The road of fear: mobility and trauma in the road novel Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jasmyn Ward

Abstract

The road of fear: mobility and travelThe road novel genre, established by Jack Kerouac with the publication of On the road (1957), has as its main characteristic the narrative of the characters' journey, focusing on displacement. In its beginnings, it was produced by a male author and addressed the trajectory of characters, also male, from one side to the other without a certain destination or motivation. However, nowadays, more and more women have appropriated the genre and modified it, as in Sing, unburied, sing, by Jasmyn Ward, published in 2017. Thus, this text aims to understand how the characters experience the journey and how the black mobility is influenced by social constructions. The novel points to the difficulty that exists in relation to the appropriation of space by the black body, whose supposed notion that the automobile provides everyone with freedom of movement is constantly questioned by the fear present inside the car.