Breath, Eyes, Memory

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1994

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

The Importance of Confronting Trauma

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of rape, sexual abuse, self-harm, unwanted pregnancy, abortion, and suicide.

The two main characters, Sophie and her mother, Martine, struggle with confronting past traumas. Sophie deals with the trauma of undergoing “virginity testing” at the hands of her mother and with the culture of sexual shame that testing represents. Meanwhile, Martine is haunted by visions and dreams of the man who raped her. Each character struggles in their own way with this trauma, but it is Sophie who makes the conscious decision to confront it. As a result, she grows throughout the text, ultimately finding the strength and resilience to move forward with her life. In different ways, both Sophie and Martine show the importance of confronting trauma in order to face it, accept it, and move forward.

Throughout the novel, Martine struggles with the memory of having been raped and impregnated by a Tonton Macoute in a sugar cane field. Several times in the text, she wakes from nightmares and is comforted by Sophie and then Marc, with her terrors even becoming violent. Because of her assault, she becomes distrustful of men, and she takes that distrust out on Sophie through her virginity “testing.” As she “tests” Sophie for the first time, she asks her, “When you look in a stream, if you saw that man’s face, wouldn’t you think it was a water spirit? Wouldn’t you scream? Wouldn’t you think he was hiding under a sheet of water or behind a pane of glass to kill you?” (85). This shows her own feelings toward men and her anger toward Sophie for not feeling the same way. While suffering, Martine fails to truly confront her past trauma. She explains to Sophie that she cannot see a therapist to talk about it because she is “afraid it will become even more real” (190). Martine’s unwillingness to face her trauma causes her to become unable to deal with it, ultimately culminating in her own suicide over fear of giving birth to another child.

At the same time, Sophie is struggling with the assault she experiences through her mother’s virginity “testing.” The experience traumatizes her so much that she makes the decision to break her own hymen so that her mother will believe she has had sex, and the “testing” will stop. Like her mother, she, too, experiences nightmares throughout the novel. She also becomes deeply afraid that she will pass her own trauma on to her daughter, as she asks her while she sleeps, “Are you going to inherit some of Mommy’s problems?” (110). To ensure that she does not continue the tradition of passing trauma on to future generations, she first returns to Haiti to confront her aunt and grandmother about the reason for the “testing.” Although both understand the harm that it can cause, and her grandmother is even regretful for having done it, neither is able to provide a strong explanation as to why they did it. Although she does not get a concrete answer, she does succeed in addressing the issue directly and understanding that there was regret behind the actions. Back in the United States, she regularly sees a therapist who helps her work through her trauma by discussing it with her and helping her confront it. She also joins a group with two other women who experienced similar sexual assault. The three of them acknowledge their pain for what it is, while also acknowledging that they have no hate for what was done for them, only a desire to forgive so they can move on. Ultimately, the novel ends with Sophie returning to the site where her mother was raped, as she angrily destroys the cane in the field. As a result, Sophie ends the novel finally free from her trauma, at least to the extent that she can acknowledge it for what it is and move forward.

The juxtaposition of these two characters, both of whom experience trauma but handle it in different ways, conveys the theme of how significant it is that trauma is confronted and dealt with, rather than pushed aside and ignored. While Martine’s anger and fear ultimately lead to her death by suicide, Sophie is able to acknowledge her trauma and face it, thus beginning her journey to overcoming it.

Home as a Construct

Home is generally considered a location where one feels comfort and belonging. It is a physical place where one can return and feel at peace and safe. However, the novel presents the idea of home as less a physical location than a collection of memories and past experiences that provide the feelings of comfort.

At the start of the novel, Sophie is adamant that Haiti is her home. She is devastated at the thought of being uprooted from her life and her aunt and being sent to New York, even though her mother is there. Because of her young age and because Haiti is the only home she has known, she barely registers the violence and corruption all around her. She makes no mention of the Tonton Macoutes in the first part of the novel, even though they are prevalent in their havoc throughout the latter parts. Additionally, because she has money being sent to her by her mother, she is largely able to ignore the poverty around her. Her aunt also explains that she is lucky to be going to school and to avoid the cane fields, where she had seen even her own grandfather die of heatstroke. Upon her return to Haiti several years later, however, the illusion is shattered, as she sees several things that she did not acknowledge as a child. First, she sees her aunt and her grandmother struggling with living together and finding happiness. Second, she sees the violence firsthand, as the Macoutes murdered a coal vendor simply for (allegedly) stepping on one of their shoes. Lastly, her grandmother explains to her the ritual of leaving female children out in the cold after they are born with only their mothers in darkness. These things open Sophie’s eyes to the reality of Haiti, and she no longer sees it as an idyllic place for which she longs.

Sophie struggles with belonging in any of the places she lives. In New York, she immediately notices the poverty, trash, and unhoused people, as well as the rundown state of her mother’s apartment. In Providence, she struggles to have a sexual relationship with Joseph due to her past, which leads to a difficult marriage where she struggles to belong.

In each of her “homes”—Haiti, New York, and Providence—Sophie lacks true belonging or comfort. Instead, Sophie finds comfort in family and culture: her daughter, her happy memories, her aunt and grandmother’s stories, and food. Thus, the novel presents an alternative to a traditional home for an immigrant like Sophie, who has roots in Africa, Haiti, and now the United States. Instead of belonging to one physical place that is labeled as “home,” she belongs everywhere while creating her own space to belong from her memories and her past.

The Complexities of Motherhood

The novel explores the complexities of motherhood, both how the term “mother” is defined and the difficulties of fulfilling the role. Through the mothers in the text—Martine, Sophie, and even Atie—the novel explores what it means to be a mother.

Even though Atie is not Sophie’s birth mother, she very much fulfills the role of a mother through Part 1 of the text. When Martine cannot face Sophie as a product of her rape, she leaves for New York, leaving Atie with the task of raising Sophie. Atie leaves her home and moves to Croix-des-Rosets to send Sophie to school and give her the best life that she can. Each year, Sophie gives her aunt a Mother’s Day card, until the year that she is being sent to New York to live with Martine. Through the relationship of Sophie and Atie, the text suggests that “mother” is not simply the person who gives birth to someone, but rather the person who nurtures and cares for them. Similarly, when Sophie returns to Haiti years later, her grandmother, aunt, and her own mother very much treat her daughter, Brigitte, as though she is their own child. Rather than being a single person, the novel presents motherhood as a collective endeavor among women who all work together to help raise a child.

Additionally, Sophie learns throughout the text that motherhood is difficult and complex, and doing what is best for your child is not often straightforward or clear. Both the good and the bad Sophie’s good and bad experiences have made her who she is, and she hopes to use this experience to be the best mother she can be, while avoiding passing on the generational traumas that her mother passed down to her. With her own mother, Sophie experiences virginity “testing” and is forced out of her home at the age of 18. However, this also allows Sophie clarity on what she wants for her own child. She not only deals with her own trauma but recognizes that she does not want these same experiences passed on to her own daughter. Despite her mother’s failings, she is grateful for the life she was given in Haiti thanks to her mother’s money, as well as the opportunity to come to New York and attend school. She realizes that this opportunity may allow her to provide a better life to her own daughter than either she or her mother got to experience themselves. In defense of the virginity “testing,” Grandma Ifé adamantly insists that “everything a mother does, she does for her child’s own good” (157), but she realizes that good intentions are not enough, stating next that her heart “weeps like a river […] for the pain [she] has caused” Sophie (157). This second statement is a much more realistic—although also more complex—understanding of motherhood. Although mothers try to do what is best for their children, they are human beings with their own traumas and their own unexamined assumptions, and—as Sophie realizes—they must face those negative experiences to avoid passing them down to the next generation.