“At last, everything’s ahead. The smart ones say so and people listening to them and reading what they write down agree: here comes the new. Look out.”

Throughout the novel, Morrison explores this sense of newness in the characters and in the city. Joe, Violet, and Dorcas come to New York City with the belief that their lives are about to change. Joe describes how each event in his life reinvents his identity. In the opening chapter, the narrator explains that this was the atmosphere of New York following World War I. People were hopeful for the future, and Black Americans in Harlem were creating their own cultural and social revolution. However, Morrison also shows how these reinventions cannot be separated from their past. The cycle of trauma impacts everything, following the characters into the city and into their relationships.

“Not only is she losing Joe to a dead girl, but she wonders if she isn’t falling in love with her too.”

For both Joe and Violet, Dorcas is representative of the theme Desire and Possession. Each desires Dorcas in a unique way. Joe desires her for her youth and intimacy, while Violet sees her as the child she never had. After Joe murders Dorcas, both he and his wife attempt to cling to Dorcas and her memory.