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Salvage The Bones Character Analysis

Decent Essays

Family
In Jesmyn Ward’ novel “Salvage the Bones”, Ward uses a fifteen –year-old girl Esch as narrator to describe the 12-day life of a family living in Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, waiting for the hurricane comes. She wants to show that although they are poor, they can still form a family and help each other when emergency happens. She talks about the trivia happened in daily-life of that African American family and how the whole family prepared for the hurricane, in order to show the life and relationship of underclass African American people living in Mississippi.
The mother of this family is really important although she died when she gave birth to her third son Junior because she didn’t want to go to the hospital. Esch always thinks of what her mother did during her narration, which reveals that she misses her mother. The dog China giving birth to puppys reminds Esch of her mother giving birth to her brother Junior. She can remember all the actions her mother did, all the words her mother said that time. (2) She compares her mother and other people during the whole story. Esch talks about the difference between how …show more content…

He directs his family to the attic, and he helps her daughter to swim. “Daddy is reaching out with his good hand.” (234) Skeetah also helps his family. He proposes the idea to swim to another house and he is always swimming in the front and leads his family. “I’ma swim, break the window. Y’all come in…” (234) Skeetah also saves Esch. “Skeetah is pushing me through the window, his hand a leash loop wrapped too tightly around my arm…” (235) Randall is helping Junior. “Junior tightens his legs like a looping shoestring across Randall’s waist. Randall grips Junior’s shins, those legs thin as rulers.” (234) The puppies are in Esch’s shirt. The whole family is helping each other during the huge hurricane, which shows the close connection and relationship of the

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