Oscar Wilde once said that “Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.” In both Blindness by Jose Saramago and in Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, sex is used by the men in the story as a means to exert power over the...

Although Junior in Salvage the Bones is only 10 years old, his character not only is complicated but also provides complexity to the rest of Ward's novel. His birth resulted in the death of Mama, which leaves the rest of the family motherless and...

Throughout Savage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward places considerable emphasis on growth and change within Esch -- whether the multiple descriptions of Esch’s pregnant belly, or how she sees herself as a fighter who breaks the stereotypical male-female...

Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones depicts the Batiste family, a poor, black family in southern Mississippi living in a crater in the earth called “The Pit.” Plagued with an invading red tint‒similar to that of hell‒and disarranged structure, The Pit...

In order to affirm one’s personal identity in the context of social structure, we often seek affirmation through relationships with other people. While these identities are constructed by our society, they play an influential role in the...

The concept of loss is often viewed as a delicate yet intense matter where one is hit with an unexpected series of events that ultimately sparks emotion and panic. Jesmyn Ward delves into the concept of loss through her memoir, Men We Reaped,...

The United States of America is a country that, despite much of the relatively progress in race relations, remains gained by a history of prejudice. Even today, elements of our society have a significant impact on the life expectancy and mortality...

Jesmyn Ward’s autobiography, Men We Reaped, tells of Ward’s life as it relates to five men that she knew, all of whom died atrociously and unfairly. Throughout her memoir, Ward uses several methods to differentiate herself from her community....