In the novel Sing, Unburied, Sing, Ward represents multiple forms of caring your family members. With each bond in the book Ward displays how a person can love and care for someone and yet make choices that show it in indirect ways or even seemingly contradictory ways. We see this strongest with Pop and Richie.
A more impactful version of a similar act can be seen from Pop. Pop tells Jojo about his experiences at Parchman fairly freely, aside from how Richie dies. We see in Pop's story how he attempts to make Richie as safe as possible. In one of the first stories about Richie, Pop says "He was a bad worker. I tried to help him" (Ward 75). Pop's first instincts when he saw Richie was to try and help him. Through helping him, Pop and Richie became closer. We see how close they got when, while seeing Pop for the first time again, Richie says "You was the only daddy I ever knew" (Ward 222). Once again, we see a very deep relationship formed between two characters, not even biologically related. Pop is seen as a caregiver by Richie. Richie loves him and doesn't know why or how Pop "left him." We learn towards the end of the book what exactly happened. Jojo asks pop to tell him the end of the story, and Pop tells him, finally saying "Yes, Richie. I'm a take you home [I told Richie]. And then I took the shank I kept in my boot and I punched it one time into his neck" (Ward 255). This final act between Pop and Richie shows how deeply love can effect a person and how that is displayed in the actions they make for them. Pop had known how terrible of an end the other inmate had met, and he didn't want the same for Richie. He made the decision to end Richie's life in the least painful way he could think of to spare him from a worse death if he had been found by the others.
Overall, Sing, Unburied, Sing shows how deep a person can love another through many of the relationships in the book. We see at a smaller scale, Jojo and Kayla and how Jojo has to make some decisions he finds painful in order to fully care for Kayla and keep her as safe as he can. However, on a much grander scale, we see Pop, make the impossible decision to kill Richie, someone who he had grown close to and who looked up to him, to spare him from a worse death. The power of love portrayed in Sing, Unburied, Sing is shown to cause people to make incredibly hard decisions to protect those they love.
Daniel Udelhoven
I enjoy reading this blog post because it opens my eyes to how loving someone can hurt you in many ways. You latch onto a person with intense passion and admiration. As a result, you would do anything for them, which comes at a cost.
ReplyDeleteWard highlights this theme through Leonie and Given's relationship. Throughout the novel, Leonie grieves for her brother, Given. She never recovers from his death because she looks up to Given. "When we were coming up, I couldn't count how many times he [Given] fought for us [Leonie's family] on the bus, in school, in the neighborhood…" (Ward, 37).
Because of Leonie and Given's close sibling bond, Leonie still seeks Given's approval even while he is in the afterlife. While making love with Michael, Leonie solely thinks about her brother watching her in the corner. "Given-not-Given frowns and shakes his head. As if I have given the wrong answer," (Ward, 150). In an intimate moment with her boyfriend, her brother comes to mind. This moment is significant because, contrary to my classmate's beliefs, Given is home for Leonie, not Michael. When interacting with Given, Leonie strives to talk to him because he understands and listens. Therefore, Leonie seeks his attention and touch. During one of her "visions," Leonie notices "his left hand was still on the table. I could not reach out to it, even though everything in me wanted to do so…" (Ward, 37). Leonie does not talk about Michael in this same manner. Leonie wants him for sexual reasons.
Leonie's desire for Given's presence and acceptance taints her happiness, which circles back to Daniel’s idea that love can hurt us. She loves Given so much that she "brought him back to life" in her mind while she uses coke. She wants to connect with him again even though he is dead. All in all, these hallucinations ultimately hurt Leonie’s mind, body, and soul.
This novel does such a fantastic job of distorting common practices we see in most media. I love this example with Pop and Richie, because it's designed to be so counter intuitive on the surface. You'd expect that killing someone you love would be the complete opposite of what one would want, but the tragic conditions these two exist in force even more tragic measures. Pop killing Richie is indeed an act of love as you say, but its such a heart wrenching act of love because letting go is so difficult. In fact, this is why Pop held onto the Richie story for so long: he was unable to truly accept the reality of what had happened and move on. This is the core of the struggle faced with the ghosts in the novel, and for Pop, telling the story of Richie is his way of letting go, setting him free from a worse fate once again, just as he did before.
ReplyDeleteI find that despite many of the relationships being poor in the novel, the entire novel is about strong relationships, and how they can affect others even beyond the relationship. The message, much like the actions taken in the relationships, is contradictory, providing a new perspective on how people can care for one another. That's what I've found most fascinating about this novel, and it's all driven by, as you've observed, unconventional displays of love and caring.