Jojo's role in the family is detrimental to himself

Due to Leonies' lack of motherly instincts, the roles in the family dynamic are often switched or flipped around. Jojo acts as the main caregiver to Kayla, which often causes him to forget about his own health or well being. Leonie isn't able to support or care for her children properly, and although Pops does the best he can as their father figure, the need for a maternal figure is still prevalent. This may also cause Jojo to have some confusion about who he is meant to be, since he wants to take after Pops but also has to act as a mom to Kayla. This also may be why he struggles so often to prove his masculinity and mimic Pops, since he's thrown into a womanly role in the household and family. Jojo himself has grown up incredibly quickly in order to fill these shoes, and he has missed out on living out his last years of childhood innocence, which is vital to most kiddos. Since Mam was  the only woman role model in his life, I wonder how her death will change him and the role he plays.

Sing Unburied Sing: Misty Misty Misty

I brought up this discussion in class however I want to continue it.

What is the exact nature of Leonie's relationship to Misty? Are they friends or is it a relationship of convenience like the one Leonie has with Michael, where they're only together because they just so happen to satisfy each others needs?

Sing, Unburied, Sing Captured in a Picture

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Picture Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/books/review/tracy-k-smith-on-sing-unburied-sing-jesmyn-ward.html

This picture was made by Tomer Hanuka and seems to display the main characters of Sing, Unburied, Sing. The two children are Jojo, the older boy, and Kayla, the younger girl. The woman who seems to look around the ages of 24-30 is Leonie, the mother of Jojo and Kayla. The last character in the artwork is an older woman who in the novel is Mam, the mother of Leonie, and the grandmother of Jojo and Kayla. One very significant part of this artwork is that Jojo is taking care of Kayla, while their mother, Leonie, is looking away and is smoking what seems to be a cigarette. So, the mother in the story is not actually being the parental figure to Kayla, rather, her older brother Jojo has to grow up (lose his innocence) and take care of not only himself but also his little sister. Also, in the picture, Mam is looking away as well. Throughout the novel, Mam is sick and seems to be a great motherly figure, but because she is so sick she can't help the children. 

      A major chunk of the plot in the novel is the journey to and from Parchment to pick up Michael, Leonie's boyfriend and Jojo and Kayla's father. In this picture, a road with a car driving on it is woven throughout the characters. This journey is supposed to be "great" and bring the family together by picking up Michael ("the missing piece"), but in reality this family is very much broken (between being involved in drugs, prison, and alcohol) and will never be able to be fixed. 

This May Seem Like A Stupid Question But...

I know that this may seem like a stupid and simple question but it really has been bothering me since I read SUS.

So, if ghosts are real in the world in which the book is set, then why aren't more people talking about seeing them? Is it just Leonie and Jojo who see them? What makes them so special? There are tons of people who died in horrible, violent ways, but the possibility of everyone who died in the Civil War haunting a gaggle of Tennesseans is never brought up. Most of Germany must really be sick of hauntings at this point. What are the rules? Are there rules?

I know I try to be silly and funny a lot but this is a serious, genuine inquiry. Is this something that Jesmyn Ward didn't focus on? Is it like the time travel in the 1995 Terry Gilliam film 12 Monkeys, where the time travel isn't explained because it's used to tell a story or is there some thread of logic I somehow missed? Help me.

100 Years and the El Boom Movement

Gabriel Marquez was one of the most prominent authors of the Latin American Literary Boom. The novels and works a part of this movement were often politically engaging and told the history of a people once silenced and abandoned during colonization. Many used magical realism as a means of expressing past and current events that were almost unimaginable to westerners. These works gained widespread attention and Latin America’s once lost identity was found and marketed globally. Finally people would realize that Columbia was well as other Latin American countries were not letting their history and culture be told and identified for them.

What it means to see GHOSTS

         One Hundred Years of Solitude, as well as Sing Unburied Sing, are written in similar forms that focus on the past and how that past weights an individual down with guilt, yet they represent different themes within each novel. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Jose Arcadio Buendia kills Prudencio Aguilar in a cockfight after he judges his manhood. Immediately, Jose Arcadio Buendia feels remorse and is consumed by guilt. Jose Arcadio Buendia becomes so weighed down by his grief that he becomes haunted by the corpse of Prudencio Aguilar who is constantly bleeding from his wound fails to wash it. This obsession of guilt drives him insane and Jose Arcadio Buendia flees town and his killer past. This type of magical realism represents Jose Arcadio's fear of the past and the past repeating itself. But as we know, the Buendia family continues to make the same mistakes their ancestors made — because Jose Arcadio Segundo begins to participate in cockfights as well after Jose Arcadio Buendia dies.

        Similarly, in Sing Unburied Sing, Leonie becomes haunted by the ghost of her brother, Given, and Jojo is haunted by the ghost of his grandfathers’ childhood friend, Richie. These spirits both serve as different purposes in the novel. Given appears to Leonie whenever she gets high and becomes a reminder of her failed parentage. Leonie never shows Jojo or Kayla true motherly love. She focuses on her boyfriend, Michael, and their fragile relationship that is constantly falling apart and being glued back together. Given forces Leonie to face the ghosts of her past which brings back memories of how he died (Michael’s cousin killed him. Unfortunately, ghost Given’s attempt to change Leonie’s mindset doesn't affect her and she continues to prove to her children that they don't mean anything to her. On the other hand, when Jojo begins communicated with Richie, you start to see a strong sense of maturity with Jojo. Jojo had always been more of a parent to his sister than his mother had. But Pop’s story about the poor black boy, Richie, who used to be in prison with Pop and looked to him as an icon, starts to further change Jojo’s mentality. His manhood is highlighted in the way he cares for his sister and how he communicates with his distant parents. These ghosts are young men who never were given the chance to grow up and represent the “unburied” secrets of the past and a child's journey toward adulthood.

"Independent Women" by Destiny's Child: Ursula Iguaran Version

In the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez crafts Ursula’s character in a unique way that differs from all other characters. Ursula, my favorite character, serves many purposes in the novel. She is one of the founders of Macondo, a mother, a wife, a friend, and the regulator of the town. In addition to this, she constantly warns her family about the effetcs of incest which is the undesirable pig’s tail. 

Unlike any other character, Ursula has her own identity and characteristics; She is not like the Aurilanos or Jose Acardios who all possess many of the same features. Due to this, Ursula’s strength arises from her independent nature. She does not rely on others to protect the town of Macondo or take care of her family, she does so herself. While the town is under her control, she manages to keep her family free from the pig’s tail and therefore incest. However, after her death, this warning slips away and the pig’s tail appears. Without Ursula, the Buendia family moves quickly toward their demise.

On a different note, Ursula lives a very long life; her lengthy life allows her to see the town and others in a different way. She has experienced the creation of Macondo, the gypsies and their “inventions”, Don Moscote and his soldiers, the massacre, and the death of their original town. Ursula’s realistic nature is seen in the following quote, “The concert of so many different birds became so disturbing that Ursula would plug her ears with beeswax so as not to lose her sense of reality” (Marquez, 9). Ursula does not allow herself to get lost in the chaos of Macondo; she stays true to her duty: avoiding the fate of the pig’s tail.

While reading the novel, I could not help but think of the song “Independent Women” by Destiny’s Child when looking at Ursula’s character. Ursula embodies the moral of the song: a women does not need a man to succeed in life. Ursula clearly proves that she does not need Jose Acardio Buendia as she ties him to the tree and continues on with her life. Ursula is a powerful women that would most definitely fit the description on an independent women in the song.