Sing, Unburied, Sing Literary Elements

Literary fiction, suspense, coming-of-age

The fictional town of Bois Sauvage in Mississippi

Jojo, Leonie, and Richie alternate telling the story in first-person narrations.

The tone is somber. The mood is somewhat gothic.

The main protagonist of the story is Jojo. The antagonist can be seen as Parchman, or as institutionalized racism/violence.

Jojo must learn about his family's painful past as he brings his father home from the state penitentiary.

The climax of the story is when the reader learns the details surrounding Richie's death.

Jojo killing the goat in the opening scene foreshadows the painful and gruesome events he will soon learn about.

Mam's thinning hairline understates how her body is being ravaged by a deadly cancer.

There is a literary allusion to Macbeth when Pop refers to the continuing sensation of having blood on his hands following the death of Richie.

The image of Richie and the other African American spirits trapped in the tree is a strong visual portrayal of the communal sense of grief.

The book questions the idea of linear reality and instead amplifies the idea of circular time. There is a paradox about the supposed "freedom" of Black Americans when laws and systems continue to exist that amplify oppression.

There is a parallelism between Richie and Jojo, since they are both adolescent Black boys that face the perils of a racist society.

Mam's thinning hair is a synecdoche that symbolizes her painful death from cancer. Parchman is a metonymy for a system of racist, state-funded oppression.

The environment of Bois Sauvage is personified in order to underscore the vitality of elements that are often considered "inanimate."