Sing, Unburied, Sing: Past and Present

            Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing is a tale of journeys, from Michael’s journey home from prison to Richie’s journey for closure. The idea of time is central to Ward’s development of these journeys. The seemingly parallel notion of past and present is crucial to understanding how these journeys end. It appears as if past and present are coexisting periods. Mam, with her extensive expertise, seems to understand this perfectly: “…We don’t walk straight lines. It’s all happening at once. All of it. We all here at once (Ward 236).”

Michael’s journey home is a roller coaster of hope. Big Joseph’s ideals of the past continue to torment the relationship with Leonie and the kids and Leonie’s trauma from Given’s death continues to consume her. Despite what happened with his parents, Michael still hopes to unite his family. However, this journey doesn’t end much differently than it started. Just like the bacon that Michael burned for the kids, his relationship with his children is far damaged beyond repair. His traumas, both personal and collective, from the oil rig to Given’s death, prevents him from being the father that he would like to be.

Richie’s journey, much like Michael’s, doesn’t have a successful ending. Despite Richie finding out how he died, he is unable to complete his journey “home.” Through this failed journey, Richie learns that things don’t seem to change from the past. After Jojo’s encounter with the police officer, Richie says, “Sometimes I think it done changed. And then I sleep and wake up, and it ain’t changed none (Ward 171).” Decades after his time in Parchman, Richie continues to see the prevalence of the traumas and ideas from the past. His inability to peacefully go into the afterlife, along with the many others who suffered tragic ends, shows how the past cannot be simply let go and erased.

Jojo has a personal journey in understanding how the past influences his present. This introspective trip revolves around the idea of death. At first, Jojo would like to think that he knows what death is. He says, “I like to think that it’s something to look at straight (Ward 1).” However, he soon learns that life isn’t linear, and the past is really not left behind. The damage in his family, from Pop’s time in Parchman to his Uncle Given’s death, shape who he has become. Time seems to move in a circular manner, repeating itself generation to generation, through traumas. Richie may not have achieved his goal, but he crucially shapes the way that Jojo looks at life, and as he tells him in the end, “Now you understand life. Now you know. Death (Ward 282).”

In the prologue of the story, Ward alludes to the idea of time, quoting One Writer’s Beginning by Eudora Welty: “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.” Although the entirety of this novel is packed with grim tones through its various narrators, Ward brilliantly creates a fictional tale which represents the very much real African American experience in the Deep South, all shaped by the living past.