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.
2 comments:
I completely agree with your interpretation of the picture. I would just like to add that the road also looks as if it is strangling their family unit. As we know, the family has many difficulties in life. Michael being in jail makes it harder for Leonie, which in turn causes her to take out her anger and sadness on her child. This is especially seen when she chooses to take drugs instead of actually helping her child. Above everyone I feel like Michael is to blame for all of their difficulties, since being in jail causes a sort of domino effect on the family. They are also being "strangled" by the racial biases that they had to deal with, especially the interaction with the police office, which only occurred because of the road trip.
I like what Andreas had to say about them seemingly being strangled by the road in the picture. I completely agree that their road trip is trapping them in this world of drugs and dysfunction. Their road trip is anything but hopeful, and with each event that passes I see Jojo losing more and more of that childlike innocence. Unfortunately, Jojo may not be able to overcome the boundaries placed before him. Racial biases and poor economic status will likely shaped his future path (the road he has set before him.) The past is inescapable for Jojo because he lacks all tools needed to steer him in a new direction. He won’t receive a good education, his family is likely to stay broken and dysfunctional, and he will possibly be forced into a life of drugs and abuse as his mother and father are. He is trapped in the lanes of racism and poverty, and until someone reinvents the wheel, I don’t see him getting out any time soon.
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