Strong: most successful3% picked this

   Because of its use of narrative techniques inspired by jazz, Morrison's novel represents the most successful representation to date of the milieu in

   This is another strongly worded answer. Why we certainly wouldn't be opposed to picking a complimentary answer, since our author clearly has much respect for Morrison's innovative novel, we can't sign off on extreme phrasing like "she perfected a style" or "she has the most successful representation of the jazz musician's world". Morrison's novel wasn't being celebrated for nailing the world of jazz better than had any previous effort. It was being celebrated for its innovative idea to structure the novel the way the conductor of a jazz ensemble would structure a performance.

   3%
3. C

   Opposite16% picked this

   In Jazz, Morrison develops her narrative in such a way that the voices of individual characters are sometimes difficult to distinguish, in much the

   The 2nd paragraph is actually complimenting Morrison on her ability to spotlight the singular voices of individuals, much the way that soloists in an ensemble get a chance to have their voice be heard. Morrison switches back and forth from an omniscient narrator who has a neutral, disembodied voice "to the first-person lyricism of key characters ... generous with the characters' voices ... their sections are set off by quotation marks, reminders that the narrator is allowing them to speak".

   16%
4. D

   Correct68% picked this

   The structural analogy between Jazz and Duke Ellington's compositional style involves more than simply the technique of shifting

   Why this is right

   This is lovably weak, in the sense that all we need to find in order to prove this statement is true is one more way in which Jazz and Ellington's composition style are analogous. 1. both switch between 1st person and 3rd person narrators 2. ? If we look at the end of the 3rd paragraph, we see: the musicians always performed within the undeniable logic of the composer's frame .. it is this same effect that Toni Morrison has achieved in 'Jazz'. So we've got a 2nd one: 2. "They both created a sense of an ensemble of characters improvising within the fixed scope of a carefully constructed collective narration." (beginning of last paragraph)

   Skill tested: Author Opinion · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

   68%
5. E

   Out of Scope: disguises10% picked this

   Morrison disguises the important structural connections between her narrative and Duke Ellington's jazz compositions by making the transitions between first-

   The passage never gives off any vibe that Morrison was trying to hide her structural homage to jazz (I mean -- the novel was named Jazz, so she probably wasn't hiding it). The logic of this answer implies that in Ellington's compositions, the transitions between 1st and 3rd person narrators appears difficult (Morrison was disguising the resemblance by making her transitions look easy). We have no support for the idea that Ellington's transitions didn't appear easy.

   10%