The Ethics of Perspective

Trust contains four narratives that inform the reader’s view of the lives led by Andrew and Mildred Bevel. These narratives are a roman a clef about the Bevels, Andrew’s unfinished biography, the biography’s ghostwriter reflecting on her experiences writing the biography, and Mildred’s journal. These narratives are distinctive because they each explore - either implicitly or explicitly - the ethical dimensions of women being deprived of their personhood and autonomy. 

Within Bonds, Helen is - from a young age - manipulated by others. Her father uses her schooling as a way to fill emotional and intellectual voids in his life (Diaz 28). It should also be noted how Mr. Brevoort’s obsessions render him unable to contribute to the family’s finances (Diaz 28). He is consumed so much by fictional demons that he creates real ones for his wife and his daughter. Mrs. Brevoort is forced to manage every element of the family’s affairs with no help. Naturally, Helen shoulders this burden alongside her. In attempting to secure social status, Mrs. Brevoort uses Helen’s language skills as a party trick (Diaz 39). Amidst this situation, Helen is tacitly taught to minimize her emotions. “... it was this dampened version of herself that her parents preferred - her father followed her uninspired work with great pleasure; her mother found her more approachable,” (Diaz 30). 

Bevel’s key achievement regarding Mildred in My Life is painting their marriage as impeccably happy, free of conflict (Diaz 157). He portrays his wife as unfailingly kind, gentle, and gracious (Diaz 160). His description of Mildred’s love of music is - like most references to her - brief, vague, and only emphasizes her supposedly docile nature (Diaz 160). The ethics of these choices are explicitly explored in A Memoir, Remembered. 

Ida explains that Andrew’s stated motivation in writing My Life is to dispel the myths that had become popular about Mildred in the wake of Bonds’ publication (Diaz 258). However, Ida also reveals how the limited depth given to Mildred in My Life was entirely intentional. Andrew refuses to provide meaningful information about Mildred’s personality, even dismissing her love of music as irrelevant (Diaz 278). Andrew reduces Mildred to this statement: “... she was a simple creature. And sensitive,” (Diaz 278). Through the course of Ida’s collaboration with Andrew, one theme emerges: Andrew was not angry because his wife’s legacy was tarnished by Bonds; he was angry because he did not get to control her legacy, her narrative (Diaz 300). He was angry because he did not get to turn her into something she was not (Diaz 300). 

        The discovery and inclusion of Mildred’s journal represents both Trust and Ida’s attempt to at last restore Mildred’s autonomy. Even so, the journal is - by its very nature - a fragmented, deeply inadequate portrait of Mildred. Its discovery and inclusion is derived from Ida’s insistence that she knows Mildred even though she does not and never can (Diaz 357). In this sense, Mildred’s journal is Trust’s most visceral, pivotal symbol surrounding the ethics of why and how someone’s story is told.

How Love Transcends Hardship

Jesmyn Ward’s story portrays a world filled with poverty, racial injustice, and addiction, where Jojo’s familial bonds are strained to the breaking point. However, through these challenges, a profound and enduring theme emerges - the transcendent power of love. 

 

Pop is a source of stability and love in Jojo's turbulent life. His unwavering love supersedes his tough and reserved exterior, as seen when Jojo is about to leave, and he can see that Pop’s eyes are sending the message, "I love you, boy. I love you" (Ward 61). Pop's love serves as a lifeline for Jojo, who is neglected and ignored by Leonie, grounding him in a world that often seems unraveling.

 

The most impactful love story in the novel is that of Michaela and Leonie, a tumultuous relationship marred by complexities and imperfections. Their love is passionate and intense, symbolized by the quote, "...his arms wrapped around her like a tangled sheet, tighter and tighter, until they deemed one thing standing there, one person instead of two" (Ward 125). This quote encapsulates the merging of two individuals into a singular entity, a love so intense that it blurs the lines between them. As they become one in that moment, they transcend their fights and struggles - simply because they love each other.

 

In contrast, the relationship between Jojo and Kayla is a testament to the unbreakable bond of sibling and familial love. Their nurturing connection is seen as "They sleep as one: Michaela wraps herself around Jojo…" (Ward 151). Here, the emphasis is not on romantic love but on siblings' protective and nurturing love. They, too, become “one,” highlighting an interesting parallel between them and their parents.

"Sing, Unburied, Sing" is a story of a family grappling with the weight of their past and the harshness of the present. Through Pop's unwavering love, Michael and Leonie's complicated yet almost redeeming relationship, and Jojo and Kayla's inseparable bond, the novel beautifully illustrates that love has the power to transcend even the most challenging circumstances.

Love, imperfect as it may be, is the force that sustains us and gives us the strength to endure. It is a reminder that, even when confronted with the darkest circumstances, love remains a beacon of hope that unites, sustains, and ultimately triumphs.

 

Sing, Unburied, Sing as a Coming-of-Age Novel

Sing, Unburied, Sing opens with the protagonist, Jojo, turning thirteen. The next day, Jojo, his beloved younger sister Kayla, and his absent mother Leonie leave their family home to pick up his father, Michael, from prison. The novel then unfurls at break-neck speed. Ward confronts heavy themes of addiction, grief, and generational trauma, while taking the reader on a vivid and magical journey through rural Mississippi. Amidst the dangerous, adult world we are thrust into with Jojo, one can forget that Sing, Unburied, Sing is, at its core, a coming-of-age story. Ward adapts this mode of storytelling to draw much-needed attention to the loss of innocence caused by the poverty and racism many black teenagers face while growing up in the American south. 

Set far from the backdrop of a typical American suburb, there is no gossipping, detention, or first kiss that catalyzes Jojo’s maturation. Jojo’s coming-of-age is forced onto him early, and focuses on the demands that he gain an understanding of his family’s suffering and their relationship to death. Jojo begins the novel by saying “I like to think I know what death is. I like to think that it’s something I could look at straight” (1). Jojo was not sheltered from death as a child: he watches his grandfather slaughter animals, he is aware of the young death of his uncle, and he is witnessing the graphic decline of his grandmother’s health. However, his naïvité is exposed when considering his grandfather’s upbringing, as well as during his confrontations with the ghost of a young boy, Richie. When Leonie leaves Jojo home alone when he was nine, Leonie defends herself by saying “You was shucking oysters down at the docks when you was his age, Mam changing diapers” (16). When Jojo asks Pop to tell him the story of his time at Parchman, it is revealed that Pop was only fifteen when he was imprisoned at the brutal work camp (22). 

Pop was not the youngest inmate at Parchman, and took a twelve year old boy named Richie under his wing. Richie died trying to escape, and Jojo’s coming-of-age is also signaled by his ability to see Richie’s ghost following his thirteenth birthday. His mother Leonie’s own jarring transition to adulthood is symbolized by her ability to see her brother’s ghost after she begins to do hard drugs (34). When Richie’s ghost appears, he tells Jojo that he doesn’t know anything about love, home, or time, and says that “Jojo is innocent…when I was thirteen, I knew much more than him” (183-185). Richie wants Jojo to help him “remember”, and get Pop to tell Jojo the part of Richie’s story his childhood self had never heard (240) At the novel’s close, Jojo’s coming-of-age is tested and proven when he gets to Pop to say he killed Richie out of mercy. He shows a deep understanding and acceptance of his family, saying “I think I understand.. I feel it in me, too… a deep unsettling” (279). A coming-of-age marked by unsettling and traumatic circumstances, the story of Sing, Unburied, Sing, is ultimately the story of Jojo’s lost childhood innocence.

Parental Neglect Leading to the Loss of Innocence in Sing, Unburied, Sing

    In the novel Sing, Unburied, Sing a prominent, and immediately evident, theme revolves around the loss of innocence the novel’s main character, Jojo, has to endure at a very young age. The very first line in the novel is from Jojo’s point of view where he says, “I like to think I know what death is. I like to think that it’s something I could look at straight” (Ward 1). Right from the very beginning of the novel, we are immediately introduced with a main character who we soon discover is very young, yet is forced to deal with such complex topics even some adults cannot handle. This loss of innocence has stemmed due to the neglect of Jojo’s parents, both emotionally and physically. 

This sense of premature loss of innocence only builds as we read further into the novel. At only thirteen years old, Jojo takes on a caregiver role for his three-year-old sister, Kayla, due to their mother’s emotional unavailability to raise children and their father’s imprisonment. Throughout the novel, it is evident that Jojo and Kayla’s basic needs are neglected by their rather selfish and indifferent parents. While on the drive to pick up Michael, their father, from the prison, they are given close to nothing to eat or drink. Then, Kayla becomes sick and while Leonie, their mother, attempts to help Kayla, she quickly gives up when Kayla does not act exactly like she wants her to. In defeat, Leonie says, “I’ve had enough. ‘Goddamnit, Michaela! Can you get her to drink some of this?’ I ask. Jojo nods and I’m already handing her over. Without her, my arms feel weightless” (100).

    Due to the fact that Leonie has been largely absent for Kayla’s youth, Kayla rejects her. Here, we see how emotional neglect has led to Jojo being forced to take on a parental role towards his younger sister, even though he is only thirteen. His mother immediately gives up on trying to comfort and soothe her own daughter, making her young son provide for her when she cannot. This is constantly seen throughout the novel, where Jojo must provide for Kayla. Because this is not normally the role a thirteen-year-old must bear, he is forced to behave much older than he actually is, and ultimately lose a sense of innocence that any other thirteen-year-old boy would normally maintain.

Leonie Parenting

 Leonie is an awful mother, but what led her to be one? It appears in the beginning she did try to be a good mother to Jojo however sometimes the book doesn't clearly state when or how Leonie just gave up. It could have been due to two main events in her life. One is when she started to do drugs and the other might be because of the past trauma of losing her older brother Given. But even if those were the reason it does not excuse her behavior towards her children. 

I don't think the drugs Leonie did change her outlook on her life and children. She started to do drugs because she felt like a failure for her children because she couldn't take good care of them as she hoped for so she started to do drugs to cope with that. The only way the drugs really affected her was when she started to see Given, however, we don't know if she is seeing Given due to the drugs she's on or the gift she might possibly possess, we don't know. 

I don't believe the negligence of her children is due to losing her brother either. Since she lost her brother she doesn't really mention him nor does it bother her that she is in love with the cousin of her brother's murder. But then again there is the whole thing about not passing on the father's sin to the child argument that could be made. Since Given lost his life at a young age I don't understand why Leonie doesn't want to have a closer relationship with her own child and keep him safe when she still can. 

I think the reason she doesn't like her children is because she's just a bad person, even if she never did drugs or lost her brother I don't think she'll ever be a good mother. What kind of mother enjoys bullying their own child? Leonie said "It feels good to be mean, to speak past the baby I can't hit and let that anger touch another" (Ward P.147). Leonie is just one messed up person, and yet she wants to have another kid to rise correctly even though she can start now with the two kids she already has.

Unbroken Cycles: How Cycles Permeate Throughout Rural Poverty

  The novel Sing, Unburied, Sing is a story that follows the journey of a mixed-race family in rural Mississippi, and aims to discuss topics prevalent not only in areas similar to rural Mississippi, but all across America. Although not unconnected, key issues that have been introduced and illustrated throughout the book are struggles with race, identity, community, and poverty. However, an interesting theme that is found throughout the book and intertwined within each issue are cycles. 

Throughout the novel, readers see cycles of poverty, drug abuse, parental abuse, and racial divides that permeate generations. Due to the style of writing that follows the struggles of each individual character, readers are left to put together and understand the struggles that Jojo, Leonie, Richie, and other characters experience that stem from generational poverty, drug abuse, racial injustice, and parental abuse. On the topic of racial cycles, Michael is the first in his family to “break” his family’s attitudes towards African Americans, in a town where racism is true and alive. Michael’s own father is painted as a true racist, separating himself from Leonie and his grandchildren, Jojo and Kayla, saying, “I told you they don’t belong here. Told you to sleep with no n* b*” (Ward, 194). 

When the police pulls over Leonie and Michael, Jojo is only 13 years old, but this scene shows the deep-rooted prejudice found in the town. “Jojo raises his arms to a cross. The officer barks at him, the sound raw and carrying in the air, and Jojo shakes his head without pausing and staggers when the officer kicks his legs apart, the gun a little lower now, but still pointing to the middle of his back…Now on his knees, the gun is pointed at [Jojo’s] head” (Ward, 98). This scene, among others, show the difficulty of escaping generational prejudice that can be found in rural areas because not only is Leonie in a relationship with Michael, who’s family has shown utter disgust towards Leonie due to her skin color, but she herself is in a never-ending cycle of drug abuse and generational poverty- for Jojo, Kayla, and Leonie, there is no escape. 

Leonie’s relationship with Michael is another example of cycles that she cannot escape. Michael has shown to be unreliable, unstable, and addicted to drugs- Leonie has also shown the same and is attached to the hip to the instability. As seen from different scenes, Leonie shows no hope of escaping, with or without Michael, “I pull out the pack and Michael looks as if he wants to turn and run—and…its the drug and then its not the drug” (Ward, 89).

Parental Figures in Sing, Unburied, Sing

    What makes someone a good parent? Is it material things, lots of money, love? Throughout the novel, ‘Sing, Unburied, Sing’, it is continually told to the audience explicitly and implicitly that Kayla and Jojo’s parents are not the two people who gave birth to them. It is clear that the dynamic between Pop and Mam and Jojo, or Jojo and Kayla is more similar to parent and child than Leonie, Michael, and Jojo ever were. 

Before Leonie and the kids go off to Parchman to pick Michael up, we get an insight into how Jojo feels about his family. His adoration for Pop is evident even within the first few pages while they are preparing a goat for Jojo’s birthday dinner. Jojo wants ‘Pop to know I can get bloody’(Ward 1) because he looks up to him as the man of the household, and as his father figure. Pop is always a steady figure in Jojo’s life to turn to, and always supports him in various ways such as preparing the goat for his birthday dinner, taking care of him and Kayla, and trying to teach him about the dangers of the world through his stories of Richie. 

Unlike Jojo’s relationship with Pop, his relationship with Leonie and Michael (especially Leonie) is complicated and messy. As a reader, we get a bigger picture of what is going on due to the varying perspectives in the novel, but it is still very difficult to empathize with Leonie at times. Leonie talks about the day that Jojo stopped calling her mom and that when he calls her by her name ‘it sounds like a slap’(Ward 43). This goes to show the disconnect between mother and son. While the group of four(Leonie, Jojo, Misty, and Kayla) is on the way to Parchman, Jojo and Kayla get hungry and thirsty, and Kayla starts to get sick. Instead of being a caring mother, Leonie continually chooses herself(and Michael even though he isn’t there yet) over her children. She buys herself a coke, but refuses to let Jojo get himself something even though he is thirsty. Contrastly, later on in the book Kayla is upset and wants candy. Jojo is hungry, but with the little money that they have, he buys her a sucker. At only 13, Jojo is sacrificing his basic needs for his baby sister's wants, when his own mother can’t give up a dollar to give him a drink.

The differences in the relationships that are supposed to be mother and child, and what are more parent and child are evident. Leonie is the biggest indicator of a failed parent, with her raging drug addiction and apathy towards her children. What makes someone a good parent is someone who tries, and someone who loves.

Simile in Sing, Unburied, Sing: Dogs as a Symbol of Innocence and of Racial Hierarchy in the South

    Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward is an immensely poetic literary work, with similes featured on nearly every page. A majority of these similes are animal comparisons, which compare characters to different animals; dogs are one type of animal that characters are frequently compared to. In Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, through the use of repeated simile and comparison, dogs serve as a symbol of either vulnerability and innocence or as a symbol of the racial hierarchy and power dynamic between races in the south.

    Ward compares a character to a dog or puppy when she is trying to highlight that character's vulnerability or innocence in a situation. For example, when Kayla wakes up Jojo on the couch, Jojo describes, “Kayla laughs, bright and yellow and shiny as a puppy that just got the knack of running without tripping over her own legs” (Ward 223). A puppy learning how to run is the epitome of innocence. Kayla is a similar symbol of innocence throughout the novel. Jojo is always trying to preserve Kayla’s innocence by protecting her from their parents’ abuse and by assuming the nurturing mother role for Kayla. Another example can be found during Mam’s death scene. When describing Richie, Mam says, “Vengeful as a beat dog” (Ward 264). A beat dog is both vulnerable and pitiable. Similarly, Richie is continually pitied throughout the novel, especially by Pop. Richie was robbed of his innocence due to poverty and prejudice. Comparing him to a beat dog conveys both his vulnerability, and the abuse he suffered as a result of racism. 

    When characters are affected by racism and the unbalanced power dynamic in the south, Ward will often compare them to a dog. For example, when Richie postulates why his spirit was trapped at Parchman, he says, “ [Parchman] was a sort of home: terrible and formative as the iron leash that chains dogs” (Ward 191). Here, Richie poses an analogy: himself relating to a dog and Parchamn to an iron leash. Parchman continually reinforces racism and racial power dynamics through different criteria of admittance for black and white offenders, and the disparity in the positions white and black offenders hold. Parchman dehumanized Richie to the likeness of a dog.

    Ultimately, the two symbols that dogs convey in Sing, Unburied, Sing create a link between power dynamics, racism, and innocence. Essentially, experiencing racism causes a loss of innocence for children and a thrusting into the hatefulness of the real world. Being black in the south makes people vulnerable, regardless of age and associated innocence. For example, when Richie and Blue escape Parchman, the white society members brutally murder Blue and intend to inflict the same inhumane death on Richie. Pop recounts, “They was going to do the same to him [...] He wasn’t nothing but a boy, Jojo. They kill animals better than that” (Ward 255). This demonstrates how divisive race was in the south during this time period, and the power white people wielded over black people.

The Importance of Care in Tragedy

 

Despite the continuous discussion of death, addiction, and crime, nurturing and care play a huge role in understanding and interpreting the characters in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing. Throughout the book Ward details tragedies such as the murder of Given, Leonie and Michael’s addiction to crack, Pop and Richie’s time at Parchman, and the suffering and death of Mam. While all these tragedies highlight mostly the inequality at the time of the story, the racism and classism in the deep South, they also deeply contrast the instances of nurturing and care. Many characters show nurturing and care: Pop’s role as a parent to Jojo and Kayla and Mam’s words of wisdom and healing practices. However, the character who shows the most care and nurturing towards others is Jojo. Jojo is barely a teenager and yet champions the care of his little sister Kayla. While he takes on many jobs that a big brother is normally tasked with, such as holding her when she cries and playing with her when she is bored, he also takes on many roles that are not expected by a child. For example, Leonie and Michael are abusive parents. Leonie often discusses her want to hit her children, and most of the time she does cause them physical harm. In this instance, Michael has just come home from Parchman and is attempting to cook breakfast for Jojo and Kayla. The book reads, “And then he’s hunching over both of us, and his arm whips out, whips in, and he’s dropped the fork and he’s smacking Kayla hard on the thigh, one and twice, his face as pale and tight as a knot” (228). Kayla, being a toddler, had refused to get off the kitchen floor to eat the bacon Michael had cooked for her. Because of this, Michael beats her with the hot fork he used to take the bacon out of the pan. She begins to wail, and Jojo scoops her up and runs her out the back door to calm her down. Jojo seems to be one of, if not the only, characters that is always able to calm Kayla down. It is apparent that Kayla is the most trusting and safe around Jojo, her thirteen-year-old brother, then with her parents. This one example expertly highlights the burden Jojo must carry as a young boy who lives in an abusive household with parents who are more concerned with each other and crack to correctly care for their children. It is an interesting contrast between Jojo being the most nurturing character in the book and Leonie being the least nurturing. Usually, a mother cares deeply for her children and wants the best for them, willing to sacrifice anything for them. However, this book shows that not every family is perfect and that when crime, inequality, and addiction are present in the family dynamic, children are often left to their own devices and must find peace in their never-ending suffering.

A Universal Language

    In Jesmyn Ward’s novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, Ward weaves an intricate narrative of young Jojo and his family in the Deep South of Mississippi. With a volatile drug addict of a mother, an incarcerated biological father, and a three-year-old sister to look after, Jojo’s parental guides become both his grandparents and his own empathy. One pillar that makes Ward’s novel stick out in particular, is the incorporation of both the natural and supernatural world to progress the plot and allude to systemic patterns within society. One such way she does this is through Jojo’s ability to understand animals. The reader is quickly clued into Jojo’s communicative ability at the beginning of the book as Jojo tags along to help his grandfather, Pop, slaughter a goat. As the two make their way to the goat pen, Jojo can understand the horse Pop keeps and the pigs in their sty. However, this ability does not take lightly to Jojo and Jojo is not the only character to possess it, “It scared me to understand them, to hear them. Because Stag did that, too,” (14-15). Stag is the brother of Pop who does not get much mention within the novel. The only information the reader knows about Stag is that he was mentally altered by his time at Parchman prison in his youth. This ability, possessed by Stag as well, projects the larger idea that animals are a universal language that all humans speak. Although the voices are not in the heads of all characters, animals resemble the quiet, steady, innocent strength of an individual life. 

    Additionally, Jojo’s ability to understand animals extends his sense of empathy. He is the primary caretaker of Kayla, and despite her limited ability of communication, Jojo can understand her as if she spoke to him in her head. Similarly, before Jojo departs to get his father, Michael, from prison, he gives Pop a hug and then when looking at Pop thinks, “The only animal I saw in front of me was Pop, … his pleading eyes the only thing that spoke to me in that moment and told me what he said without words: I love you boy, I love you,” (61). Ward not only connects humans and animals through Jojo’s ability to understand them directly but relates that in our core we are animals too. This overlap of animal and human life becomes a powerful statement by Ward. Piecing together the innocence of animal life and the relation of humans as animals prompts the reader to consider the cruelties done by one human onto another, especially regarding race in Sing, Unburied, Sing. The reader is left to sift through generations of a history focused on domestication. If one can silence the bark, and muzzle the bite, then what can rise above?

Time as a Non-Linear Concept

     Sing, Unburied, Sing presents time not as linear, but instead as a dynamic concept where past, present, and future all occur in conjunction. One way that this idea is represented is through the lack of a traditional plot line. Where in many stories, the resolution leaves characters changed and in a different place than they started — indicating the clear impact of time and its ability to give closure — Ward leaves the novel, in many ways, exactly as it began.

    Leonie, although one might hope she redeems herself as a mother, is unable to give up her drug addiction, unhealthy infatuation with Michael, aggressive tendencies, or selfish and often childlike behavior. The novel’s last chapter solidifies the idea that Leonie will likely never change or be a mother to her children, with Jojo still being Kayla’s caretaker and Pop being his. Much of the book’s storyline centers around bringing Michael home, yet his presence in his kid’s life makes almost no difference to their situation or family dynamic. One of the only moments in the book that might feel final is Mam’s passing, but even that is not an ending because the characters “are all [there] at once,” even when some are “on the other side of the door” (236). 

    A storyline also lacking the typical plot resolution is Richie’s. Richie first claims that he’s “going home” when he was alive at Parchman in the past, but continues his search throughout the book and presumably after (126). We tend to think of death as an end, so when the reader discovers how Richie died, one would expect to get closure on his story. Richie himself expected to find peace and be able to move on after finally knowing what happened to him. However, the non-linear nature of time makes prevents things from simply ending — in this case, that “thing” being Richie’s search for home. 

    Multiple events in the novel are indicative that history repeats itself and, in doing so, keeps the past from truly staying in the past. A recurring theme throughout the many timelines of Sing, Unburied, Sing is hunting. The idea is first brought up through Given’s murder, where an innocent hunting trip turns into Given being killed by a gun meant for the animals they were hunting. Characters are once again faced with the barrel of a gun when Jojo and Kayla are confronted by a racist police officer. The reader later witnesses the end of Richie and Blue’s lives where the two were hunted and killed due to the same racial motivation that led Michael’s cousin to shoot Given. Those who hunted Blue down “[cut] pieces of him off” and “started skinning him” (254). The imagery in this scene alludes to the first scene of the novel, where Pop and Jojo kill and skin a goat. The interconnection of stories and recurring themes instills the idea that history is preserved through the actions of others and that no story is ever truly gone or finished.

The Power of Living Memories

 “The memory is a living thing - it too is in transit. But during its moment, all that is remembered joins, and lives - the old and the young, the past and the present, the living and the dead.”

Jesmyn Ward’s novel Sing Unburied Sing begins by introducing thirteen year old Jojo and his desire to begin his journey to manhood. Although Jojo has spent his life confined to the borders of his hometown in Mississippi, his experiences have been broadened by the living memories that surround him each day. These memories from the troubled pasts of his family begin to collide with his present journey as he makes his way to Parchman. Jojo’s journey begins with the memories and stories he has inherited from Pop, it continues with the memories and regrets Leonie lives by, and it is brought together by the memories of Richie.

As Jojo learns what sort of man he wants to be, he often looks to the memories and stories that have shaped Pop. Jojo loves to hear these stories and share in the memories. He explains that “This is what Pop does when we are alone . . . He tells me stories.” These stories and memories are alive and they surround Jojo, constantly reminding him where he comes from and what type of man he wants to be.

When Jojo is forced to go along with Leonie to Parchman, he sees the way his mother is haunted by her own living memories. While Pop’s memories show Jojo who he wants to be, Leonie’s memories show Jojo who he doesn’t want to be. Although he is unaware of how exactly his mother is tormented, he knows that she mourns the death of her brother and is held captive by a drug addiction that has only grown since Michael went to prison. Even without knowing the details of Leonie’s pain, Jojo can see that the memories that have shaped and continue to bombard her make it impossible for her to truly live in a respectable way. At one point, Jojo even says, “I want to tell her: You don’t know what you’re doing. . . . But I don’t.” Instead, he takes over her responsibilities behind her back, striving to be like Pop instead of her. 

Finally, Richie’s memories show Jojo not who he wants to be but who he must be. Although Jojo does not know the full extent of Richie’s suffering, he is surrounded by the memories Richie carries with him and the lessons he shares. When Michael and Leonie get pulled over, Richie tells Jojo they’re going to chain him. After Jojo is chained and then released, Richie tells him that “‘Sometimes I think it done changed. And then I sleep and wake up, and it ain’t changed none.”’ Richie’s presence forces Jojo to come to terms with the truth that he will have to be stronger and more durable than his age calls for because of the world he lives in. 

The memories that surround and have shaped Jojo, therefore, play a large role in the novel’s plot. By unburying the past, Jojo is able to clearly see who he is and why he is that way. He is also able to see how he can begin to grow into the man he longs to be.

A Discussion of Addiction in Sing, Unburied, Sing.

    Addiction is a disease and a powerful one at that. It comes with a feeling of need for whatever the person is addicted to which is oftentimes damaging to the addict’s loved ones. This is shown in Leonie’s character in Sing, Unburied, Sing as readers see how her two addictions, drugs and Micheal, affect her children throughout the novel. 

    One of the earliest examples of Leonie’s drug addiction affecting others is seen on page 51 when she does cocaine while she is pregnant with Kayla. She even states that she knows she should not do the drugs but does it anyway. She goes on to state, “I couldn’t help wanting to feel the coke go up my nose, shoot straight to my brain, and burn up all the sorrow and despair I felt of Micheal being gone” (Ward, 51). The quote makes it evident Leonie is using drugs as a coping method when something goes wrong in her life and that she is prioritizing the feeling they bring her over the health of her child. She is aware she should not do it because she is pregnant but does it anyway because of this compulsion she feels towards doing drugs to forget. 

    We also see her have a similar compulsion towards Micheal. At the end of page 148 Leonie says she and Micheal are high then on the top of 149 says, “It’s the drugs but then it’s not the drugs.” This implies that they are high off of each other. Leonie continues throughout the book to put the children in traumatic situations for Micheal, such as when the two take the kids to see Micheal’s parents. Leonie in the beginning clearly knows this is not a good idea but gives in anyway because she wishes to please Micheal. Things do not go well and the kids end up hearing their grandpa make very racist comments and even watch their father get in a physical fight with his father. Leonie knows that she should leave and yet she does not. Eventually, she does take the kids out of the house and they wait in the car (Ward, 198-211). By the time the kids are taken out of the house the damage is already done and Leonie does not check in with them to see how they are. The moment is through her point of view and she spends most of it concerned for Micheal. It is inevitable for this to have an effect on these young children and Leonie yet again puts her addiction over her kids. 

    Leonie’s addiction depiction seems to be accurate throughout the novel. Many who have an addiction will find the thing they are addicted to more important than the people around them. This is seen in how addicts interact with their loved ones just like how we see Leonie act with her children. 

Moving on from the Past: A Difficult Task

     Grief lingers throughout Sing, Unburied, Sing. The first and most prominent example of this is the death of Given. None of the family properly grieves his death so it festers like an untreated wound for years after his passing. Pop also has a clear issue dealing with what he had to do to Richie and in the conclusion of the book the tree full of ghosts cannot move on until Kayla sings to them. These all are examples of how difficult it is to move on from the past. 

For Leonie, her grief for Given lingers as a physical manifestation every time she gets high. Given stands still and simply stares at Leonie when she chooses to partake in these self-destructive habits. Leonie feels guilty about the path of life she has gone down and feels as if she has let her brother down in some way. In another way, her relationship with Michael is also a constant reminder of the death of her brother. He is the direct cousin of the person who murdered Given, and they only started their relationship because she was grieving and needed support to latch on to. Lastly, her own son Jojo bears a physical resemblance to her brother. All these reminders of her brother make it that much more difficult for her to fully accept his death and move on from it. It’s not until the death of her mother that Leonie can finally stop seeing Given. It is unclear if she has completely cut herself off from her family or has accepted both of their deaths. 

Pop has had to live with the weight of what he did to Richie his entire life. When telling the ending of the story to Jojo, Pop says, “I washed my hands every day, Jojo. But that damn blood ain’t never come out.” Pop thought the death of his son Given was going to drown out the guilt of what he did but it didn’t. Pop tells Jojo that he was the only thing that ever could ease the way he felt. After this, Pop breaks down like a child in Jojo’s arms. A man who is normally a stiff pillar of traditional masculinity can let his grief out in the hands of his grandson. 

At the conclusion of the novel, the tree full of ghosts initially do not want to move on. Jojo looks into their eyes and can see the terrible ways they died. The traumas of raping, beating, and lynching represent a horrifying past that seems impossible to move on from. That is until Kayla sings a melody that puts all the ghosts into ease. It’s almost as if they understand something she’s trying to say, and it reassures them all. The book ends with the line, “Home, they say. Home.” The next generation represents such a strong hope for the future that the traumas of the past can be accepted at the promise of a better tomorrow. 

The Importance of 3 Narrators in Sing, Unburied, Sing

In Ward's novel Sing, Unburied, Sing there are three narrators who share with us their feelings on the road trip to pick up Micheal after his three year sentence at Parchman. These three narrators differ in gender, age, and emotional stability, but are able to give the reader insight as to how they handle grief, stress, and trauma. 

We first hear the perspective of Jojo, a 13 year old biracial child who acts as the primary caregiver to his toddler sister Kayla. By hearing Jojo's thoughts through a first person narrative, the reader is able to grasp how Jojo exudes maturity despite his young age. It is through Jojo that we first learn of how heinous of a character his mother Leonie truly is. Jojo and Leonie's relationship is not like most mother-son relationships. We learn from Jojo that he actually doesn't even refer to his mother as mom, but simply calls her Leonie. Through this action the reader can understand Jojo's emotional maturity that he can realize that his mother does not deserve to be called mother, and she should just be addressed by her name. Without the first person account of the first time that Jojo called his mother Leonie, the reader may not fully take in the strain of the relationship between the two. 

After Jojo introduces us briefly to the horrors of Leonie, we are introduced to her perspective. We soon find out that Leonie is consumed with grief over the loss of her brother Given, and she has never fully recovered or healed from his death. Leonie, an avid druggie, recalls how she can see Given at certain points in time (its unclear whether his entrance is drug induced, but I personally don't believe his presence is affected by her drug use). It can be debated that Leonie's monstrous personality can be explained by the fact that she has never healed from Given's murder, but her own words show how she is just an evil, self centered, awful human being. For example, after body shamming Jojo, Leonie exclaims, "It feels good to be mean, to speak past the baby I can't hit and let that anger touch another" (147). Leonie has an awful mindset about how to be a mother, and constantly disappoints the reader with her attitude towards her children. 

It is clearly evident that the only important part of Leonie's life is her boyfriend Micheal (the father of her children), and everyone else she treats with no respect. But then we are introduced to a new narrator, Richie, who was a prisoner at Parchman when Pop was an inmate, a long long time ago. At first I wondered why Richie was included as a narrator in this story. We knew that Pop had been telling Jojo the story of Richie, and has explained that Richie died during his time at Parchman, but I thought the choice to include Richie's perspective in the novel was interesting. We soon learn that as a ghost Richie does not remember his death, and is unable to rest not knowing what happened to him. Richie believes that finding Pop will allow him to finally be able to rest and return home. Richie's connection to Jojo lies in Richie's relationship with Pop. Throughout the novel, Pop and Jojo bond while Pop recalls the stories of Richie in parchman. When we find out that Pop was actually the person who killed Richie, his choice of narration in the novel makes perfect sense. By allowing the reader to analyze the perspective of three characters, Ward helps the audience understand how multiple individuals deal with grief and pain, and how they handle grave moments in their lives. We can grasp the complexity of each character while being from the same background despite differences in gender, age, and mental state. 

Working The Current

 Throughout the novel, Ward uses various allusions to water, particularly in relation to how characters look and act. One of the characters most frequently described with water diction is Mam, whose nickname is Saltwater Woman. She's an herbalist who knows all the secrets of the bayou and peaks to Lady Regla, and Yemaya, the goddesses of the ocean and salt water. Despite being deathly ill from cancer, Mam is one of the most warm and nurturing characters in the book. From several flashbacks over the course of the novel, we know that Mam is a healer who uses natural medicines she gathers from the area around her house. Leonie describes her as having "arms with all the life-giving waters of the world"(59). She's married to Pop, whose real name is River, another character with a strong connection to water. Despite being a stoic and quiet man hardened by trauma he experienced in Parchman Prison, he's warm and loving towards his grandchildren. From Richie's sections of the novel, we get more information about Pop's nurturing side. We know that he cared for Richie and tried to protect him from the horrors of Parchman. Mam and Pop, River, and the Salt Water Woman, are two characters who have experienced absolute tragedy and been subjected to so much pain. Their son was lynched. Pop was wrongfully convicted and forced to work on a modern-day plantation of a prison. Mam spent the last few years of her life bedridden with terminal cancer. The two of them have been exposed to more pain than the human soul should be able to stand, and yet, the only two people in Jojo and Kayla's life that have truly cared for them. 

Before Leonie takes the kids away to pick Micheal up from jail, Jojo stops in Mam's room to say goodbye. She begins to tell him about Pop and what she has learned from him over the years they've known each other. She tells Jojo about a conversation they shared long ago in which Pop had told her"[t][heres things that move a man. Like currents of water inside. Things he can't help"(68). Mam then goes on to tell Jojo that Pop taught her "[g]getting grown means learning how to work that current learning when to hold fast when to drop anchor when to let it sweep you up." Mam and Pop have learned to master the current inside of them. They have learned how to withstand a whirlpool of tragedy and suffering without letting it wash them away. I believe Ward uses water as a metaphor for pain. Growing up poor and black in Mississippi is, in most cases, a painful experience. Ward is elucidating a message to her audience about just how painful life can be for people in this area, how they deal with it, and how they don't. Some drown in their pain. Others learn to work the current.

River's Grief

   

    Grief is a major topic of “Sing, Unburied. Sing” that drives many of the characters throughout the book. The effects can be easily seen in the way it leaves Leonie such an awful parent and unlikable character. But another character who it affected more than we see is River. He carries an immense weight throughout the book that likely impacts his standing relationships that the audience only gets insight into near the very end of the book. The stoicism he portrays can be thought of as brought about by the death of Given, but the end of the book suggests that it was Richie’s death that had more influence.

    River’s guilt is so important because of what he means for Jojo. Jojo sees River as his only real father figure, with Michael out of the picture, and he strives to impress and imitate. The book opens with the slaughter of a goat where Jojo tries his best not to react because he knows that River “will see” (Ward 2) and Jojo doesn’t want to disappoint him. Additionally, both Richie and Leonie make comments throughout the book as to how much Jojo has started to resemble River, in both stature and mannerisms. With this influence in mind, it is important to question where River’s grief stems from. The book offers little information about how River was before Given’s death, but we do see a glimpse of their interaction just before Given dies. River warns him, “They look at you and see difference, son. Don’t matter what you see,” (48) which the audience can attribute to the things River saw and learned from his time in Parchman. While we don’t get much information about how River handles Given’s death, Leonie notes that he (and Mam) isolated themselves in their grief. It is reasonable to assume that to some extent, River blamed himself for not doing enough to keep Given safe.

    This point is emphasized when Jojo finally hears the end of the story about what happened to Richie. When telling the story, we see River in a way that is new. He is described in ways that show how much the events affected him as he acts defeated, shakes, and “working his hands like he doesn’t know how to use them” (256). The entire section is riddled with language that contrast the stoicism and wholeness that Jojo had come to see from River, which further underscores how likely it was that the grief from Richie’s death is what haunted him. The difference in grief is further emphasized by the differences in the deaths of both boys River viewed as his own sons; he couldn’t do enough to keep Given alive, but he actively killed Richie. We see a slight reversal of the roles as Jojo “hold[s] Pop like [he] hold[s] Kayla” (257) as the influence of River’s grief begins to come full circle.