Between the Self and the Others: Subjective and social consciousness in Toni Morrison’s Jazz and Dionne Brand’s In Another Place, Not Here

Resumen

This article analyzes and evaluates the way in which a counterbalance between subjective and social consciousness is articulated and developed in two North- American novels: Toni Morrison’s Jazz and Dionne Brand’s In Another Place, Not Here. This counterbalance is explored with reference to the issues of class, gender and race that the novels bring to the foreground. First I will make an analysis of individual and collective spaces in relation to agency and social determinism; afterwards I will pay attention to the figure of the ancestor and to textual techniques which also help these writers assess the view of what constitutes a balance between personal aesthetic choices and dreams and social or collective concerns.