Mapping the Lost Home: Psalm 137 and Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing

IF 0.1 4区 文学 0 LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM MISSISSIPPI QUARTERLY Pub Date : 2023-05-23 DOI:10.1353/mss.2022.0014
Rachel Ewing
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Abstract

JESMYN WARD’S 2017 NOVEL, SING, UNBURIED, SING, TELLS THE STORY OF Jojo, a thirteen-year-old biracial boy in coastal Mississippi, and his family as they struggle to navigate issues of grief and addiction rooted in the generational trauma of racist oppression. When Jojo’s father Michael, a former meth cook, is released from the Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm, Jojo accompanies his mother Leonie, baby sister Kayla, and questionable family friend Misty on a road trip across the state to bring Michael home. Although the family is temporarily reunited, theirs is not a happy ending. Grandmother and matriarch Philomène dies of cancer; Jojo learns the horrific truth about his beloved grandfather River’s own time as a prisoner; and Leonie and Michael’s meth addiction intensifies. Anxious and restless, Jojo begins walking the woods near his home. In the final pages of the novel, such a walk leads him to something strange: a tree full of ghosts, with birdlike spirits perched two or three to a branch “all the way up to the top, to the feathered leaves” (282). The vision, which Kayla also sees when she and River follow Jojo, evokes the horrors of lynching, the “strange fruit” of Abel Meeropol’s poem and Billie Holiday’s famous song. Readers might also think of the tree of crucifixion, or the baobab tree of African legend.1 Considered alongside the ghosts’ behavior, however—
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绘制失落的家园:诗篇137和Jesmyn Ward的《歌唱,未埋葬,歌唱》
JESMYN WARD 2017年的《歌唱,未埋葬,歌唱》讲述了密西西比州沿海一名13岁的混血男孩Jojo和他的家人的故事,他们正在努力解决种族主义压迫造成的世代创伤所带来的悲伤和成瘾问题。乔的父亲迈克尔曾是一名冰毒厨师,从密西西比州立监狱(也称为Parchman Farm)获释后,乔陪着母亲Leonie、小妹妹Kayla和可疑的家庭朋友Misty进行了一次穿越全州的公路旅行,将迈克尔带回家。虽然这家人暂时团聚了,但他们的结局并不幸福。祖母和女家长Philomène死于癌症;Jojo得知了他深爱的祖父River自己作为囚犯的可怕真相;Leonie和Michael的冰毒成瘾加剧。焦虑不安的乔开始在家附近的树林里散步。在小说的最后几页,这样的散步把他带到了一个奇怪的地方:一棵满是鬼魂的树,有两三个像鸟一样的精灵栖息在一根树枝上,“一直到顶端,一直到有羽毛的叶子”(282)。凯拉和里弗跟随乔时也看到了这种景象,它唤起了私刑的恐怖,私刑是亚伯·米罗波尔诗歌和比莉·霍利迪著名歌曲中的“奇异果实”。读者可能还会想到十字架树,或者非洲传说中的猴面包树--
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来源期刊
MISSISSIPPI QUARTERLY
MISSISSIPPI QUARTERLY Arts and Humanities-Literature and Literary Theory
CiteScore
0.20
自引率
0.00%
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0
期刊介绍: Founded in 1948, the Mississippi Quarterly is a refereed, scholarly journal dedicated to the life and culture of the American South, past and present. The journal is published quarterly by the College of Arts and Sciences of Mississippi State University.
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