Dear Ms. Lori-Parks, 

The novel “Getting Mother’s Body”, centers on the story of Billy Beede and the struggles she goes through due to her past and present choices. June was a very interesting character. She played a small role in the novel but influenced how other characters were perceived. Her relationship with Billy is overlooked and the impact that she makes on her is not really discussed. June is Billy’s opposite in many ways and her actions highlight Billy’s key personality traits.  

video of the ceremony and the ndoli jowei

http://sierraleoneheritage.org/videogallery/video.php?name=Sowei

video of the naming process of the ndoli jowei

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW8-Ni-MeN4

The novel “Getting Mother’s Body” by Suzan-Lori Parks focuses on the members of the Beede family, who are notorious for their bad luck, and all that they are able to achieve in spite of it. Throughout “Getting Mother’s Body” various characters often use the Beedes’ reputation as a punchline, and this element of humor makes it more difficult to pin down the nature of Beedeism. Beedes are poor, undignified, unlucky, the kind of people who bury treasure in the ground and are always able to scam their way into getting what they want. That list was derived mainly from comments of non-Beedes, like Dill Smiles, and Beedes-in-denial like Estelle Beede Rochfoucault. The Beedes understand themselves a bit differently.

Rosa Nanasi Haas

Exhibiting Africa

Monique Scott

Oct. 21, 2016

Edun Ara Oshe Shango (Axe Dance Wand)

One of the most prominent features of the novel Getting Mother’s Body by Suzan-Lori Parks is that it is strikingly similar to As I Lay Dying, the famous stream of consciousness novel by William Faulkner. The stories are, in fact, almost identical. It is quite bold to model your debut novel after a so famous and widely critiqued novel, and the reasoning behind such a choice is not quite certain. However, I will make the case that Parks’ modeling of her own story after Faulkner’s highlights the struggles that the Beede family must endure due to their race, as well as the motivation that drives Billy Beede to change her fate.