Gage Counts: No gender performance for Junior

In Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward creates a cast of characters which defies gender roles. For example, Esch is shown as doing every task that her brothers do, and no character attempts to change that. Randall was the primary person to raise Junior. While the novel is tinted with a criticism of gender performances, Ward lets us know the complexity of the situation, and that gender roles might be necessary.

Randall is shown to have raised Junior more than anyone else: "When he was a baby, Randall held him [Junior] the most, and I did the rest of the time" (91). This is meant to demonstrate that the world of Salvage the Bones is set up to defy traditional gender roles. Ward shows that this situation could have consequences which aren't easily resolved.

Esch recalls that when they all went to school, and Papa to work, Junior was left with Mudda Ma'am, who ran an informal day care. Esch says that Junior "never talks about her, never says her name even when we walk down to the park and see her wandering..." (ibid). She adds that she sometimes wonders if he remembers anything, "or if his head is like a colander, and the memories of who bottle-fed him, who licked his tears, who mothered him, squeeze through the metal like water to run down the drain..." (ibid). A possible explanation for this is that there was no dominant female, motherly gender performer in his life.

Gender roles are often hoisted onto others, but Ward shows that it might not be good if they're abandoned. Junior is the only child who didn't have his mother raise him, and a consequence of this is that he mentions nothing of his upbringing. We're led to believe that he mentions nothing because he remembers nothing. A failure to remember one's upbringing could be destructive to the growth of a person. While Ward seems to be a critic of gender (her writing at least allows that possibility), she also cautions that some roles - which are missing in Bois Sauvage - could be worth performing.