How does Toni Morrison use imagery in Jazz?

Morrison rejects novels that create an all white world, and rejects the conventions of language that exclude and oppress African Americans. Instead of saying men, women and children are interested, Morrison says, "That kind of fascination, permanent and out of control, seizes children, young girls, men of every description, mothers, brides and barfly women, and if they have their way and get to the City ..." Her language, lush as a tropical Rain Forest, evokes strong visual and sound images.

"Violet takes better care of her parrot than she does me. Rest of the time, she's cooking pork I can't eat, or pressing hair I can't stand the smell of. Maybe that's the way it goes with people been married long as we have. But the quiet. I can't take the quiet. She don't hardly talk anymore, and I ain't allowed near her. Any other man be running around, stepping out every night, you know that. I ain't like that. I ain't."

"She had long hair and bad skin. A quart of water twice a day would have cleared it right up, her skin, but I didn't suggest it because I liked it like that. Little half moons clustered underneath her cheekbones, like faint hoofmarks."

"I wanted to stay there. Right after the gun went thuh! And nobody in there heard it but me and that is why the crowd didn't scatter like the flock of redwings they looked like but stayed pressed in, locked together by the steam of their dancing and the music, which would not let them go. I wanted to stay right there. Catch her before she fell and hurt herself."