However, she also identifies numerous stories in the bodies of her brothers, her father, and even Big Henry and Manny. True, Esch's bodily changes take center stage in the novel, as she witnesses her own body, normally lean and athletic, change into that of a mother. Throughout the novel, Esch fixates on the various ways in which her body and those around her constitute a living record of their history together. All the same, she understands that, regardless of her own power as a woman, she will remain vulnerable to heartbreak.

Esch seems to understand her own power as a mother, lover, and fighter, as she often identifies with China in her potential to conflate love and sex with violence (evidenced when she digs her fingernails into Manny's perfect skin). Esch sympathizes with Medea precisely because Madea’s supernatural abilities as a sorceress cannot save her from heartbreak, a situation with which Esch is all too familiar. In this quotation, she explicitly identifies with Medea for the first time, lending the reader insight into what attracts Esch to this character. The myth of Medea and Jason injects itself into nearly every aspect of Esch's love life and pregnancy.

But even with all her power, Jason bends her like a young pine in a hard wind he makes her double in two.

She has magic, could bend the natural to the unnatural. Medea sneaks Jason things to help him: ointments to make him invincible, secrets in rocks. When Medea falls in love with Jason, it grabs me by the throat. In Mythology, I am still reading about Medea and the quest for the Golden Fleece. Later, this idea will come to a head when Daddy pushes Esch from the tree trunk as they try to reach safety, thereby endangering not only her, but also her unborn baby and the innocent puppies she carries. As evidenced by this quotation, Skeetah believes that every creature deserves a chance (though this conviction can be disrupted by Skeetah's literally dog-eat-dog enthusiasm for dogfighting). The clearest personal instance of this conflict comes when Skeetah has to convince his family to allow China and her puppies to stay in their house during the storm we later understand how vital this decision was when Skeetah and Esch hear a dog howling outside their house as the hurricane encroaches. This becomes especially obvious when Hurricane Katrina sweeps in and raises the stakes in the game of survival. Esch lives in a Darwinian world where survival is key.

Salvage the bones