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Kristen Arroyo

Rollins

AP Literature B Period

20 December 2017

Deadly Women and Their Children

There are two questions every teenage girl is asking herself: (1) What do I want to do

with my life? (2) What kind of person do I want to marry? A girl can never plan or be ready for

the moment when all of her dreams and hopes for the future are crushed, that fateful moment

when she finds out she is pregnant. Teenage pregnancy is a terrible stigma, and for ones who

find themselves with an unplanned pregnancy, it can feel like the end of the world. The main

character of Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones, Esch, is a fifteen-year-old girl who finds out that

she is pregnant. On top of the stigma that pregnant teens face, Esch must go through a pregnancy

herself after watching those she loves enduring the struggles of motherhood. Through the themes

of sexuality and womanhood, and the use of rich symbolism, Salvage the Bones proves that

motherhood is inherently violent.

A major theme in Salvage the Bones is sexuality and sexual activity. In order for

someone to become pregnant, she must have intercourse. However, nothing about sex is as clear

cut as conception. Sex and its effects are very important throughout this novel, factoring in

aspects of power and dominance, what it means to be a woman, and different understandings of

the meaning of consent. Esch’s mother dies while giving birth to her younger brother, Junior, so

at the tender age of eight, Esch is left to discover herself on her own. She has to learn what it

means to be a woman without the guide from another female. Esch grows up surrounded by

men—her dad, three brothers, and all of her brothers’ friends—and she develops conflicting
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ideas about what femininity is. Sometimes, the boys on the pit see Esch as just another boy, but

other times, they see her as an object. A part of the feminist theory in literature is that women

have the choice to either, “imagine and represent themselves as men imagine and represent the,

(in which case they may speak but will speak as men) or they can choose silence, becoming in

the process the invisible and unheard sex (Guerin 158).” Esch had the choice to either represent

herself as the boys see her, or she could have become silent. At some points in the book, Esch

chooses to be one of the guys, but during other parts, she chooses to let her thoughts go

unnoticed. All of the male influences in her life cause her to objectify herself. She thinks that

being a woman means living in service of men. According to Lauren Mulvey, author of Visual

Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, in everyday life, from advertisements to movies, women play a

passive role in being observed by males in an erotic way. As sexual objects, women are bound to

certain expectations of how they should look based on the preference and pleasure of males

(Mulvey 809). This concept is known as the Male Gaze. With all the male eyes pointed at her,

looking at her like she is a snack, Esch submits and plays the passive role of being the observed,

and eventually she gives into their boyish desires. She starts having sex with her brothers’ friends

at just twelve years old, but it wasn’t necessarily her choice. Her first time is with her brother’s

friend Marquise after he asked if he could touch her breast. Without asking for consent to do

anything more, Marquise advances the situation with Esch to the point of intercourse. Esch just

takes it, thinking, “…it was easier to let him keep on touching me than to ask him to stop, easier

to let him inside than push him away, easier than hearing him ask me, Why not? It was easier to

keep quiet and take it than to give him an answer (Ward 23).” This passage depicts the fact that

Esch has not fully developed an idea of what consent is, and decides that it is better to just give

boys what they want than to stand up for herself and her wants.
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At its base, sex is a power struggle. There is a sense of dominance and submission

between two beings who engage in intercourse. This is especially true for humans, and this

aspect of power also plays a role in the animal kingdom. In Salvage the Bones, Esch notes that

while China, her brother’s dog, and a male dog were having sex, China hated submitting to the

other dog. “…there was blood on their jaws, on her coat, and instead of loving, it looked like

they were fighting (Ward 8).” Although China is a tough fighter, she is still forced to play the

passive role. As a woman, Esch has learned that she has to be the submissive one, but this

mentality is what leads her to entering motherhood at such a young age. The father of her child,

Manny, is a boy that Esch believes herself to be in love with. She sees Manny as pure gold, a

being who can do no wrong. Manny, however, is the embodiment of the aggressive, dominating

patriarchy. He knows that Esch will give him what he wants, and he takes advantage of her every

chance he can get. Throughout the novel, Esch is constantly obsessed with where Manny’s eyes

are pointed and that they are never on her. It’s because Manny doesn’t see her as anything more

than a sexual outlet. When Esch finally tells Manny that she is pregnant, he denies that it is his,

blaming her for being a “slut,” and that she “…fuck everybody who come to the Pit (Ward

204).” Manny is quick to take control while sleeping with Esch, but denies any responsibility for

his actions, leaving Esch to deal with motherhood on her own.

The experiences Esch has had with motherhood throughout her life demonstrate the

violence of motherhood. Childbirth is what took Esch’s mother away, leaving her to figure the

world out on her own. Without a mother, Esch looks to China, the only other female on the Pit,

for guidance. China is a new mother, and Esch, who finds out she will be a mother, can only look

to the dog for help. China shows Esch the violence of motherhood as she leaves the runt behind

to die during the puppies’ birth, and as she kills one of the puppies later in the book. Esch takes
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this all in, forming in her mind what she thinks motherhood will be like. She doesn’t like what

she imagines her future will be, and she contemplates ways to give herself a miscarriage. The

methods she considers are very violent, ranging from getting hit in the stomach to falling on the

bump, showing that she would rather physically harm herself than have to face the kind of

motherhood that China has shown her. The only kind of motherhood that Esch knows is a very

violent and scary version of it.

While Esch sees China as her mother figure and crafts her mentality off what she

observes from the mother, there is a deeper and more important connection between the dog and

the teen. Throughout the novel, the characteristics of China and Esch are constantly being

compared. Skeetah, Esch’s brother and China’s owner is the character that points out these

similarities the most. He knows that Esch is tough and that she is a fighter like China. He sees

both females as equals to him, not putting either of them down because of their sex. There is a

parallel between the scene in which China and Kilo, the father of the puppies, are fought, and

when Esch confronts Manny. China beats Kilo, but he rips off one of her breasts, taking from her

a piece of her femininity. Esch fights with Manny, slapping him and finally revealing her

feelings toward him. He rejects her and leaves, destroying her hopes that they would end up

together. This hope that she had was a defining factor of her womanhood, because she did

everything to please Manny, but he took that from her just as Kilo took from China. China is a

symbol for Esch, demonstrating the kind of mother Esch will turn out to be. “…she will know

that I have kept watch, that I have fought. China will bark and call me sister… She will know

that I am a mother (Ward 258).” At the end of the novel, China is lost to the hurricane, but Esch

takes her place, becoming the strong woman that China was. China has taught Esch how to be a

powerful mother in the face of violence.

Salvage the Bones is a thought and emotion provoking novel that deserves to be

considered a classic. Jesmyn Ward very intelligently and thoughtfully faces many hard, layered

topics through this story, one of which discusses the characteristics of a type of motherhood that

most women are not accustomed to. Following Esch’s story, the true nature of motherhood is

brought to light. Readers can learn from this novel what it means to be a strong woman in the

face of something scary.

Citations

Guerin, Wilfred L., et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature Fourth Edition.

Oxford university Press, 1999

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism :

Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP,

1999: 833-44.

Ward, Jesmyn. Salvage the Bones. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011.