Saturday, September 22, 2018
Jojo's Birthday
In the first chapter of "Sing, Unburied, Sing", it's Jojo's birthday. In class we talked about Jojo's desire to please Pop and be a grow up, but we hadn't really talked about his birthday. He turned 13 and wanted to be able to handle death, but it still made him uncomfortable to watch Pop kill the goat. He seems to sort of think that just being older means he is more mature, but it's a blend of experiences, not just the number. Ritchie had much more violent experiences at his age and was forced to grow up quicker, for example; Ritchie also views Jojo as innocent for this reason. On Jojo's birthday, Mam can't make him a cake since she is very sick. Leonie buys him a cake instead, but it is a baby shower cake. She sees Jojo as a child still. She also doesn't really care about singing him happy birthday or letting him blow out his candles; she rushes to the phone when it rings, thinking it might be Michael. Pop's attention is on Mam because she doesn't feel well, and Mam can't pay much attention to the birthday either. Jojo feels alone and like he still needs to prove himself. A mosquito bites him and he slaps it; he describes the mosquito thinking of him like a cake. The bug followed him from Mam's room, where it probably bit her too, and I think it represents the things that are tearing at their family and eating away at them.
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4 comments:
You make a very good point, and it's awesome that you pointed out the detail of Jojo's birthday because it happens at the beginning of the novel and it so easy to forget, yet its so important! As you mentioned, everyone's attention is on someone else. He isn't the most important thing in any of the one's he loves lives, even on his birthday, where a child is expected to be the center of attention. This leaves Jojo feeling that he is not enough for his family, and blames himself. He feels that he must prove himself as a man in order to earn their respect and attention. That is why he goes with Pop to try to kill the goat, even though he is clearly distressed during the ordeal. That is part of the reason he takes such good care of Kayla, to show he is mature and can take care of others. He helps take care of Mam because he wants her to see how grown up he is. Jojo tries to act older than he is in order to try to get the attention from his family he feels like he must earn. This shows though how much of a child he still truly is though, having the opposite effect he intended form his actions. It shows that he still relies on the approval and attention of the adults around him, and this act of trying to show maturity is a his way of trying to get his family to recognize he is there and in their lives. He wants to be taken care of, but is still unsure of how to go about it.
Both Natalia and Elise make very good points! I think without Richie's point of view, we would have not only a missing aspect to the book concerning Pop's past and reasoning behind his actions but we would also not have a comparison to Jojo's actions as a 13-year-old. A 12-year-old sent to prison is drastically different to a 13-year-old at a birthday party and that is a strong aspect that enhances just how innocent Richie was going into the prison as well as how innocent Jojo is. Both characters had to grow up too fast for their liking and I think a part of them, even though they wish to be older to do better in the settings they are growing up with, wishes life would take a pause to allow them time to mentally catch up with their actions.
I agree with this. Your age doesn't necessarily make you more mature, like in Jojo's case but rather it has to do with the things that you experience in life. Ritchie's much more mature in this way and being a 12-year old in such a prison as parchman has got to be a horrific experience. Jojo tries to associate his maturity with whether he can handle death or not but this is not how maturity works. In fact, the way Jojo does this is rather immature and makes him sound very innocent because he doesn't know what it takes to be mature. Ritchie on the other hand had to go through having a a poor family who was hungry and so had to resort to stealing. Ritchie then went to Parchman, one of the most dangerous prisons around, especially as a small 12 year old boy.
I believe that in commenting on maturity, we can easily reflect upon the different ways both Jojo and Richie have had to grow up too fast in the novel. It is fair to say that they are character foils, for sure. Jojo has had to mature because of his parents. He has become not only a brother to Michaela but more significantly, a father figure to her because of his lack of stability in parental figures. Richie, had a similar situation, for the reason he went to Parchman in the first place was because he stole food for his starving self and family. On the other hand, Jojo and Richie are much different, for in prison, Riv, or Pop was Richie's father figure. Instead, Jojo is the father figure for Michaela and fortunately has never been to prison as an inmate, leaving him with a slight bit more humanity than Richie. Although the past is cyclic in Sing, Unburied, Sing, this does speak to the twinge of modernization that has come into play in Southern Mississippi. It also raises the question, however, whether this modernization should be better considered as luck or chance, for Jojo's imprisonment based on socioeconomic bias or racism is really just a question of time.
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