Cuidados líquidos en Sing, unburied, sing y Salvage the bonesUn recorrido por el amor y las relaciones humanas

  1. Granda Menéndez, Paula
Journal:
Raudem: Revista de estudios de las mujeres

ISSN: 2340-9630

Year of publication: 2020

Issue: 8

Pages: 189-209

Type: Article

DOI: 10.25115/RAUDEM.V8I0.4109 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

More publications in: Raudem: Revista de estudios de las mujeres

Sustainable development goals

Abstract

The present article examines love and care in two novels by Jesmyn Ward –Sing, Unburied, Sing(2017) and Salvage the Bones(2012) –through the ideas posited by Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman in Liquid Love(2012)particularly in its third chapter “On the difficulty of loving thy neighbor”which inspires my analysis. This article shows the differences among the relationships that the mother protagonists have with their environment and their maternity despite the fact that they find themselves in the same circumstances. I conclude that the African American family and community offerthe only possible salvation for these women. One of them is close to such family which allows her to be saved and the other, alienated from her family due to her drug abuse,is not. Finally, Ward’s novels establish aconversation with the tradition of dramatic, shocking, even morbid endings for African American characters in previous literature. Ward shows the complexity of contemporary discrimination refuting a unique monolithic vision of the (female) African American experience allowing her characters to make mistakes while showing the discrimination they suffer.

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Data source: Dialnet