Woman's Best Friend: Esch's Responses to China in "Salvage the Bones" Janelle Askew College

Throughout Savage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward places considerable emphasis on growth and change within Esch -- whether the multiple descriptions of Esch’s pregnant belly, or how she sees herself as a fighter who breaks the stereotypical male-female dynamic by becoming the stronger, more mature party in her affair with Manny. This focus is interesting because her growth is in direct relation to China in almost all cases. Particularly in the case of Esch’s journey into womanhood. In this essay, I will show that China’s role in the novel is to be a direct guiding presence to Esch. Through many paradoxes within China’s life, Esch is able to relate and learn.

We first see evidence of China having a direct impact in Esch’s life in the very first page of the novel. As China is in labor to deliver her puppies, Esch immediately correlates this to the death of her mother. Esch’s mother birthed all four of her children in their Mississippi house, like China and Esch, her mother is described as a fighter. Her mother was determined not to go to the hospital even as she hemorrhaged blood after Junior’s birth, and as China is giving birth in the very same “pit” Esch relate herself to China while relating China to her mother. Esch tells the reader...