The Novel Salvage the Bones - Essay Example

?“Salvage the Bones” exhibits Skeetah’s love for China and China’s dependence on Skeetah. In the novel “Salvage the Bones”, the speaker of the story,Esch is a reserved booklover from whose viewpoint we move through the paths of the entire plot. She introduces her brothers one by one with the readers and in this way we come to learn about Skeetah and China. On the other hand, “Housekeeping” exhibits Ruth’s gradual attachment with Sylvie and then her slow transformation into a woman who’s inspired by Sylvie’s secluded, eccentric life style. The speaker in this case is Ruth and the story starts with the introduction of the imaginary town of Fingerbone and Ruth and her sister’s struggled life. The novels “Salvage the Bones” and “Housekeeping” both presents different shades of relationships. It can be drawn from both the stories that at two different scenarios, two different kind of connection has developed. Skeetah and China’s relationship depicts something of paternal link while Ruth and Sylvie’s relationship depicts a kind of adaptive connection. Skeetah takes care of China just like a father shows concern for his child and Ruth presents her viewpoint about Sylvie stating that she is scared that Sylvie would leave her and her sister just like the other people. Junior, The youngest of all never saw his mother. He appeared to be more like animals than humans. Junior spent his days in a warren in the terrain beneath the dwelling. The grown-up children had moderately creative leisure time. Randall, the eldest kid, is expectant for learning basketball, whilst Skeetah is besotted with his pitbull named China (Ward 2011). Skeetah takes good care of China. China won’t permit anybody to touch her except Skeetah. China used to hide all the shoes in the house when she was a puppy. Esch remembers how her mother died while giving birth to Junior. She refused going to the hospital every time she gave birth to a child but during Junior’s birth the circumstance turned totally and finally he husband took her to the hospital from where she never came back. Skeetah was so caring about China that it seems he was returning all that which he misses after losing his mother. He protected China and fought with his siblings when she was about to give birth to the puppies. He shouts at Randall saying, “Get out the doorway. You are making her nervous”, “She need room to breathe”. At that moment the readers can realize how much concern he has for China. Moreover his love for China becomes evident when he spent sleepless nights in China’s den for seven long days just to help her during the moment of the childbirth. While China bore the labor pain, Skeetah continuously ran her hands on her, through her fur to keep her calm, to protect her from the spectators (randall, Esch and Junior) and to help her in the process, just like a man helps her lady through these times. Thus the relationship between Skeetah and China exhibits an association that is a mixture of love, care and friendship. “Housekeeping” has been set in the imaginary city of Fingerbone. The novel reflects an account belonging to the 1950s that revolved around female characters and their further complex and difficult relationships. The novel inevitably gives rise to the question, “are women bound to be left alone at the end?” The background of the novel has been set in the deserted hills of Idaho. The imaginary city appears to be the conclusion of the world as it determines the finish of the rail line for a number of train tourist of the city. The story revolves around the motherless lives of Ruth and Luci and how their caretakers changes from their Grandmother Sylvia Foster, to her “sisters-in-law, Misses Lily and Nona Foster” and then finally to their aunt Mrs. Sylvia Fisher. The major portion of the narrative reflects the kind of relationship shared by Sylvie Foster Fisher and Ruth and Luci. The story describes a situation where the kids struggle to link with a motherly figure that is missing in their life. Throughout this hunt the sisters started separating from one another while they tried hard to discover their own selves. When the sisters heard that their mother’s sister, Sylvie will be arriving at Fingerbone to play the role of their next caretaker they started assuming her appearance and her similarities with their mother. Their state of mind was captured in the statement, “She would be our mother’s age, and might amaze us with her resemblance to our mother”. This familiar anticipation between Luci and Ruth is the key factor for the deterioration of their tie as, disenchanted in Sylvie; they got detached to look for their individual identities. Sylvie used to be a free spirited, peculiar lady who used to get irritated with Fingerbone. Luci was against the eccentric ways followed by Sylvie while Ruth found her mother in Sylvie. A remarkable scene of the plot appears when Luci, who grew weary of her aunt’s unusual and unconventional means of leading life switches on the light while having meal. Sylvie preferred to have dinner in the dim as she hated the somberness of the gloomy windows adjacent to a lit-up room. However Ruth found Sylvie just similar to Helen (her mother), in fact, the resemblance between Helen and Sylvie became so powerful that Ruth started having trouble differentiating both and at one instance she stated “Sylvie began to blur the memory of my mother, and then to displace it”. Ruth and Lucille used to get scared that Sylvie would leave them too, like others. They used to assume that she would vanish as strangely as she had emerged. As was stated by Ruth, Sylvie ''seldom removed her coat, and every story she told had to do with a train or bus station.'' Sylvie’s story’s always indicated sadness and pain as was stated by the narrator, ''intricate and melancholy tales of people she had known slightly.'' Sylvie seemed unattached to the girls even though instances like buying “blue velveteen ballet slippers” for the girls showed Sylvie’s care for her nieces. Near the beginning days of their association, Ruth started to empathize with Sylvie. Desertion is a thing that Ruth has already faced several times at a tender age and thus never wished to set her aunt in such a circumstance. In the meantime, in the case of Lucille the plot brings up chances for her to logically justify her own desertion later on in life. The entire story demonstrates the journey of life where people have been represented as passer bys, one comes and the other goes and this bitter truth of life gradually made the motherless kids turn into mature persons. Finally the readers come to see the extent to which Ruth finds herself attached to Sylvie and Sylvie’s influence on her later life, which teaches her to lead a life secluded from the society just as Sylvie used to do (Robinson 2005). Thus “Salvage the Bones” reflects a situation in which a family unit struggles hard to continue their lives without the care of a motherly figure. The story revolves round a scenario where the family gets ready for facing a Hurricane that’s getting stronger in the Gulf of Mexico and the father of the kids is working hard to gather foods and supplies for facing the storm. The story reveals the effort of the five kids who keep on sacrificing for each other. Their efforts protect them and help them to get ready for another day. The entire novel ultimately tells the readers how the helpless kids can feel without the proper care and guidance of their parents. A similar situation can be seen in the novel “Housekeeping” where Ruth and Lucille gets the care of several caretakers but in the absence of their mother the kids feel extremely lonely and they always fear that their aunt Sylvie would leave them. In both the situation different patterns of relationship has been portrayed namely the brother-sister fights, the paternal love for the pit bull, the father’s concern for his children and Ruth’s adaptive relationship with her aunt. Finally the plot reflects a new hope for each day amongst melancholy and struggle and it further defines two different “growing up” process in different milieus without the apt care of parents. Works Cited Ward, Jesmyn. Salvage the Bones.New York: Bloomsbury. 2011. Robinson, Marilynne. HOUSEKEEPING. USA: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. 2005. Read More