How Does Leonie Tell The Story In Sing Unburied Sing

Along with songs and stories, Ward uses the supernatural to illustrate the relationship between the past and the present. In “Sing Unburied Sing”, Leonie is haunted by her late brother Given and Jojo is haunted by the ghost of Richie. Leonie is haunted by her brother being murdered in the past and it has caused her to be traumatized. Leonie deals with the trauma she is feeling by falling in love with Michael. Leonie begins to be haunted by Given because it was Michaels cousin that killed him and the Sheriff, who is Michaels father, covered it up as an accident since they were related and Given was a black male. This shows how Leonie and her family are affected by racism. According to Begley, “Ward's characters are informed of her own deep knowledge

Leonie’s relationship with Michael and Givens death led to her drug use and Leonie only sees Given when she is under the influence of drugs. The first time Leonie saw Given, she was at a party doing a line of cocaine after Michael went to prison. She says, “He tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t hear him, and he just got more and more frustrated” (51). This proves the fact that Leonie could see Given but not hear him shows the disconnect that she has to the spiritual world and to her family. Givens death shaped Leonie into the woman she is in the present because she could not deal with her reality and she started doing drugs to numb the pain. This led to her neglecting her children and not building a relationship with them. She says, “It feels good to be mean, to speak past the baby I can't hit and let that anger touch

Never Mama for. Just Leonie, a name wrapped around the same disappointed syllables I've heard from Mama, from Pop, even from Given, my whole fucking life” (147). This is evidence that Leonie holds all her feelings inside and knows she does not have a good relationship with her parents and children but does not work towards a better one because of her suffering. Another example of how the supernatural connects the past and the present is when Richie appears in the car. On their way home from Parchman, they got pulled over by the police. Richie appeared in the car with Leonie, Michael, Misty and her children but Jojo is the only one who sees him. Jojo is handcuffed by the police officer and thrown on the ground like an animal and he is only a child. In an interview Ward says, “I was thinking about Mike Brown, Philando Castile, Trayvon—we have this trail of black bodies littering history. Some of the ghosts are wearing hoodies” (Oatman). This demonstrates the systematic racism and prejudice Pop, Given, and Richie experienced at a young age that Jojo is experiencing as well. This is a very real reality for not only African American men but African American women as well