The coffin is a “sick-box” (Saunders 5), the hearse is a “sick-cart” (Saunders 6), and dead bodies are simply “sick-form” (Saunders 58). They use softer terms to underplay their unpleasant conditions. The spirits have left things undone back in the living world, and they hope to return, so they delude themselves, believing that they are simply ill, and not truly dead. The desire for immortality paints the storyline of Lincoln in the Bardo.
They are held back by their regrets of things they left undone in life or wishes to remain with their loved ones, not realizing that they are dead and that there is no way to go back to their lives.
Refusing to leave the only world they know, spirits are unable to move on through the Bardo to the next step in the cycle of life, creating a recurring theme of the desire for immortality tainting reality in George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo.
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