Character Analysis:
Esch, Truth and Survival in a Bleak Situation
I am writing this paper about Esch because she was the main character of this story from the book of Salvage the Bones.
Esch is a little girl in this poor family in Jesmyn Ward’s fictional tale Salvage the Bones. She was only girl in the family, and living with her alcoholic father and three brothers.
My point about this book is the poverty of this character. I am understand their situation because they almost similar from where I come from (part of Africa). Dealing with the poverty day by day is not glory and the way they whole family living is a pity. The character of Esch is the most impoverished member of the family because she is a girl in a family of boys and men.
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Her status as a girl is worse than a poor boy because she can be pregnant and they cannot be, so that makes her poverty worse than theirs. They also have a dog a pit-bull named China.
If I look the situation in this reading book, they used China to make money by dog fighting and when was sick, they doesn’t have money to take care for, and that is one of my reason I believe they don’t need a dog because normally a dog is like another person in. A lot of time the dogs are sick, and needs care for. However, the family does need Esch, as she is their only female person. So she is more important than a dog.
My first reason of her poverty;
One of the challenges of her poverty situation is the death of her mother in childbirth, and leaving behind four children. “She said she didn’t want to go to the hospital. Daddy dragged her from the bed to his truck, trailing her blood, and we never saw her again” (Ward, p. 2).
My second reason of her poverty;
The last part of her poverty is the pregnancy.
Esch had a boyfriend name Manny who hang up with and later she got pregnant. Her main conflict was a pregnancy because she doesn’t want anyone know in the family. However, her father has a feeling about it because she got sick and throw up, but kept playing and dealing with her pregnancy day by day. Also she determined to hide her crisis pregnancy as long as she can “until none of us has very choices” later she had a baby.
My third reason of her
poverty; The hurricane Katrina is the horrible disaster situation that make her poor is after the hurricane destroyed their Mississppi’ home. Esch was pregnant and was not strong like the boy to face that kind of situation. She describes the moments before the hurricane Katrina as “caught in the hour where the sun is hidden beyond the trees, but hasn’t over the horizon. When light comes from everywhere and nowhere. When everything is grey.” The hurricane Katrina is horrible disaster situation that terrify the family and others. They used to live well in their smaller town in Mississippi before the hurricane. “Medea is in Hurricane Katrina because her power to unmake worlds, to manipulate the elements, closely aligns with the storm” (Ward p.264). In conclusion, I feel that Esh is more impoverished in the family because she is a only female, and cannot be strong to face the horrible situation.
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