Specters and Legacy: A Derridean Analysis of Racial Injustice in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing

African American literature often employs ghosts as narrative devices to confront collective trauma and historical injustices. Jesmyn Ward’s novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, set in contemporary Mississippi, epitomises this tradition by depicting racial injustice and its enduring legacies through the presence of spectral figures. The narrative centers on Jojo as he embarks on a journey with his family to retrieve their patriarch, Michael, from prison. Along the way, they encounter spectral presences that evoke unresolved histories and ancestral suffering, impacting the living in the American South. Richie, who was killed by Pop, Jojo’s maternal grandfather, to spare him from further suffering in prison, and Given, who was killed by Michael’s cousin due to racial supremacy, both appear as spectral presences throughout the novel. This paper uses Derrida’s concept of spectrality from Specters of Marx to examine the role of ghosts in the novel. Derrida uses the notion of the specter to demonstrate how past ideologies, events, and injustices continue to influence the present, despite their apparent disappearance. This research paper contends that Ward employs spectrality as a narrative tool, positioning spectral characters such as Richie and Given, in a liminal space that subverts conventional binary oppositions like life versus death and presence versus absence. Through this technique, the novel underscores the inescapable influence of history, which significantly shapes the characters’ perceptions and experiences. The paper also posits that these spectral figures serve not only to highlight the enduring impacts of oppression but also to call for accountability and reflection.