Trumpet Essay Questions

How does Jackie Kay present the relationship between gender and sexuality?

Our society—and especially Trumpet’s 1950’s social setting—is based on one of many fundamental beliefs: a gender—either male or female—would determine who you were attracted to (i.e., the opposite sex). This relationship is traditionally a fixed idea. Yet Kay refuses to either gender someone or assume their sexuality based on their biological sex. The relationship between gender and sexuality is no longer a fixed definition, but fluid and susceptible to change. Joss’ sexuality—his attraction and subsequent marriage to Millie—is publicly accepted as he identifies as a man. Biologically he remains a woman, yet his sexuality remains the same. Thus, perhaps the fact remains that there is simply no relationship between the two; it is a social construct that attempts to determine who a person should be attracted to. Kay’s novel chooses to rise above this. It no longer becomes about sexuality—an almost primal attraction—but instead about love, and how gender is a factor that cannot change this.

Does the fact that Joss Moody was mixed-race change the novel?

Trumpet approaches many complex issues throughout the novel: grief, social judgement, and a family being torn apart by death and lies. Yet, Kay runs an underlying yet constant theme throughout the pages: how race affects a situation. And it is in this refusal to directly address the concept that we are reminded of its utter importance to the novel. This is mostly achieved through the character of Colman. He acknowledges very early in the book that his contemporary London deems him naturally suspicious, as if his race biologically makes him more likely to indulge in criminal action. When he boards the train to Scotland, he is again aware that people stare at him due to his skin color. Then there is the character of Millie’s racist mother, who initially and unfavorably judges Joss based on his skin color alone. Yet, when race is discussed in relation to Joss—mostly by Millie—it is only to describe the beautiful richness of his skin. It is this subtle, yet complex examination of race that thus presents two very different perspectives. Through Millie’s eyes, Joss’s skin color only enhances the beauty she already sees, and this is unchanged by public opinion. As a young man struggling with his identity, it is Colman who feels the pressures that a mid-twentieth century audience would press upon a person of his race.

How does Colman represent society’s construction of masculinity?

Through the many different perspectives that Kay presents the readership, we are privy to a wide spectrum of responses to the "truth" of Joss Moody. All feature shock, a few acceptance, yet only two embody true disgust: that of Sophie Stones, the ruthless journalist, and Joss’s own son. Colman embodies the idea of a masculine consciousness in such an extreme way that he almost ceases to become a character, but instead becomes an idea. After discovering the person he believed was a father is in fact biologically a woman, he becomes obsessed with proving his own masculinity in order to compensate for that which he believes has been lost (he even imagines that his own penis is somehow larger after his father's death). For Colman, gender and sexuality are very closely linked, and as his father, Joss’s sexuality is inextricably linked to his own. Throughout the novel he Colman sexualizes female characters, such as fantasizing about aggressive intercourse with Sophie Stones, and becomes somewhat obsessed by thinking about how his parents had sex. Colman is therefore the ultimate symbol of how fragile masculinity can be; Joss was biologically a woman his entire life, yet his outward presentation was as a man. Kay’s message is thus perhaps then how much of a construct masculinity is, and how much it depends on both presentation and power.

How is identity affected by Joss’s love of music?

One of the novel’s most important themes is identity: how one sees the self, and how others in turn see that person. Yet, Joss’s passion for jazz almost entirely removes his sense of identity; he is simply a vessel for the trumpet to express its beauty through. Usually, this loss of identity would be viewed negatively, and suggests that the central character has not been fully established. Yet, Kay subverts this convention to suggest something different entirely. In a novel that is essentially a collection of social judgements, it is with this Joss’s lack of identity that also comes a lack of judgement. In an entire chapter, Joss sheds his human shell and becomes the trumpet, becomes his utter passion for jazz. It is through this understanding that his loss of identity is accepted, rather than criticized. Joss’s extraordinary talents also offer not simply the death of a man, but the legend left behind as well. Talent is ungendered, and this especially encourages others to view Joss in the same light.

How does Millie and Joss's marriage enforce traditional gender norms?

Though Joss is in many ways defying traditional gender norms by being biologically female but taking on the gender of a man, he and Millie still have a very traditionally gendered marriage. Millie is the mother, homemaker, and supporter of her husband's career. When Kay writes of sex, Joss is always the more aggressive, dominant figure (not in a negative way; it is entirely consensual and loving). Joss is strict and sometimes prone to anger; he slaps Millie for making fun of black jazz names. He is the breadwinner, the voice of authority in the home. He wears suits in a way that suggests, as Carole Jones writes, "It is as if both of them [Joss and Millie] come alive, come to themselves once Joss is dressed and presentable as a man and they can inhabit their normative gender roles." She concludes that "Joss's successful passing up until his death reinstates the binary of normal gender roles. Theoretically, Joss's female masculinity is subversive in that it denaturalizes the relationship between gender and the body, but it is also socially conservative . . . Kay moves to stabilize Joss's identity through reiterating norms of masculinity that are easily interpreted as produced by a male essence."