The conversation that Ritchie sparked in class having to do with the decisions of Ward's characters in Sing, Unburied, Sing, got me thinking a bit more about Ward's purpose behind building her characters. Ultimately, she has built them as people destroyed by their own decisions.
So, continues the conversation with the question: why did she choose for her characters to be reflected in such a negative light? As a writer, I know that there is a purpose in mostly everything written in a literary work, specifically in fiction. Such decisions in Ward's characterization reveals the themes of both the past affecting the present and the cyclic nature of Southern misfortune.
It is, as Ritchie argued in class, easy to feel negatively towards characters that make the choice to be a part of abuse, specifically drug abuse. However, I believe that by creating Leonie and Michael as psychologically, racially, and economically shot characters, Ward creates a mood that begs for the reader's empathy. The reason that the story she tells is so intriguing is largely due to the humanity Ward instills in her characters.
After all, if Leonie and Michael were good parents, not drug users, and not stuck too deep in the South, would the novel exist in such a profound way? Rhetorically, the answer to that question is no. The reader is drawn to the imperfections of such characters because they are loudly HUMAN.
Living fortunately, in an educated, informed reality, it is easy for us to forget that people like Leonie and Michael exist beyond the pages in Sing, Unburied, Sing. Speaking for myself, it is difficult to imagine the tragic reality that is faced just a state over from my home.
Luckily, by indirectly calling on her readers for empathy, Ward has not just made a point about the region of the United States from which she is from. She has also further educated a demographic of readers not initially familiar with the reality of much of the South.
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I agree that Ward paints her adult characters, specifically Leonie and Michael, in a negative light; they do drugs, abuse their children, and go to jail. Gabby says that even though these characters are flawed inside and out, Ward wants us to feel empathy towards them. I believe that I (and probably many people across the nation reading this novel) would feel sympathy rather than empathy. Personally, I am lucky enough to say that I cannot directly relate to the hardships the characters face in the novel. I found it hard to empathize with the characters; I mainly felt sorry for them. However, this is precisely what Ward wants to change; with her novel, she is trying to educate others about the vicious cycles of racism, drug abuse, and parental neglect that the poor of our nation are caught in.
Ward writes her novel so that people who have experienced hardship can find solace in realistic characters with many of their same problems. However, she also writes it for readers who have never had to deal with poverty, drug addiction, or parental abuse. Ward uses her literary voice to expose the middle- and upper-class society to the hardships the poor of rural Mississippi (and elsewhere) deal with--problems many people never even notice. Ward doesn't want the world to remain oblivious to the everyday struggles many Americans face. Not everyone in America is living a dream.
There are two different parts to Leonie, each of which I feel completely different about. The first part being the death of her brother, and the second the way she handles it.
I sympathize greatly with Leonie for her struggles with losing her brother. In fact earlier this year my mom lost her brother, and watching her go through that was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But you can't end your life over it and just give up. You have to continue to push on. Given doesn't want Leonie to give up, he appears to her when she does, and Leonie knows it. JoJo and Kayla have been put in a terrible situation with both of their parents just simply vanishing from their lives. If my mom did this I wouldn't know what to do.
The burden that Leonie and Michael have put on their children is sad and frankly pathetic. And at such a young age can JoJo, surely not Kayla, actually, understand just how terrible of a situation they have been put in. Both their parents are gone, his grandmother has just died, and his grandfather will probably be wrapped in grief for the time he has left. It is circumstances like these that make these vicious cycles of drug abuse and poverty go round and round. JoJo and Kayla will grow up knowing nothing but the burden they have been thrown into. Hopefully, they can, as they grow, realize what has happened and improve their own quality of life, but their parents have made it so hard on them that the chances are unlikely. For these reasons, I find it extremely hard to sympathize as a whole with Leonie and even more so Michael, who did not go through a death of a sibling (at least not that we know of).
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