“Right on the other side of that veil”: The Politics of Recognition and Transparency in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing
This article explores the intersections between the ideas of home, community and transparency in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017). The novel follows a double plot structure, as a road trip undertaken by a mother and her two children to bring their father home, thus reconstituting a traditio...
Wedi'i Gadw mewn:
| Cyhoeddwyd yn: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ejas, |
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| Prif Awdur: | |
| Fformat: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Iaith: | Anglais |
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European journal of American studies
2026
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| Mynediad Ar-lein: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Crynodeb: | This article explores the intersections between the ideas of home, community and transparency in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017). The novel follows a double plot structure, as a road trip undertaken by a mother and her two children to bring their father home, thus reconstituting a traditional family model, and as a ghost story in which several characters communicate with ghosts, who also aspire to “go home.” Starting from the representation of the idea of home as communal aspiration, I argue that Ward’s discourse about home and community is grounded on a narrative and rhetorical articulation of transparency. I draw on theories of recognition to identify how the thwarted communal transparency within hegemonic regimes of visibility is expressed in the text through the central metaphor of the “veil.” I contend that the figurative mapping of the veil effectively brings together the spectral and family plotlines, enabling a productive intersection between the politics of recognition and the impossibility of communal transparency. |
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