Lincoln in the Bardo

The Reverend Everly Thomas stays with Willie at the white house, his feelings hurt by Hans and Roger’s impulsive journey. The Reverend notices that Willie’s time is running out. Other ghosts gather to watch, as fascinated by Willie’s deterioration as they had been by Elise’s. The Reverend points these ghosts out to Willie and asks him if he really believes that staying in a place with people like that seems good to him. Willie counters that the Reverend is there too, a point the Reverend dismisses as irrelevant.

Unlike Hans and Roger, the Reverend is fully aware that he is dead. He witnessed his funeral, and afterward accepted his matterlightblooming, happy to meet his God at last. But strangely, he ended back in the graveyard, this time in the company of a being the Reverend believed to be Christ’s emissary. A set of diamond doors flew open, revealing Christ on a throne with an empty throne beside him—a seat for the emissary, who turned out to be another aspect of Christ. The Reverend felt a profound sense of both joy that Heaven existed and sadness that he wasn’t yet there. A ghost from the cemetery stepped forward—but the man’s past quickly doomed him to a hell of flayed forms. Then, it was the Reverend’s turn to step forward. The divine beings asked him how he had lived; when he tried to be as honest as possible, the figures seemed perturbed downcast. Before he could receive his verdict, the Reverend fled, hearing behind him a warning to never tell anyone about what had happened, or the next time would be worse.

The Reverend is grateful to be in the bardo but wonders why he was damned even though he had lived a good and honest life. Now, he does his best to convince other ghosts to stay instead of face judgment, though he can never tell them the whole truth. He knows that eventually, all of them will be taken away, but still, he waits and hopes that the experience may be different.

Hans and Roger return in an excited rush, claiming responsibility for bringing the tall man back. Abraham Lincoln returns, and the Reverend can finally see him in the light of the moon.

Abraham Lincoln is described by many sources as having deep, bright eyes. He has a sad, ugly face but still lights up a room with his laugh. He is awkward but admirable, haggard but somehow beaming.

As Lincoln goes to lock the tomb, he sees his son’s grave and again enters. He again opens the coffin and combs Willie’s hair with his fingers. Willie’s ghost is stuck on the roof and cries out. Hans pushes him through the roof into the tomb, urging him to go inside his father, but Willie seems reluctant to again enter his father’s body and mind. Many spirits gather around the tomb, creating chaos.

In a cacophonous tumult, the spirits confess to their past sins or try to vindicate their past selves. Lawrence T. Decroix and Professor Edmund Bloomer decry their failed careers, stolen from them too early. They comfort one another by recognizing the injustice of the other’s premature death. African American spirits arrive from the outskirts of the cemetery to which they’ve been relegated—the first Black characters we have seen in the bardo. Many white ghosts hurl slurs at them and demand that they leave.

Elson Farwell tells the story of learning to read and discovering the finer things in the world and within his own personhood. The Barrons, though they denigrate Elson for being Black and eloquent, cheer him on. Elson died alone on the side of a road. In the moments before death, he regretted spending his time learning from his enslavers, the East family, instead of taking up arms against them and destroying their systems of inhumanity. The Barrons reveal that they first met Elson as ghosts on the back of a wagon of dead bodies no one cared about. Elson resolves to stay in the bardo until he gets revenge on the Easts.

Thomas Havens interrupts with his own experience of slavery. His enslavers, the Connors, treated him well; Thomas had lived with his own family and was allowed some free time. But this made the Connors ordering him around worse—Thomas knew “that other men enjoyed whole lifetimes comprised of such moments” of freedom (220). He can’t help dwelling on how limited and oppressed his world was.

A Black woman named Litzie Wright steps forward. She is mute. Mrs. Francis Hodge translates her story of rape and endless abuse on a plantation. Then, Lieutenant Stone and others push the Black ghosts back to the iron fence.

Vans, Roger, and the Reverend turn back to Willie, encourage him again to enter his father.

Just then, Manders the groundskeeper shows up with his lantern. The ghosts are fond Manders; on his rounds he often shouts out to the graveyard the news of the world. He calls for the president and offers Lincoln his lantern. Willie reveals that his father is the president of the United States. Lincoln asks Manders to wait so they can walk back with the light together. Willie hasn’t had enough time with his father; a tendril grows around Willie, tying him to the wall. The ghosts decide they must keep Lincoln here and free Willie. Hans enters Lincoln’s body and reads Lincoln’s thoughts. Lincoln tries to say goodbye to Willie, when but can’t come up with the right words he feels like a failure.

As the Civil War causes the deaths of more Americans, public sentiment toward President Lincoln grows more hostile. Hans hears Lincoln come to terms with his low approval rating, reminding himself that “No one who has ever done anything worth doing has gone uncriticized” (236).

Hostility toward Lincoln creates cruel rumors about Willie’s death. People whisper that Willie would not have died had his parents been stricter: The Lincoln household was known to have no rules, the president distracted by his work and happy that his children were free to play. Critics accuse Lincoln of mismanagement of home and country: Political cartoons satirize the Lincolns drinking in revelry while their son slowly dies in another room.