The graveyard in The
Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman has a reoccurring theme of community strength
and the influence that community has in a situation. One can see the community
is protective of their own from the beginning. This shown before Mr. and Mrs.
Owens even take baby Bod when Silas sends Jack away from the graveyard. The community strength is shown again when
the narrator says,
“A graveyard is not normally a democracy, and yet death is
the great democracy, and each of the dead had a voice and an opinion as to
whether a the living child should be allowed to stay, and they were determined
to be heard, that night.” (Gaiman 29).
The quote shows the community is mindful of everyone’s
opinion in a big decision. Immediately they come together and make a decision
that will affect everyone. The quote shows that the dead do have a community
and they act and make decisions the same way a living community would. Voting
and having equal opportunity to share thoughts and ideas is essential to a
successful community.
The community aspect in The
Graveyard Book is shown through Bod’s teachers and mentors. In fact the
book reads, “It is going to take more than just a couple of good-hearted souls
to raise this child. It will take a graveyard” (Gaiman,23). The quote meaning
that it takes many members of the graveyard teach Bod the skills he needs to
succeed in the graveyard. Silas helps take care of Bod from the second he
arrives at the graveyard. He protects him from Jack at the beginning of the
story. He also is the only one who can leave the graveyard. He uses this
benefit to get Bod food and clothing. Silas steps up and becomes an important influence
in Bod’s life. He teaches him lessons and lets him eat junk food. Silas is a
guiding factor in Bod’s life because he has been with him since the beginning.
Miss Lupescy is another mentor to Bod. In the beginning, he
was not happy with her persistence in languages and healthy snacks. However, it
is Miss Luspescy’s lessons that save Bod when he gets in trouble. In the end,
Miss Luspescy becomes an important person in Bod’s life. This is similar to
many real life situations. We have all had members of the community that we
struggle to get along with because of different life views.
It is ironic that a graveyard would have such a strong
community with organization, rights, and teachers. These qualities are one a
living community strives to achieve. The qualities the graveyard has makes me
wonder why the graveyard taught Bod to be so similar to the living. In the end,
does it show that he belongs with the living, even if the dead have raised him?
The nature of community is prevalent within the graveyard evident by such examples as the different members debating on whether or not to keep Bod and the different members taking on an assortment of different responsibilities when it comes to raising Bod. However, the graveyard does not appear to be a utopia for the dead, it does not appear that everyone has equal rights within the graveyard’s gates.
ReplyDeleteFor example, Potter’s field is an entire section of the graveyard which most embers try to avoid. Bod’s mother warns him not to go down there and his father simply tells him it’s a bad place. Bod even asks Silas, “So the people buried in the ground on the other side of the fence are bad people?” Which Silas responds to by saying, “Not at all…I don’t remember anyone particularity evil” (Gaiman 104). In other words, the dead buried in Potter’s field are denied the privilege of the entire graveyard simply because others have a negative stigma towards them. If a community is supposed to be comprised of members with relatively equal rights, then the graveyard cannot be a community because it denies an entire section the right to be with everyone else for little to no cause. It is as if these individuals are thrown into a lower cast, forced to spend their time in the graveyard as second class citizens and not as members of a community.
I agree with Jessie here; I think Gaiman strives to create an atmosphere of community among the dead. Granted, the members of this community do not have equal rights—as Cullen said—but really, very few, if any, of the communities I have been a part of or have come into contact with consisted of people with equal rights. Gaiman portrays the community functioning under a hierarchy where some members have more “power” than others; this is somewhat evident in the quote Jessie mentioned about the how the graveyard is not often an exemplar representation of a democracy.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the theme of community, Gaiman maintains the overall sense of unity within specific groups throughout the entirety of The Graveyard Book. Specifically, while he is being chased by the Jacks, the entire graveyard—including Liza who was mad at him at the time—helps him navigate his way and Scarlett’s way to safety. What I found interesting about the overall sense of community in The Graveyard Book was that it appears much more polarized among the groups than the sense of community in The Jungle Book. In other words, there was not much overlap in the communities of the living, the dead, the half-alive/half-dead, or the Jacks. These group seldom, if ever, work together to obtain a goal. Scarlett could be seen as an exception to this in regards to her relationship with Bod(if one looks at him as both a member of the living and dead), but she’s still very put-off by his behavior with the Jacks which, for me, created a disparity between the two. In The Jungle Book however, there is a sense of crossover of communities, even with the animals and the humans. For example, when Mowgli is trying to save Messua and her husband, Mother Wolf comes to help:
“’Mother,’ said he, for he knew that tongue well, ‘what dost thou here?’ ‘I heard my children singing through the woods, and I followed the one I loved the best. Little Frog, I have a desire to see that woman who gave thee milk,’ said Mother Wolf, all wet with the dew. ‘They have bound and mean to kill her. I have cut those ties, and she goes with her man through the Jungle.’ ‘I also will follow. I am old, but not yet toothless.’ Mother Wolf reared herself up on end, and looked through the window in to the dark of the hut” (203).
Eventually, Mother Wolf leads Messua and her husband through the jungle. These scenes in particular create an environment of interspecies communities, while The Graveyard Book highlights the intragroup interactions. While the two works share evident similarities, the way the two authors approached the community aspects of their respective books allows for varied interpretations of what they could be alluding to on a larger scale (i.e. politics, racism, superiority, etc.).