As I read Sing Unburied Sing, I tried to understand Leonie's character, but I found it to be troublesome to do so. I understood that she didn't have the natural maternal instincts most mothers obtain at the birth of their children, but at the same time, she seemed to display some kind of nurturing instinct toward Michael. Not only does she feel like she needs to take care of him, to the point that she will drive a significant distance to pick him up from jail, but she is so in awe of him that she disregards her children needs. The only real emotion she shows is toward Michael. After realizing this, I concluded that Leonie's character is defined by her relationship with Michael. Everything she does is for Michael, she resents her children because they take away her ideal life with Michael and she continually chooses Michael over everyone else in her life. She’s just a damaged girl who was never the chance to grow up and is unable to get over the death of her brother Given. She is still in a time where she feels that she needs to live out her youth. She is under the spell of young love and acts out by doing drugs to live out her past to see Given. In the first couple of chapters of the novel, I wasn't able to empathize for Leonie and didn't understand the depth of her character. But as the novel went on, I started to realize this complexity to her character.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I completely agree with your statement, but I feel as if Leonie deserves more of our sympathy from the beginning. I feel that we have to remember that odds are already against Leonie. She is after all an African American woman, in a very place where racism seems almost institutionalized. I say that because of how outwardly racist the people of and near Bois Sauvage are. I don/t necessarily believe that her relationship is completely defined by Michael, but I do feel that she uses him as a drug to escape. I would also like to point out, that, although she does not have a motherly instinct, there are cases where she truly tries. When Kayla is sick, she really does try to make her feel better by trying to remember what plants her mother taught her could treat illness. In that moment we see that she truly regrets not listening to her mother, because if she had listened more she would have been able to help her daughter out more.
I agree that Leonie’s character barely, if at all, developed throughout the novel, and I think that Jesmyn Ward kept her as a static character for a reason. Leonie, being one herself, represents Black women in the South (specifically Mississippi) and her not developing is analogous to the fact that many Black women in the latter half of the 20th century, and even to this day, were not able to develop and become integral parts of society due to the fundamentalist, oppressive, and often disguised racist systems implemented by certain members of society. Although Leonie wants to advance herself by being a better lover for Michael and a better parent for Jojo and Kayla, she cannot due to certain things from the past which hold were back, such as the cruel death of her brother, Given. Similarly, many black women at this time and even today feel that they want to gain an education and progress in life, but there are such barriers holding them back, like poverty and the environment that surrounds them.
I agree with Andreas comment on how we should feel sympathy for her due to the situation she's in but I feel she doesn't help by doing drugs and always being mean or indifferent towards her children. We see how she is just a kid who lost her brother, who's in love, and has grown up too fast. She also is in an low income family who deals with prejudice due to her skin color and the relationship she is in. She is a complex character who simply doesn't have any change in the novel
Post a Comment