Le gris-gris bag, porte-mémoire ancestral et contemporain dans Sing, Unburied, Sing de Jesmyn Ward

Abstract

In Jesmyn Ward's 2017 novel Sing, Unburied, Sing, which focuses on the life of an African-American family, the gris-gris bags may seem to have a somewhat marginal function in the narrative as they seem to be a detail appearing in an embedded narrative. The gris-gris bag appears indirectly, as an object of discourse or as an object that is being remembered by River and Philomène, to whom the gris-gris bag is an invaluable symbol of protection, as well as the relic of an ancestral culture they hold dear. Leonie, River and Philomène’s daughter, refuses to accept this legacy: on the contrary Jojo, Leonie’s son, is receptive to his grandfather's stories, culture and traditions. Thus, when he embarks with Leonie on a roadtrip to drive Jojo’s father back from Parchman prison, it is Jojo who receives the only tangible gris-gris bag in/of the work. This article examines the gris-gris bag and its ambivalence as a memory-bearer in Ward's work. The object stands for the rehabilitation of African American voodoo cults and cultures and yet, it also holds a traumatic memory harking back to slavery and mass incarceration. Our aim is thus to analyze the representation of transmission in the text by focusing on the deep-rooted ambivalence surrounding the gris-gris bag.