Quinn Lynn
“Hurt people hurt people” is an expression that describes the cycle of abuse trauma can create. The phrase loosely describes how abuse can lead to complex, hard-to-understand actions such as further abuse. This phenomenon of trauma complicating motivation and agency is seen in many books, such as Jesymyn Ward’s Salvage The Bones, James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, and Nella Larsen’s Passing. Each book contains a character who undergoes some form of trauma that makes their further actions confusing for the reader. However, each book contains or invites ways to track these abused characters' evolving agency. In Salvage The Bones, Ward uses symbolic language to explore Esch’s evolving relationship with her abuser and herself. In Giovanni’s Room, Baldwin uses the passive voice to subtly portray how cycles of trauma can form. And in Passing, Larsen portrays such true-tolife characters that outside theories can be implemented to explain their confusing relationships. Each of these texts presents three valuable ways a reader can track and interpret traumatized characters.
Jesymyn Ward’s Salvage The Bones demonstrates how the intentional and repeated use of symbolic language can grant access to an otherwise closed-off character. In the novel, nothing is more powerful than nature itself. Living off the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a hurricane hotspot, Esch and her family are uniquely aware of this fact. The novel itself is built around nature’s power, with tension building in constant anticipation of Hurricane Katrina. Tension is also built upon a second conflict: Esch’s battle to understand her agency as a girl and a soon-to-be mother after being nonconsensually impregnated by Manny. Ward uses the language of unstoppable natural powers to describe Esch’s perception of
Manny and Esch’s unborn child’s position in their respective relationships with her. Ward even has Esch linguistically transform herself into a storm. Through this use of natural language, Ward grants Manny, the child, and Esch the qualities, in Esch’s mind, of their real-life counterparts. Ward’s linguistic transformation of characters into forces of nature can be used to track and understand Esch’s agency as she works through her trauma.
Ward initially casts Manny as the sun to demonstrate Esch’s early willing subordination to him. At the novel’s start, Esch is in love with Manny. Although Manny’s gaze pierces the “thin” walls of Esch's house as easily as hurricane wind, Ward does not truly parallel the two, reflecting how Esch is not afraid of him as she is the later storm. Ward describes Manny’s presence as making Esch feel shaken “by a hard wind” rather than literally shaking her; his storm-like qualities are indirect and easily brushed off by Esch (7). Instead of a storm, Ward writes that Esch thinks of Manny as “the sun,” a being that gives Esch warmth and life. Ward’s characterization of Manny highlights that Esch has placed herself as a willing subordinate to him. Esch is perpetually beneath Manny, a girl against the sun; she has mentally placed him on a pedestal, transferring all-powerful control to Manny. Further, this characterization betrays facts about Esch and Manny’s relationship that are still unbeknownst to Esch: Manny’s position in their relationship is as passive and unloving as the sun, while Esch is foolishly praising him simply for existing. Ward reveals that Esch has given Manny total agency in their relationship by characterizing Manny as the sun.
Ward shifts the specific language that characterizes Manny to reflect Esch’s transforming perception of her place within their
dynamic. Ward begins to implement this change when Esch realizes Manny has accidentally impregnated her. Ward describes this change in Esch’s perception of Manny by altering Manny's characterization. Now, Esch imagines Manny as a storm “eating up all the sunlight” (99). Ward’s language has become active: rather than saying Esch feels enshrouded, Ward describes Manny as actively devouring sunlight like a hurricane’s cold, uncaring clouds. This tonal change grants the reader access to Esch’s internal emotions. Esch’s future feelings while directly beneath Hurricane Katrina illuminate her current thoughts under Hurricane Manny’s clouds: she feels helplessly “caught,” trapped by a power far greater than her own (219). Further, Ward’s metaphor of Manny “eating [...] sunlight” describes him withholding necessary sustenance love from Esch. Ward’s placement of Esch as the one imagining this action demonstrates that Esch is slowly understanding the true dynamic of their toxic relationship. She is beginning to recognize that, like a storm, she is powerless to force love from him. Esch’s dawning awareness of Manny’s position above her and her inability to join him is described through Ward’s recharacterization of Manny.
Ward surrounds Esch’s baby’s presence with hurricane language to describe Esch’s inability to act against her child. Esch’s baby is initially not directly described as a storm. Still, it's presence Esch’s pregnancy is enough to make Esch feel as though she is in Katrina’s thrall. Esch’s morning sickness disorients her, causing the floor to “til[t] like the bottom of a dark boat” (37). Ward does not describe Esch as feeling the floor tilt; the floor is objectively written as tilting, affecting Esch. Esch’s emotions at this moment can be brought to light by tracking
“til[t].” Ward repeats the word when Esch is trapped in her attic and feels “the house tilt,” her home becoming a dark boat in its own right. Esch can “hardly contain [her] panic” trapped in the rocking attic, and thus she can be assumed to feel the same panic when her morning sickness traps her to the rocking bathroom floor (229). Ward’s parallel also touches on how Esch is not entirely aware of what is scaring her. The parallel sets the world rocking, but does not explicitly denote who or what is rocking it. Esch has no agency because she does not know what to act against. By surrounding Esch’s child’s presence with stormy language, as opposed to the child itself, Ward reveals the twin causes of Esch’s lack of agency.
Ward imbues Esch’s baby itself with hurricane qualities to describe the current condition of Esch’s agency and to illuminate their mother-child dynamic. One morning, Esch wakes up and remarks: “Someone has been beating me” (153). The direct language of “beating” is also used in reference to Katrina, when the hurricane’s “wind beats” the creaking attic roof (228). Ward describes how Esch’s unborn baby is attacking her like a storm attacks a house, and how Esch can only creak, still unable to act against the child. Ward hides a second reference to Hurricane Katrina in Esch’s self-description: the word “someone” is a direct reference to Esch’s baby, emphasizing that Ward is now writing the child as directly affecting Esch rather than influencing the language around her. By objectively classifying Esch’s baby as the “someone [...] beating” her, Ward parallels it to Katrina, the force that later stirs the violent rain and wind. Thus, Ward invites the reader to seek Esch’s thoughts toward her child through Esch’s relation to the hurricane. When Katrina’s winds are beating her,
Esch is huddled in her attic in an attempt to escape rapidly rising water, and cannot run any further; she feels trapped by her pregnancy and powerless to slow it down. Ward turns Esch’s hatchling storm into a full-fledged hurricane to reveal Esch’s evolving relationship with her child.
Ward only introduces nature language in reference to Esch once Esch begins to believe in her agency. This language is found after Esch starts to find peace with the prospect of motherhood. Manny learns Esch is pregnant after they hook up one final time. When he appears, he lets no light into their shared room, “sealing the darkness” around Esch: he is dark and cloudy, blocking all love from reaching her. A hurricane is upon her. Manny feels Esch’s pregnant belly, and he pushes her away and flees (146). Manny’s cruel response changes Esch, and Ward reveals this change by writing a direct reference from Esch about Manny: “he is the coming storm” (200). Since Ward depicts Esch making this reference, she is unveiling that Esch finally understands how powerless she is to take the love she needs from Manny. By understanding that seeking love from him is pointless, Esch can stop searching, and can finally remove herself from their relationship. Esch also begins to view her pregnancy in the same light, as a great power she must work to accept rather than avoid. When Esch’s baby beats at her, Ward describes Esch as physically mirroring a hurricane and “curl[ing] around it” (153). Ward declares that Esch has found her agency by surrounding Esch with stormy language, as she did all the previous characters to whom Esch gave power. Ward is also mirroring the child’s storm with Esch’s to emphasize that the two are connected: Esch is subconsciously beginning to claim it as her child. Ward shows that
Esch has discovered the agency to move beyond Manny and toward her child by implementing storm language to describe her. Ward uses storm language progressively more often to demonstrate that Esch is gaining confidence in her agency. Before Hurricane Katrina hits, Esch confronts Manny about her pregnancy, and when he declares her to mean nothing, she rushes at him: “I am slapping him [...] [I] leave pink scratches that turn red, fill with blood [...] ‘The baby will tell,’ I scream” (204-05). Ward implements hurricane language in this fight against Manny, all of which is repeated during Esch’s fight to survive Katrina: the storm “slap[s] the roof” with leaves (222), creates rivers of rain that run red and brown “like [...] cut[s] that won’t stop leaking” (231), and has wind that “screams” (230). Because this implementation of hurricane language occurs when Esch fights against Manny, Ward is emphasizing that Esch has agency to act against Manny. And since Esch screams, “‘The baby will tell,’” the “will” being an emphatic declaration that she is choosing to claim the child, Ward is underlining that Esch has become proud to be a mother. Esch is not yet sure if anyone will replace Manny as either her lover or her baby’s father, and her baby is still a strict secret from her family. By directly paralleling Esch to Hurricane Katrina, Ward is emphasizing that Esch is aware of her agency regardless. Ward has Esch describe herself with hurricane language, rather than Ward doing it herself, to reflect that Esch has total confidence in her agency. On the final page, Esch speaks: “I have fought. [...] I am a mother” (258). The hurricane language here is contained only to “mother,” as the word is repeated when Esch describes Hurricane Katrina to be “the mother that swept into the Gulf and slaughtered” (255). Ward has written Esch directly
claiming her agency via symbolic status as a hurricane. In explanation, Ward writes that Esch “fought” fought physically against Manny, fought mentally against the fear of her child, and fought to survive Katrina. Allowing Esch to produce the hurricane language rather than implement it herself, Ward is presenting Esch’s agency as something unshakable that has the power of a hurricane. When Esch makes her declaration, the sky is “starsuffocated,” illustrating a cloudless, starry night sky. That great expanse is empty, “waiting” for a new storm to fill it now that Katrina has passed (258). In having Esch proudly state, “I am a mother,” Ward is paralleling Esch’s confident power directly to Katrina’s: the newly emptied sky is Esch’s domain. Esch’s agency is unsurpassable at the end of Salvage The Bones, as demonstrated by Ward’s implementation of hurricane language. She can confidently face future motherhood apart from Manny. Without a critical eye toward natural language, this conclusion is still understandable. But the path to this landing point is much more complicated since the nuances of Esch’s journey of agency are lost. Only by noticing and tracking this linguistic motif left by Ward can a complete understanding of Esch be achieved.
James Baldwin’s novel Giovanni’s Room showcases a second, related way to track agency: subtle language. Baldwin writes David, the main character, to be deliberately unlikeable. David becomes a bully, a player, and a cheater, hurting the people around him, some of whom he genuinely loves, before fleeing. David is alone at the novel's end because of this unending callousness. However, there is textual intent behind his abrasive behavior. David is a gay man who hates his homosexual desire and acts harmfully to remain in motion away from it. He is raised to
despise himself, conditioned by the American glorification of heterosexual masculinity he is steeped in as a boy. David genuinely loves his male partners but is compelled to hurt them, distancing himself to preserve his sense of heterosexual masculinity. At the same time, he forms fraudulent relationships with women to compensate for the reality of his homosexuality, understanding the damage his presence causes but remaining, unable to leave. Although his actions are clear, his reasoning can be very hard to grasp. To remedy this, Baldwin uses subtle language, such as small linguistic motifs and passive language, to guide the reader toward a deeper understanding of David. These subtitles highlight David’s lack of agency and how he is overwhelmed by an urge to preserve his hypermasculinity. James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room demonstrates how abuse distorts agency, using subtle language to allow the reader to track David’s corrupted agency.
David is cruel to Joey because he feels emasculated by Joey, due to his internalized value of heterosexuality. The night they couple, David happily “act[s] with Joey the act of joy” (8). However, come morning, it is “borne in on [him]: But Joey is a boy. [...] [T]he promise [...] of that body made me suddenly afraid [...] I would lose my manhood” (8-9). With the acknowledgment that “a boy” has slept with him, David feels emasculated and unsympathetically blames his emotions on Joey, the “body” that “promise[s]” further emasculation should they stay together. David “could have cried [...] for not understanding how this could have happened to [him]” (9). David does not “understand” how he could be at fault for his emasculation: to admit his consent in the homosexual coupling would be a confession of an intrinsic lack of
masculinity. Passive language is present in his perception of the event as something that “happened to [him],” diverting the blame for his gay actions. To remedy his emasculation, he starts to affirm his masculinity through subconscious actions he “could have cried” but does not, refraining from displaying a traditional sign of femininity. Surprisingly, he does not easily abandon Joey: insistence from the ex-lover that he stays in bed “was all [that would have] needed to [be] done” to stop David (9). But, although he does not want to leave the man with whom he had felt “joy,” he is overwhelmed by the need to preserve his masculinity from the emasculation he attributes to homosexual acts. David’s adopted hypermasculinity causes him to fear his sexuality, poisoning his acts of joy with Joey.
Although David’s next gay relationship is away from America, he is unable to wholly escape his internalized toxic American values. Hoping to become confidently heterosexual, David travels to France (21). But, two years later, his homosexuality has flourished; with the belief that he can easily prune back his sexuality should it be necessary, he has fallen in love with Giovanni (81). With Giovanni, David enters a second act of “joy” that is identical to his brief stint with Joey, but enjoyable “every day” due to his distance from people who value hypermasculinity (76). Unfortunately, this act ends when David discovers his homosexuality has overgrown: He feels for strangers “what [he feels] for Giovanni” (82). He thinks: “[the feelings] which Giovanni [have] awakened in me [will] never go to sleep” (84). David, unable to grasp how he has failed to regulate his homosexuality, feels again like a victim of his queer desire. He views Giovanni as the instigator of desire, blaming his lover for
actively “awaken[ing]” his homosexuality just as he blamed Joey. David preserves his masculinity by imagining himself as passive in the relationship; he would feel emasculated by acknowledging his consent. David begins to hate and fear Giovanni, his masculinity feeling threatened; if his homosexuality “never go[es] to sleep,” David will feel constant queer attraction, jeopardizing his planned return to heteronormativity (84). Although David’s homosexuality blossoms away from America, his fear of permanent emasculation upon reentry to the country begins to wither away his love for Giovanni.
As a remedy for emasculation, David uses his relationship with a woman to affirm his heterosexuality. After leaving the country to consider a marriage proposal, Hella, David’s partner, has returned. David quickly resumes his relationship with Hella, hoping that proximity to femininity will “burn out” his love “of Giovanni” and reignite heterosexual desire within him (122). But David’s desire for feminine proximity does not equate to a desire for marriage when Hella asks if he still wants her as his wife, he hesitates. David feels her “waiting everything seemed to be waiting” (123). If he does not agree to marry her, “everything” may change, for it will be the first time he overpowers his compulsive conformity to traditional masculinity. However, saying no may invite questions regarding his sexuality. David arrives at a solution: “Perhaps I can get out of it without having to tell her anything” (123). He also does not want “to tell her” about his homosexuality since that would feel emasculating. So, he lies to her: “‘I’ve always wanted that.’ I turned to face her [...] as though strong hands on my shoulders had turned me around” (123). The passive voice is used again, describing David’s lack of agency in
his decision: instead of “fac[ing] her” himself, “strong hands” turn him physically towards her and psychologically toward acting heterosexual. David’s internalized pressure to keep his sexuality secret triumphs over his goodness as he turns his back on his homosexuality and the chance at an honest life.
David’s homosexuality displays itself a final time in his resistance to leave Giovanni, but his reinvigorated connection with hypermasculinity through Hella is too overwhelming to resist. David now lives with Hella, and must finally leave his home with Giovanni. Before he can, Giovanni states it was “cruel to have [loved him]” at all (137): David played Giovanni, knowing he would leave when Hella returned but unable to resist the chance to experience his formerly repressed homosexuality (81). David explains his flight away from Giovanni: “‘I’m a man,’ [...] ‘[What] can happen between us?” When affected by proximity to America via Hella, David is unable to understand how an official relationship could “happen” with Giovanni, because his conditioning to desire heterosexuality overwhelmingly opposes their homosexual life together. David narrates: “[M]y feet refused to carry me over to [Giovanni] again.” (143-144). The usage of passive voice once again emphasizes David’s overwhelming American values. He describes how he lacks the agency to move “over to [Giovanni]” at this moment, having no power over his own “feet.” Although David wishes to be with Giovanni, he is unable to rejoin him because his deep-seated desire to be heterosexual overpowers his homosexuality.
David knows his lack of love for Hella hurts her, but is still unable to tell her the truth: he is gay, and their relationship will never flourish. David is finally in the heterosexual relationship that
he craved, but he is still unhappy: “[T]he joy [is] gone” (159). He narrates how “[Hella eventually] ceased to ask me what the matter was, for it was borne in on her that I [...] did not know” (159). Inversely parallel to his previous relationship, David “[does] not know” why he is unable to love Hella. Giovanni is destitute, and David, having money, blames himself. However, David cannot face that he still loves Giovanni: if he understood his lingering attraction, he would acknowledge that proximity to femininity is not successfully affirming his hypermasculinity, and thus that he is no longer able to act heterosexually. Further, he would be hurting Hella unnecessarily. He feels “guilt, when [he] look[s] into her closing face,” aware that his failure to produce the love he promised is cruel (159). But he does not act upon this guilt, unable to tell her the truth when he can still not face it. Although David empathizes with Hella, he cannot leave her because of his constant inability to confront his sexuality.
David is unloving and unlovable when Giovanni’s Room closes, condemned for his unsympathetic actions. Throughout the narrative, as he passes from country to country and home to home, the one constant in his life is the wreckage he leaves behind. However, the text does more than this, constantly using subtle language to highlight how David’s internalized value of hypermasculinity forces his cruelty. This explanation of David’s motive reveals the true abuser that the text critiques the American culture that he grew up in.
A final toxic victim, and one very similar to David, is Irene Redfield from Nella Larsen’s Passing. Similarly to David, Irene acts unsympathetically, thinking and acting in racially prejudiced ways, due to the society she is raised in the drastically racist
society of 1920s America. Irene is a woman worthy of admiration in Harlem’s Black society, having gained prominence and class as a manager of the Negro Welfare League (N.W.L.). But, Irene carries no renown in the racist white society because she is black. She is a victim of unavoidable, overwhelming racism. However, she has a remedy: her lighter skin allows her to create a white persona and pass. Irene’s passing can be thoroughly understood with the use of a third-party theory. In “Mimetic Violence and Nella Larsen’s Passing,” Martha Reineke applies the Girardian theory of mimesis in such a way. Reineke defines mimetic desire, an aspect of mimesis, as a subject’s look “to an other to inform it of what it should desire in order to be” (76). Mimetic desire can be seen in Irene’s passing: the black “subject” Irene, mistreated in white society, sees a respected white “other” and thus “desire[s]” to be white “in order to be” respected. Now, Irene’s mimetic desire her wish to pass is not what makes her unsympathetic. She only becomes unsympathetic when she acts on that desire. The theory of mimesis states that when a “subject” finds an “othe[r],” it desires “to be like the other” and imitates the other’s behavior (Reineke 76). Irene has access to white elites due to her standing in the N.W.L. so, rather than simply relying on her light skin to pass, Irene mimics the mannerisms of these white elites. However, the elites upon whom Irene focuses her desire carry classist and racist beliefs. Irene subconsciously internalizes and reproduces these beliefs while unsympathetically remaining ignorant of her prejudiced behavior. Recognition of mimetic patterns explains Irene’s racism while revealing the otherwise hidden root of it her trauma as a victim of racism.
Irene’s classism is inevitable due to the mimetic nature of
her passing. Through her position in the NWL, Irene meets Hugh Wentworth, a well-renowned member of white society’s elite. She does not like many white people, thinking most to be “stupid” (Larsen 14), but she admires Hugh, thinking him “a dear” (80). The combination of Irene’s disdain and distance from most of white society and her respect for and proximity to Hugh makes him become the “other” whose behavior she internalizes. However, he is a classist. As Irene’s husband Brian points out, Hugh “thinks he’s god,” imagining himself as better than everyone around him (104). Even Irene is aware of Hugh’s classism, noting that he considers most people to be “lazy” and “self-pampering” compared to him (80). But, nonetheless, he is an affluent, high-class white person the exact archetype Irene wishes for herself. His influence upon her is obvious in Irene’s classy attitude, impeccable manners, and, unsympathetically, her classism.
Irene’s treatment of her black maid Zulena displays her classism. Mentioned sporadically throughout the novel, Zulena is barely acknowledged by Irene. When Irene recounts breakfasts, inanimate coffee pots spewing “morning fragrance[s]” that mingle “with the smell[s] of crisp toast and savory bacon” (61) are more thoroughly described than human Zulena, who simply enters “bringing [...] toast” and is promptly forgotten, her exit from the room ignored (63). Irene’s disinterest in Zulena is a mimetic imitation of Hugh's god-complex: just as the elite man himself is superior to everyone, the high-class Irene views the working-class Zulena as so inferior that, at times, she simply ceases to exist in Irene's mind. Irene’s perceived superiority also allows her to racially dehumanize Zulena. During one breakfast, Irene internally narrates that “Zulena, a small mahogany-colored creature, brought
in the grapefruit” (62). Irene calling Zulena a “creature” is inherently dehumanizing, marking her as more animalistic than human. The motif of Irene viewing Zulena as lesser-than connects to her use of “creature,” implying that she views Zulena as carrying civility inferior to her own. With this lesser-than motif in mind, Irene’s distinction of her maid as “mahogany” suggests that she views Zulena’s darker skin as inferior to her own lighter color. Irene’s inattention toward Zulena resembles the treatment of an easy-to-forget pet and not an actual person. Irene’s thoughts here parallel the racial stereotype of Black people being cognitively inferior to white people that was held by the racist white society of the time, showing how perfectly she has imitated the white elite: Irene believes Zulena’s darker skin makes her inferior to her own pale complexion.
Irene’s racism is deep-rooted enough to be considered part of her identity, as demonstrated by her mistreatment of her husband. Irene’s estrangement of Brian begins with his desire to go to Brazil. Although Irene is aware of how “important” Brain’s travel desire is, it “annoy[s] her” (66). She never embraces his wish, placing her desire to preserve “the smooth routine of her household” over his and marking her wish superior without ever attempting to understand his (66). In dismissing his desire, Irene alienates Brian: she makes no effort to remedy his “restlessness,” knowingly causing him to feel “lonely” and “unhappy” because she views his needs as inferior to hers. She treats him very similarly to Zulena: compared to her, both are inferior. The two are connected, having respective “deep copper” and “mahogany” tones, marking them as blacker than Irene, which emphasizes that their color is the basis of Irene marking them inferior. Irene
continues to demonstrate her racism, revealing that she views any person with darker skin than hers as inferior to her while eating breakfast with Brian. Discussing the act of passing, Irene remarks “It’s funny about ‘passing.’ [...] we rather admire it” (63). The implication of Irene’s “admir[ation]” is that she esteems lightskinned people, such as herself, who can pass and thus gain respect in white society. Irene views dark-skinned characters as less admirable more inferior than light-skinned characters because their blackness does not allow them to pass and join her high-class standing.
Irene is alone at the novel's end, her racism having driven her entire community away. The theory of mimesis, present throughout the novel, allows this understanding of the novel. The lens of mimesis has limitations there are Black characters who pass for affluent white women towards whom Irene also holds disdain. There are also thorough explanations of the novel that succeed without the introduction of mimesis: Irene may deliberately alienate dark-skinned characters in an attempt to purify her white persona by ridding herself of black relationships, or her condemnation could be a result of self-hating racism, rather than general prejudice. But the use of mimetic theory explains Irene’s actions clearly and succinctly: she is a victim who, having the means to escape her subordination, puts an end to her racist treatment.
Implementing symbolic linguistic motifs and subtle language techniques, and writing in evidence that could support theories, are all ways an author can realistically simulate the effects of abuse. Although there are no weather metaphors in real life, a victim’s perception of their abuser and of themselves can be
incredibly valuable information. Passive language can be noticeable in speech patterns, and theories can be applied to reallife situations in order to more thoroughly understand them. The books themselves also offer case studies on different traumatic responses. In Salvage The Bones, Esch responds to trauma by shutting down and telling no one of what happened. This is an accurate response to trauma, and understanding this response can allow readers to understand why people they know who have experienced trauma may appear distant, or why they themselves might have closed themselves off from the world. Similarly, Giovanni’s Room and Passing both display how cycles of abuse can form. In the former, David hurts those around him in a form of self-punishment, hating his homosexuality, and in an effort to save himself from that homosexuality. In the later, Irene’s desire to no longer be subject to abuse drives her to lower others so that, by comparison, she is raised up. Although the specifics of all three texts are not completely applicable to the real world, the lessons a reader learns from following each book’s respective hidden path can grant the reader tools to spot patterns of abuse in the world around them.
Works Cited
Baldwin, James. Giovanni’s Room. Vintage Books, 1956.
Larsen, Nella. Passing. Signet Classic, 2021.
Reineke, Martha. “Mimetic Violence and Nella Larsen’s Passing: Toward a Critical Consciousness of racism.” Contagion:
Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, vol. 5, no. 1, 1998, pp. 74–97, https://doi.org/10.1353/ctn.1998.0005.
Ward, Jesmyn. Salvage the Bones: A Novel. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.