Red at the Bone

Chapter 16 demonstrates the complications of identity through Iris’s struggles with her sexuality. First, Woodson expresses Iris’s desire for Jam with the motif of body parts; Iris is fascinated by Jam’s body, nearly obsessed: “falling in love with the way Jam’s legs moved as she walked […] Jam’s hands slipping into the back pockets of her jeans” (161). In this case, the focus on the body increases the tone of desire, but more importantly it emphasizes how new these feelings are for Iris. Before, Iris used sex to avoid vulnerability; now, her love and desire for Jam is so powerful that all of her feelings and sensations are intertwined. She struggles to cope with them as an adult, describing it as feeling “red at the bone” (162) because she never learned to how to deal with these emotions in a healthy manner as a child. Here, the significance of chicken bones comes into play once again; this time, however, Woodson uses the metaphor to represent feeling emotionally raw. Iris feels underdone and bleeding because she is experiencing the complications of being vulnerable for the first time.

However, she grapples with these feelings so intensely in part because she has yet to accept her sexual identity. In actively rejecting queer labels, Iris demonstrates an unstable sense of self—she is clearly still struggling with who she is and who she wants to be. Her uncertainties about her identity are reflected especially in her relationship to her identity as a mother. In fleeing from raising Melody and then lying about Melody’s existence, Iris shows a desire to dissociate from this part of her life. Similarly, the chapter reveals the degree of guilt Iris carries as it describes her desire to nurse Melody long past the appropriate age. This suggests that Iris is conscious on some level of the scars she’s left on Melody by her rejections. It also conveys Iris’s understanding of motherhood as having life sucked from her, further underlying her deeply buried resentment towards Melody in all that she has lost because of her teenage pregnancy.

Chapter 17 builds upon the complicated multitudes of identity explored in the previous chapter through Melody and Malcolm’s relationship and their respective sexual identities. The chapter ultimately sets up a series of contrast, beginning with the foil of Malcolm and Melody’s relationship to that of her parents when they were teenagers. Where Aubrey and Iris had a love founded in physical attraction, Melody and Malcolm enjoy all of the emotional vulnerability without any of the sex. Melody’s unfulfilled desire to have sex marks her teenage experience as distinct from her mother’s, whose teenage years were driven by her propensity for passion.

Finally, there is a contrast established between what Malcolm and Melody want out of their relationships. Melody’s yearning for sexual fulfillment is indicative of how far away the concept has been to her. Earlier in the novel, she preaches abstinence to her mother and is embarrassed to even speak about it. This suggests that, because she herself was a product of unmitigated, stigmatized teenage desire, it is something she always tried to separate herself from. For Malcolm, his greatest fear is not finding love because, as a closeted Black teen, he holds an identity that is at greater risk for marginalization in his community. The differences drawn between Malcolm and Melody touch upon the novel’s overarching goal to articulate the diversity in Black experiences while also relating the importance of cultural and ancestral ties. Though both teens grow up in similar circumstances, their individual experiences are nuanced and varied.

Chapter 18 focuses primarily on the demands placed on older generations to lead or heal those who follow them. For Sabe, the emphasis is on storytelling. She remembers poetry at the end because that was one element of passing on stories, and it is representative of the largely oral literary tradition present in many African cultures. Music, dance, and oration are more than entertainment; they are modes for ensuring that legacies carry on. And legacies are extremely important to Sabe, indicated by how precious Melody’s ceremony was to her. Though she focuses on decorum upheld and broken, the underlying thread is that Sabe’s traditions are important because they are about honoring one’s family and the past. Having inherited the trauma of her mother’s experiences in Tulsa, Sabe demonstrates that healing is possible because Melody represents for her the future, the promise of their lives having meaning, and that is enough to free her from her corporeal obligations. However, she alludes to one last piece of business as she speaks to Po’Boy’s imagined spirit: the unresolved conflicts between Iris and Melody. This suggests that, to heal the family’s generational trauma, Iris and Melody must first heal individually and then together.