The Vocal Nature of Home
Jesmyn Ward’s novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, incorporates many uses of the phrase “I’m going home (Ward 131) along with references to family and the environment. The narrative consistently portrays characters as animals or forces of nature. For example, Maggie “who is the wind (Ward 205)” that sways her husband or Pop who is described as “one of them petrified trees (Ward 207)”. Through this nature-based relationship, a way of interpreting “home” is that it’s an ecosystem of characters and their connections. Richie is one such character who is clearly not home at any point in the reading, and it is debatable if he ever had one (because his upbringing was so poor). His main relationship was with Pop, and going “home” meant finding him, his only positive connection. Going home isn’t necessarily a good thing though. Since following Jojo home, he is depicted as a pest who then devolves into an antagonist that intrudes into Mam’s room (Ward 268). Richie’s attempt to “go home” is akin to someone reminding a person who has the trauma of that event. Things in nature are connected, but not all those are good connections. Thus, “going home” and rebuilding that connection with Pop leads to his breakdown (Ward 256).
Many animals (and by the aforementioned relationship with nature, humans as well) sing in this story. Vocalizations are a way that Ward shows a person’s ability to willingly affect their home. Looking at Given, he is quiet throughout most of the story to the point that Leonie laments his inability to give her advice (Ward 261). He gestures towards her or shakes his head, but typically, she doesn’t change her actions in response to those (Ward 38). In contrast, he can speak when confronting Richie (268). He affects his home by allowing Mam’s spirit to pass and helping Jojo to kick out Richie. As for the living characters, only Leonie sings during Jojo’s birthday celebration while Pop lip-syncs (Ward 28). Mam can’t actively choose to influence her family because she’s sick. Kayla’s made-up words are a way for Ward to explain her potential to enact change in her home but her current inability to. Pop doesn’t sing, which indicates his helplessness to do anything about Mam’s worsening condition. As the only coherent singer, Leonie is presented as a character who can change the relationships in her home. Vocalizing and singing aren’t necessarily literal much of the time, as they indicate actions and change. Richie notes that people are “never silent” and that “they don’t move their mouths, and yet [their singing] comes from them (Ward 241)”. Most people have relationships, and by “singing”, they change those without literally speaking.
Works Cited:
Ward, Jesmyn. Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel. Scribner, 2018.
I also found the act of vocalizing to be essential to the narrative in Sing, Unburied, Sing. Concurrently, ghosts were necessary to include in the novel. The dead are inherently silenced, and their stories only get told by those who carry on their legacy, like Pop sharing Richie’s story with Jojo. However, that removes the victim’s agency, to some extent. We see that Richie yearns for Jojo to “get [Pop] to tell you the story. When [Richie’s] there” (Ward 230), as he “needs the story to go” (230). The story being the key to Richie finally moving on highlights its importance. However, though Pop does eventually tell Jojo what happened to Richie, we see that his retelling is not fully satisfactory to Richie. Pop says “Richie was with him”. And Richie immediately elaborates “I found them… Part of me went because I didn’t want him to turn my face like hers. And part of me went because I was sick of that place” (251). As you mention, Richie returning “home” to Pop was the first part of his character’s resolution, the second being him being able to personally address his trauma to start to heal. This idea of the importance of unburying your story and singing it is cemented as one of the novel’s main themes not only by its title, but by the ending, where Richie shows Jojo a crowd of ghost children who have been wronged (282-283), and they proceed to each tell a part of their story.
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