A Theme of Desperation

A look into Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones

Desperation is a theme that I discovered had a profound appearance throughout the novel, Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones, by Micah Dean Hicks.  The theme of desperation played an important roll in the work because it showed that it does not have a bias and if one is to give in to the desperation, only bad can come of it.  Even though all the characters were different in their own way, each character seemed to have been connected through varying levels of desperation.  Each character was embedded into a reality which they wanted to escape whether human, pig, or ghost.  That desperation found ways of being manifested, such as Jane’s mother not being able to be loved, but she wanted love so badly that she hurt the ones she loved with a burning touch.  Desperation also acted in ways that may seem healthy, when it wasn’t , such as Henry creating an alternate universe where he was the hero, when in reality his actions were the problem. Although the ghosts in the novel inhabited the human’s body and had no base in reality, the ghosts were also desperate to regain a semblance of their past lives or disappear into nothingness.   Desperation has a way of taking over a person’s life and totally consuming them.  Desperation acts as a ghost in someone’s life that cannot be escaped, thus it is the controlling factor of many decisions a person makes.  Desperation haunts a person until they can either find an escape or become so overwhelmed with it, that as a person, they lose themselves and withdraw into their own nothingness.  Just as the novel displayed, desperation can have good intentions or bad.  It is up to the individual to decide if he or she want to be controlled, or rather enslaved to the desperation…or break free from it.