"I tried to read this morning, but I stopped in the quest for the Golden Fleece, distracted again by

Medea, who can only think of Jason, her face red, her heart aflame, engulfed by sweet pain. The goddess struck her with love, and she had no choices. I could not concentrate. My stomach was its own animal, and thoughts of Manny kept surfacing like swimmers in my brain; I had my own tender pain"(p. 109).

This passage demonstrates how deeply Esch relates to Medea. In the myth, Hera casts a spell of Medea, causing Medea to fall madly in love with Jason. Medea cannot stop thinking about Jason, and would do anything for him, no matter the request. Esch, as well, is completely infatuated by Manny, her own Jason. His rude actions and cold attitude towards does not matter in the eyes of Esch; her love always forgives him. However, for both Medea and Esch, their love isn’t enough; they are both brutally betrayed by the men they think they love. Jason and Manny are cruel to the girls, insulting their pride and choosing another girl to love. This passage is important because reveals the pain that often comes with love and loyalty.

This is an artistic depiction of Medea, created by Evelyn Pickering De Morgan in 1889 from London. It was displayed in the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead.  

A white rose was chosen to symbolize Esch. A white rose symbolizes innocence, youth, and the idea that “I am worthy of you.” Esch is young, and innocence, driven by what she thinks is love. Her youth, her innocence, causes her to want to prove her worth to Manny; she wants Manny to love her back. The rose no longer symbolizes Esch at the end of the book. She soon realizes that Manny isn’t worth it (as well as when the hurricane stips her of her youth as she tries to survive).

“In Mythology, I am still reading about Medea and the quest for the Golden Fleece. Here is someone that I recognize. When Medea falls in love with Jason, it grabs me by the throat. I can see her. Medea sneaks Jason things to help him: ointments to make him invincible, secrets in rocks. She has magic, could bend the natural to the unnatural. But even with all her power, Jason bends her like a young pine in a hard wind; he makes her double in two. I know her.” (Ward 38)

The Quest of the Golden Fleece appeals specifically to Esch because, like Medea, she has fallen for someone who doesn’t love her back. After reading about how Medea offered so much to Jason but still never received the love she sought for, Esch realized that she was in the same situation. Never once rejecting Manny’s desires, he still never came around to love her. Esch, hurting from having to watch Manny being with his girlfriend and aware that he is the father of her baby, later realizes that she is not alone and has all the men she needs in her life.

Medea

In this picture, Medea is giving Theseus the poisoned cup, who is sitting next to his father King Aegeus.

Painted by William Russell Flint

 “In Mythology, I am still reading about Medea and the quest for the Golden Fleece. Here is someone that I recognize. When Medea falls in love with Jason, it grabs me by the throat. I can see her. Medea sneaks Jason things to help him: ointments to make him invincible, secrets in rocks. She has magic, could bend the natural to the unnatural. But even with all her power, Jason bends her like a young pine in a hard wind; he makes her double in two. I know her.”

-       Esch, Page 38

In Medea, Esch sees small pieces of herself. Her situation shadows Medea’s, a girl who gives everything to help a boy she thought she loved. As ties are severed and bridges are burned with Manny, Esch’s Jason, she realizes asking Manny to act as the father is unfeasible and unrealistic. She starts out in the novel as a small, breakable girl afraid to use her voice but grows into something sturdy and fierce-willed. 

Picture of Medea ↑

This artwork was submitted to historywitch.com in 2015. The artist is unknown.

I chose a picture of a wolf to symbolize Esch’s character at the end of the novel because I think it represents the brawn and grit Esch has learned to accept as a part of her life, and additionally, her.

“When the sun rests on the rim of the trees, we leave, and Manny is on the court now with his girl. They are playing a game of one-on-one, and he is taunting her, knocking the ball out of her hand so it ricochets across the court. Her laughter carries on the softening pink wind. Big Henry closes his door. I slam mine, and Randall scoots over to the passenger side of the windshield. Junior holds the top of the door, still standing on his bike, and Big Henry folds his big paw over Junior’s. Big Henry taps the gas and then eases, and this is how we follow Skeetah and China, who are both running now, both sucking dark and blazing bright under the setting sun and the scudding clouds all the way home.”

This event is significant because it reveals similarities between Medea and Esch, and it shows Esch’s emotions and reactions to Manny’s new relationship. It reveals that Esch feels a connection to Medea because, similarly to Medea, she felt that she showed all the love she possibly could to Manny and made huge sacrifices for him (the baby). When Esch realized she had been replaced, she reacted similarly to Medea finding out that Jason did not love her back. This was seen when Esch angrily drives away, which can be compared to Medea rejecting the gold Jason offered, and Medea completely cutting Jason off.

This allusion also revealed a central theme of jealousy. Jealousy made both Medea and Esch have different attitudes towards having children than most people. In Medea’s case, jealousy and hatred ultimately resulted in her killing the children, while Esch dreaded having the child and wished she could have gotten an abortion. This theme is significant and was revealed by this allusion because it showed Esch's feelings of regret and hatred.

This is an oil painting on canvas that was painted by Joseph Mallord William Turner in 1828. It shows Medea killing her children and performing spells with the spell recipes laying on the ground around her.

I think that a lifeboat symbolizes Esch. This is because lifeboats are always used in times of danger when a boat is sinking and people need to be saved. The events that happen right before the book ends can be symbolized by a sinking boat. Since Esch survived these terrible events (harmful both emotionally and physically) and has to pull her life back together, she can be represented as a lifeboat because lifeboats provide order like she did in the end by attempting to keep her family calm and safe, and saving her baby.

Medea and Esch comparison

"I wondered if Medea felt this way before she walked out to meet Jason for the first time, like a hard wind come through her and set her to shaking (p. 7)."  Esch says this before going out to see Manny at the time of the birth of the puppies.  She feels this way because in her mind she's deeply in love with him even though he just views her as an object who he can have sex with whenever he wants (but she doesn't know this).  This is similar to how Medea felt, very excited to meet Jason, but at the same time feeling very uncomfortable, so much so that she even felt like she might not have even been able to do it.

This is a picture of Medea killing her brother in order to help Jason.  She felt like she was so in love with Jason that she would do anything.

This is a picture of a tree in the middle of the dessert because it symbolizes how even though almost everything around Esch is virtually gone of seriously damaged by the hurricane, she manages to stay strong.

"He is looking. He is seeing me, and his hands are coming around to feel the honeydew curve, the swell that is more than a swell, the fat that is not fat, the budding baby, and his eyes are so black they are all black, and they are a night without stars. All I have ever wanted. He knows. "Fuck!" Manny yells, and he is throwing me up and off of him. I hit the door behind me, the rough cat tongue of his face gone, and I grip steel, air, northing." (p.146)

Much like how Jason accepts Medea's help and companionship, but rejects her love, Manny wants to hook up with Esch but rejects her love and her pregnancy. This is a pivotal moment in Esch's character development because she goes from wanting Manny more than anything else to hating him, similar to the one-eighty Medea has when Jason gets engaged to the daughter of the King of Corinth. For the setting of modern day Mississippi having a child is when one has to commit to a relationship fully, and in the setting of ancient Greece that point was marriage. When both Medea and Esch get rejected at this point they have lost what they wanted most. This connection between Esch and Medea is important to the novel because it shifts from the perspective of trying to achieve a goal to trying to recover from the failure to reach that goal. This is the point where Esch's and Medea's paths start to differ, because while Medea dedicates herself to revenge after being rejected by Jason, Esch is able to move on and recover from being rejected by Manny, although it is a slow and painful process.

This representation of Medea was done in 1898 by Alfons Mucha as a poster for a French play telling the story of Medea.

At the end of the novel, Bois Sauvage lies in ruins, all of Skeets dogs are dead, Randall can't pursue his basketball career, Esch is pregnant and has been rejected by the father of the baby. Despite all the chaos and destruction around her, Esch remains calm and fights through it all, like this guy on the boat.

"In ancient Greece, for all her heroes, for Medea and her mutilated brother and her devastated father, water meant death. I heard the clanking of metal on metal outside, some broken machine tilting like a sinking headstone against another, and I knew it was the wind pushing a heavy rain." (Ward 216).

With all the drama going on, it is easy to forget that this is not just a love story but a chronicle of Hurricane Katrina too, and vice versa. In the myth, the Argonauts face many trials and tribulations getting from one place to another: The water itself with its currents, waves, and ability to pull anyone to their deaths; Charybdis who was also a challenge in The Odyssey; storms, magical rocks, the wrath of gods and everything in between. The heavy rain is a harbinger of what's to come when the hurricane hits full-on, the flooding, the water, and the desperation pull apart the lives of many living in Mississippi, take the lives of so many. With Esch at the center of her own personal storm, it was incredibly insightful for Jesmyn Ward to include that very bit to remind us that this is both a story of unrequited love and pain, and at the same time nature's treachery that no mortal can control. 

This image represents Esch at the end of the book because she has finally let go of her love or what she thought was love, and realized she has more ("this baby got plenty daddies") that is worth keeping close to herself. She is recovering from devastating events, both nature and the war going on inside herself and with Manny.

Jason and Medea Charming the Sleepless Dragon by C.G. Battista

In the above painting, we can see Medea leading the way and Jason gladly taking her help.

"She took from the chest a most lovely robe. This she anointed with deadly drugs and placing it in a casket she sent her sons with it to the new bride." Medea is much like the character J.D from the movie "Heathers." In one of the first scenes of the movie J.D and Veronica go to one of the Heathers house to play a trick on her. Veronica didn't know what he was doing, but he put rat poisoning in the cup. Veronica gave it to heather without knowing that what it was would lead Heather to her death, much like the situation where Medea gave her sons the robe to give to Jason's wife.

This picture shows Medea carrying her children that she killed. It was painted by Paul Huet in 1803 after Eugène Delacroix. 

Above is a photo of two cacti growing in the same pot. This symbolizes J.D because J.D grew up to be just like his father. It is not his fault, growing under the same roof as his father he inherited all of his traits. 

“I loved you!” This is Medea wielding the knife. This is Medea cutting. I rake my fingernails across his face, leave pink scratch that turn red, fill with blood.” (pg. 204) 

There is no doubt that Esch and Medea are similar and it is in this quote that Ward explicitly connects them as well as Jason and Manny. Esch refers to her physically harming Manny as Medea wielding the knife. In “The Quest of the Golden Fleece” Medea does not physically harm Jason but rather harms those close and dear to him (his two children and his other wife). Earlier in the book, it is clearly seen that whenever Esch is simply infatuated by Manny, similar to the way how Medea is completely in love with Jason, and it seems that this one person (Jason/Manny) is what both women’s lives seemingly revolve around throughout the stories until both realize that the love they have for their partners is not reflected back upon them and they cut this strong bond between themselves and their partner. For Esch, it shows her independence and her strength as a woman and a mother.

This is a painting of Medea about to kill her children as a way of hurting Jason and separating herself from him. It was painted by Eugene Delacroix in 1838 and currently hangs in the Louvre in Paris. 

I believe that this image of a butterfly represents Esch at the end of the book the best because butterflies are known to be a symbolic representation of new life. Not only is Esch going to be bringing a new life into the world but throughout the course of the novel to where and who Esch is at the end, it seems as though she has created somewhat of a new life for herself where some of her ideas and thoughts have changed or developed, she has let go of Manny, and is focused on different as well as more important things in her life, especially her pregnancy.

"In Mythology, I am still reading about Medea and the quest for the Golden Fleece. Here is someone that I recognize. When Medea falls in love with Jason, it grabs me by my throat. I can see her. Medea sneaks Jason things to help him: ointments to make him invincible, secrets in rocks. She has magic, could bend the natural to the unnatural. But even with all her power, Jason bends her like a young pine in a hard wind; he makes her double in two. I know her." (Salvage the Bones, pg. 38)

This section of Salvage the Bones is one of the very first times Esch mentions Medea and it introduces how Esch can relate to Medea and her relationship with Jason. In the passage, Esch points out how Medea, even though she is extremely powerful, is still hurt by Jason and his betrayal. Esch, who is also very tough and independent, growing up poor with an alcoholic father, is similarly crushed by the way that Manny treats her. So, this passage is important to the text because it is revealing the more fragile side of Esch, showing how even she cannot protect herself from the pain of heartbreak and betrayal.

John William Waterhouse created this oil painting, titled “Jason and Medea” in 1907. In the painting, Medea is preparing a potion for Jason to help him complete the tasks set for him by her father.

This picture of a flower growing in a harsh environment represents Esch by the end of the novel. Against many odds including a dangerous hurricane, Manny leaving her, and an extremely sick father, Esch has found courage in herself and has managed to grow and thrive into a strong and independent young woman. She realizes that she doesn’t need Manny as a father to her child and that she can successfully raise her child on her own. 

This Greek vase is called a Red Figure Krater, which reflects the firing technique Greeks used to create their pottery until the 3rd century BC. Medea is depicted killing her sons in this image, which specifically dates back to 340-320 BC. 

This picture of a hurricane symbolizes Esch at the end of the novel, both literally and metaphorically. Esch is the eye of the storm, the calm in the middle of chaos. Despite the destruction around her as a result of hurricane Katrina, (the death, starvation, and crumbling infrastructure) Esch has found a calm in herself. She becomes independent from Manny and realizes that she can mother her child regardless of the turmoil around her, just as the eye of a hurricane is a break in the storm unaffected by the heavy winds and rain surrounding it.  

“Daddy is shoving his way inside, the sound of the wood like a gunshot ricocheting through the room so that I think he’s broken the hinge, but the door stays upright. The cobwebs leave a gray trail and there’s a leaf stuck in his hair. His T-shirt is dark at the pits and the neck and down the middle of his back. His boots hit so hard on the floor that he sounds like he's going through the rotted wood. He’s not much bigger than us. Is this what Medea saw, when she decided to follow Jason, to flee her father with her brother? Did she see through her father’s rich robes to the small-shouldered man beneath?

I think that this mention of Medea is important because it says a lot about what Esch thinks of her father. She is looking at her father, wondering if Medea felt the same way when she decided to leave her father and brother for a man she loved much more, Jason. Esch is curious to know if Medea was able to “see through her father’s rich robes to the small-shouldered man beneath”, which relates back to Esch’s feelings for her father. Even though he is not a king and does not wear fancy robes, she is able to see through him and knows that he is not as tough as he makes himself out to be. This passage about Medea helps the reader to understand how little Esch thinks of her father.

This is a mixing vessel made from terracotta. It has Medea departing on her chariot with the dragons painted on it. The artist is the Plicoro painter and it was created late 5th-early 4th century bc. It is titled the Medea Krater, and is now in the Cleveland museum of art.

It think that this picture of Rosie the Riveter best describes Esch by the end of the book. The picture is a sign of female empowerment and being confident. By the end of the book, Esch becomes confident and is growing into a strong, independent young woman. She realizes that she does not deserve to keep being rejected and used by Manny, and knows that even though the biological father does not want to be there for her and her baby, she has many father figures surrounding her, so the baby will have many dads.

"I gotta go.” He turns, shows me the back of his head, his hair, his shoulders. Now I see it, now I don’t. “I’m pregnant.” He stops in profile. His nose is like a knife. “And?”…..."It’s yours.” “What?” “Yours.”

Manny shakes his head. The knife cuts….”I ain’t got nothing here,” he says. Manny blinks at me when he says it. Looks at me head-on, for the second time ever. “Nothing.” (203)

 This conversation Esch has with Manny closely parallels Medea’s own rejection from Jason after the retrieval of the Golden Fleece and their marriage. Ward connects Esch and Medea through their care and devotion to the men they love, both of whom use and abandon the two girls for their own selfish purposes. Furthermore, just as Jason intends to leave Medea as “a woman in exile with helpless little children (Mythology 128)” , Manny deserts Esch with their child, leaving the baby unprotected and fatherless. Both Esch and Medea’s lovers are in denial of their own faults as well, with Manny refusing to admit he impregnated Esch and Jason believing “[Medea’s] exile was her own fault only (Mythology 129).” This passage reflects a point in the novel where Esch can not stand Manny and his apathy towards her, and finally takes a stand against him. As a result of this conversation she attacks Manny physically, similar to how Medea kills Jason’s bride as revenge when she learns he wants to exile her. This passage highlights a turning point for Esch, where she realizes Manny’s detachment and becomes independent, imitating Medea’s independence from the man that was using her. 

"I tried to read this morning, but I stopped in the quest for the Golden Fleece, distracted again by
Medea, who can only think of Jason, her face red, her heart aflame, engulfed by sweet pain. The goddess struck her with love, and she had no choices. I could not concentrate. My stomach was its own animal, and thoughts of Manny kept surfacing like swimmers in my brain; I had my own tender pain"(p. 109).

This Passage in Salvage the Bones, shows the similarities between Esch and the mythical Medea. While in the tale, Medea can only find herself thinking of Jason as he is the man Medea loves. Esch's situation is one very similar, as she finds herself thinking constantly about her love Manny. In this passage, we not only see that the way they act toward Jason and Manny is similar, but more we see that they both have a "sweet" or "tender" pain towards the two men.


This is a vase located in the Naples Archeological Museum that depicts Medea distracting the dragon. A purposeful diversion so that Jason on the right can take the Golden Fleece from the tree.

"Tears run down my face like water and I cover my face with my shirt but it is too hot and I can't make it go away. I can never make it stop never nothing. When Jason betrayed Medea to exile so he could marry another woman, she killed his bride, the bride's father, and last her own children, and then flew away into the wind on dragons. She shrieked; Jason heard"(p. 205).

This passage relates the story of Medea and Esch because they had both lashed out in anger at their lovers because they saw they loved another woman. This comparison reveals the way Manny and Esch, and Jason and Medea feel about each other. Esch and Medea both love the men, and expect them to feel the same way, but both Jason and Manny no longer care about them, so they move on to different women. Later when Randall asks if he should beat up Manny, it reinforces the theme of family and Esch's family sticking together.

This picture is of Medea's chariot of dragons, which she was gifted from her grandfather Helios.

Welcome to the Class Blog!

Welcome to the class blog. This is where you will carry on the class conversation in the digital realm. Think of it much like an extension of the classroom, where you will have the opportunity to share your ideas, questions, opinions, and creative writing. Some basic rules:

1. Always be polite and respectful when commenting or posting.
2. If you're starting a new idea or question, always post. When responding to a classmate, create a comment to start a conversation thread.
3. Have fun, and post to the blog whenever you have something to share with the class. Don't just wait for me to assign a post. You can blog about anything relevant to the course--be it something you come across on the internet or in another area of your life that connects to what we've been reading or talking about. If you have some idea or question you've been mulling over on your own, go ahead and post that. If you see a connection between a song you love and a character we're reading about, post that. The possibilities are limitless.

The blog is all about making connections between us and between texts (whatever those "texts" may be). Connect away!