There is always a place where nightmares are passed on through generations like heirlooms. Where women like cardinal birds return to look at their own faces in stagnant bodies of wat
5) Sophie was fortunate enough to have her aunt Tante Atie during her childhood days and adult life to guide her no matter the dept of trauma. Sophie now realizes how women are portrayed, we hold a value to our mother's that forbids experience humiliation of any sort.
Sophie knew she could not tell Joseph what she had done to her most secret part of her body. Sophie define her choice as an act of freedom, without pass life experiences most will classify an act as such as cruelty. What Sophie did to her body was the inevitable, a destruction to the female body as a whole. as this should be keep to oneself, except from her mother Martine, the cause of it all or was it not? Logically speaking Martine is the blame for Sophie traumatic experience, on the other hand the culture is the blame for it all. Enforcing a practice of testing, a kind perform on young Haitians women to check for purity. The outcome is heart breaking, tearing families apart cause lack of thereof. Present modern day women should consider Danticat’s work as a lesson moving forward with they’re younger generations of daughters
Joseph could never understand why I had done something so horrible to myself. I could not explain to him that it was like breaking manacles, an act of freedom
2) Sophie’s grandmother talks of strong black Natives that are lost, in search of an identify, a place to call home for many are lost carrying the world on their shoulders. They do not give up because they have God on their side to help them carry along the road not taken. This scene with Sophie and her grandmother reminds me of the caco women. Elders that lived through it all from the roots of poverty to still hoping and praying. History holds a great significance in “Breath, Eyes Memory”, allowing for memory to be pass down to newer generations.
They train you to find a husband,” she said. “They poke at your panties in the middle of the night, to see if you are stiil whole. They listen when you pee, to find out if you’re peeing too loud. If you pee loud, it means you’ve got big spaces between your legs. They make you burn your fingers learning to cook. Then stillyou have nothing.”
4) Sophie learned a lot about her culture that has such big impact on her life. Tante Atie had a sense that Martine perform the testing on Sophie, before she told her. Tante Atie herself was brought up in the same culture as Sophie, certain things do not need to be said. She explains to Sophie what is expected of young girls in Haiti. The act of indecency is not allowing, monitoring your every move and it's all done for the sake of reputation and marriage. Women needs to upload a certain image not only in Haiti by in every cultural society. We play our role and must do it well looking for validation from family, spouses, children and society.
I come from a place where breath, eyes, and memory are one, a place from which you carry your past like the hair on your head.
3) In this scene Sophie describe the place that she comes from as a burden, carrying pass traumatic experiences on her head. Memory is carried around without no hopes for it fading. She made reference to her mother rape scene, the sadness she endured, trap from that moment on for the rest of her life. Martina never fully recovered from what happened to her as a teenager. Despite her abandoning Sophie at such a young age she never forgot about her baby. She did everything that she could for Sophie by preparing a life for herself in America.
"Sophie’s grandmother talks of strong black Natives that are lost, in search of an identity, a place to call home for many are lost carrying the world on their shoulders. They do not give up because they have God on their side to help them carry along the road not taken. This scene with Sophie and her grandmother reminds me of the caco women. Elders that lived through it all from the roots of poverty to still hoping and praying. History holds a great significance in “Breath, Eyes Memory”, allowing for memory to be pass down to newer generations.