Breath, Eyes, Memory: A Novel
Author: Edwidge Danticat
Vintage Books, New York, 1994, 234 pages
Filled with rich personal experience and heartbreaking truth, Edwidge Danticat reaches her audience through a memoir of her life as she struggles with womanhood, love, family, loss, and the realities of life. Forced to leave her home in Haiti, Sophie is sent to live in New York City with her mother, who left to make a better life for herself when Sophie was a baby. At the age of twelve, her mother wants to be with her since she has finally established a life for herself in NYC and can now support her daughter.
Tantie Atie is Sophie’s aunt and caretaker, and their relationship is strong and cherished. Sophie doesn’t understand why she has to leave and doesn’t want to accept her mother in her life when she is happy at home in Haiti. While living with her mother she discovers that she was conceived by rape. This man appears as a shadow with a covered face as her mother relives the brutal experience in her dreams every night.
Sophie’s mother feels passionately compelled to make certain that her daughter stays pure. “She took my hand with surprised gentleness, and led me upstairs to my bedroom. There, she made me lie on my bed and she tested me.” (84) Although the descriptions weren’t too graphic, it was a shocking point in the novel that burdened my heart, and was referenced throughout the text with the important women in her family.
Sophie disdains her mother for her actions, and pursues a life of her own. She gets married and has her own daughter. She goes back to visit Tantie Atie and her grandmother in Haiti. The relationship between her and her mother are rekindled while they both face hardships due to their past. It seems that this cycle of testing has caused great grief in each characters life, and although they don’t understand the deeper value and why it is done, there is still a strong bond between the women in the family. “I knew my hurt and hers were links in a long chain and if she hurt me, it was because she was hurt, too.” (203) This is touching to me because although testing caused pain and privation for all the women, Danticat thoroughly shares her distress and victory of such affliction.
Personally, because I have a connection with Haiti and I want to gain understanding of the lifestyle there, I felt more connected to read this novel. My attention was grabbed in the beginning when Sophie was praised for being able to read and write. Her Tantie Atie had always wanted to be literate so she could make something of herself, and wasn’t given the opportunity, and for that she always wanted Sophie to. Sophie writes a poem for her Tantie.
My mother is a daffodil
limber and strong as one.
My mother is a daffodil,
but in the wind, iron strong.
Although Tantie Atie compels Sophie to give the poem to her mother, Sophie still made it for her aunt and reads it to her before she leaves. A dozen years later when Sophie returns, Tantie Atie can still recite the same words. This gave me goosebumps.
This text ties together well to create a humbling story.
