Trumpet Literary Elements

Fiction

London, 1997, with flashbacks to the 1950's and later. Also partially set in Glasgow.

Trumpet has a number of narrators. Predominantly, it is Joss Moody's grieving wife, Millie, who writes in the first person. Others also contribute in the first person, including Joss's son, Coleman Moody, and the journalist Sophie Stones. Other chapters are written in the third person, including the funeral director who discovers Joss's true sex, and the drummer Big Red McCall. Each character offers their narrative as a reaction to discovering that Joss was a woman, despite choosing to live his life as a man.

The tone differs with each character. Millie's tone is consistently despairing, contemplative, sentimental, solemn; and Colman's is full of suspicion and sarcasm and malice for his father's "lies." Sophie is acerbic, derisive, and unsympathetic.

The overall mood is melancholic, nostalgic, anxious, moody, overwhelmed, sympathetic.

Protagonist: Millie and Coleman Moody; Antagonist: Sophie Stones

Will Colman cooperate with Sophie Stones, fully turning against his mother and his father's memory? Will he find a way to forgive his father and recognize his love for him?

It is difficult to pinpoint one single climax, as the narrative jumps back and forth in time and from narrator to narrator. Perhaps the most climactic moment is when Colman confronts his father's dead body and realizes he was a woman.

1. There is a definite foreshadowing in terms of Kay's structure, and how this will link to the direction of the plot. The opening paragraph does not jump in to Joss's narrative: his identity and struggle as a transgender man in an incredibly judgmental society. Instead, it presents Millie struggling to keep the media from invading her privacy. Therefore, we are instantly drawn to sympathize with her, rather than focusing on Joss.
2. When Joss and Millie go for a drink the day they start talking, she asks if that is his real name. He is offended and tells her of course it's his real name; this foreshadows his revelation of his first name being Josephine Moody and his decision to become someone else.
3. When Joss tells Millie his mother is dead and has a strange expression on his face while doing so, she asks if they did not get along. He says "Not exactly," which foreshadows what we learn of his decision to leave home and no longer have a relationship with her.

1. "I said thank you for letting me know to the funeral man" (63): Colman uses understatement here because it creates an astonishing disconnect between his simple words and what he has just learned.

1. "Double Indemnity," a 1944 film noir classic in which a salesman gets roped into a woman's scheme to kill her husband
2. There are numerous famous jazz musicians mentioned—Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Domino, Leadbelly, Louis Armstrong
3. There are also numerous famous jazz tunes mentioned—"Blues in the Night," "Shake, Rattle, n' Roll"
4. Holding has a quote from "The Duchess of Malfi" on his door—this is a 17th-century revenge tragedy written by John Webster
5. When Joss asked Melanie too many questions, Colman asked if it was the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police force
6. Millie thinks of Colman as "a tiny pitiful Oedipus," referencing the Greek figure who unwittingly married his mother and killed his father

Much of the imagery in this novel lies in external objects that are extremely symbolic. For example, Joss's trumpet is a gender-less, inanimate object that is judged for its beauty and talent, an image that resonates with the memory of its owner. In one particularly poignant chapter, Kay writes that Moody "unwraps himself with his trumpet." He uses his instrument to present his true talent, irregardless of gender or biology.

1. The main paradox is, of course, the difference between Joss's biological sex and his gender. He has identified as male his entire life, despite having female organs. This is a paradox that is quickly accepted, and challenges anyone who does not.
2. Colman experiences the paradoxical situation of everything seeming different when it is entirely unchanged: "[Torr] is a new place . . . Utterly changed. The size of the rooms are different today. much smaller. The kitchen shelves are higher. The kettle's whistle is much shriller" (92).
3. For Holding, "the dead are so demanding. The dead are larger than life" (105). This paradoxical in that it seems impossible—they're dead, what could they need—but for Holding they do need him.

1. Colman being mixed-race parallels Joss being mixed-race.
2. John Moore, Joss Moody, and Colman Moody have parallel experiences with having different names and never quite feeling home anywhere.

The main use of metonymy is in the description of differing skin tones. It is undeniably an examination of race, and depicts the issues of both Joss and Colman, growing up as black and mixed-race in a predominantly white community. When Millie's mother first meets Joss, she calls him a "darky," disapproving of Millie's choice. Other words are later used to describe mixed-race characters, such as "ape." Therefore, metonymy is predominantly used as a derogatory terms to show the ignorant society that the characters must experience.

1. "[The fire] sounds possessed. It seems a strange fickle, flickering company to begin with . . . " (4)
2. "The cottage seemed as if is possessed a memory of its own . . . " (7)
3. "Sleep scratches at me then wakes me up" (12)
4. "The sea is calmer today, shamed by last night's excesses" (21)
5. "The wind is intimate with me. Running its long, strong fingers through my hair" (25)
6. Colman thinks that what he now knows of Joss is everywhere: "Everywhere I look it rears its head. Waves a menacing hand, says Hello There, I'm over here" (56)
7. "The sky is bloodless and pale. Drained of all pity. Drained of all passion" (88)