The novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward represents many different interpretations of what it means to be home. Through the usage of her characters, she shows how a home is not the same place as a house. Home is not necessarily a place of physicality, but where a person feels a sense of belonging and comfort. She shows that home is where one does not have to change a thing about who they are, but rather, are able to securely exist. What the characters Jojo and Kayla associate with home, are not the same as what their estranged mother Leonie associates with home, their vilomahs of grandparents, nor Richie, Pop’s friend from Parchman.
Home is seen to be considered both in life and in death. For example, Leonie considers home as a present state in life, this is shown as she reflects while making her drive back after retrieving Michael. “..I could lie like this forever, feeling the fine hair on his arm...I’m already home” (Ward 153). Leonie associates Michael as home because she claims that he was the first person to make her feel like she belonged. She even said, “..he saw me” (Ward 54). However, it is evident that while Leonie may associate Michael with belonging, she also associates him with the usage of drugs. So Michael serves as a two forms of home for her, as she also associates drugs with home. Another example of home being represented in the living is through Jojo and his sister, Kayla, who find a home within each other. Through the absence of parental figures, Jojo and Kayla fill voids in one another, and serve as someone for the other to depend on. Their relationship is the epitome of what it means to experience unconditional love. This is represented through Leonie’s observation of the two of them, “They are each other’s light” (Ward 151).
The idea of home is represented much differently through Richie’s monologue. Through Pop’s recollection of his time at Parchman, he talks about an incident that causes Richie to claim that he is going to go home. As seen in the book, Richie never makes it out of Parchman, at least not alive. In his afterlife, Richie yearns to find an answer as to how he died, and seeks out after Pop. A spiritual figure speaks to him, “Go south, to River, to the face of the waters….I say: I’m coming home” (Ward 191). Initially, it appears that Richie associates River with home, it is later revealed that Richie needed closure from River in order to be able to finally go “home”, and be at peace in his afterlife. Thus, Richie’s idea of home is present in death. Additionally, home being found in death is represented through Mam’s defeat against cancer. As she approaches her last few moments, Given, her deceased son, comes to retrieve her. ‘“I come for you, Mama,”’ (Ward 269). In this instance, she is taken “home”, to be with him again.
A person's home is definitely different than one's house or one's place of living. I'm glad you mentioned it in this post because I personally hadn't thought about it until I read this post. I thought it was interesting that you said Leonie has two homes. I think I would even argue that Given might even be a third home to her. The way she reminisces and wishes he were in her life and how she gets high to see Given makes me believe he is a third home. In one instance, when Jojo and Kayla were holding each other as they sleep, she said that "they are each others light" (Ward 151). Just as you have mentioned in your blog post, you're right that they have found a home in each other and they make each other happy. Before this part, Leonie claims that she "thinks Given must have held me like that once, that once we breathed mouth to mouth and inhaled the same air" (Ward 151). She compares her previous relationship with Given to her current children's relationship acknowledging that they are each other's homes. From this I see that Given was a home to her and now she's lost the one home that meant the most to her, which caused her to spiral down into the position she in in now.
ReplyDeleteI think that you made a great point about how home is not a place of physicality, but rather where a person feels most comfortable. In this novel especially, characters feel disconnected in the place they live and are often very uncomfortable at their own house. With Kayla and Jojo, for example, they often have to escape their home and go outside in order to not be with their neglective parents. One specific example of this is when Kayla starts crying in the kitchen in front of Michael and Jojo. Michael lashes out at Kayla for crying, with Ward writing, “his arm whips out, whips in, and he’s dropped the fork and he’s smacking Kayla hard on the thigh, once and twice, his face as pale and tight as a knot” (148). How could Kayla and Michael feel comfort in their own home if they suffer abuse and neglect like this. Instead, they seek comfort in being with each other, which is the only time they could ever feel at home. Other characters that you talked about, such as Leonie and Michael, also find their home in another person or objects rather than a physical space. I think Ward did a good job of separating the literal definition of home from the one seen in this book. Perhaps Ward is suggesting that when you have a traumatic homelife such as Jojo and Kayla do in this story, you have to seek “home” in a different way.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought of this while reading, but attaching the feeling of "home" to people while in an unstable environment, like the characters in the novel are, is a great touch by Ward to build up the characters in the novel. Going through the novel, it's obvious that Jojo is never comfortable in his environments while he's with Leonie, which leads to his overattachment and protective nature towards Kayla. Kayla reminds him of Pop and Mam, and the safe feeling he had while living with them. The small interactions between the 2, like the numerous Jojo making sure Kayla would stop crying while Leonie had no idea what to do. Kayla is Jojo's safe space, his "home", so protecting Kayla became his only way to feel safe and normal with his mother. Ward also shows how this inability to tether yourself to a location, or a safe set of ideals, can harm you, through Michael and Leonie's tumultous relationship. Leonie has no home away from Michael, and because of that she latched herself on to everything Michael did, including the drugs, something that eliminated the sense of home that Leonie and Jojo had together when Jojo was young. Investing too heavily in a different person isn't all beneficial, and Ward does a fantastic job analyzing this phenomeon.
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