Breath, Eyes, Memory
Encyclopedia
Breath, Eyes, Memory is Edwidge Danticat's acclaimed 1994 novel, and was chosen as an Oprah Book Club Selection in May 1998.
and her move as a young girl to New York City.
The novel is written in a first person narrative. The narrator, Sophie Caco, relates her direct experiences and impressions from age 12 until she is in her twenties.
and gender identity
in interconnected ways.
Mhi! virgin), causes Sophie to grow into the same type of woman as her mother. She grows into a woman who fights a battle with herself as a woman, wife, mother, as well as daughter. She is also in turn fighting the weight of her inheritance, as well as her mother’s past experiences.
Testing
"Testing" has been a Haitian tradition for centuries. During earlier times, the obsession with a woman’s purity put virginity on this high pedestal to the point of sacredness, turning into a symbolic thing. A young woman growing up in a Haitian household is encouraged to value her virtue and virginity. The novel describes how family values and virtue of women are very important to the Haitian culture. The main character, Sophie, is shattered throughout the novel, due to the traumatic experience of her mother’s continuous tests. Her mother would often test her vagina to make sure she was still a virgin. These tests leave a dynamic scar on Sophie even after she marries Joseph. She has low self-esteem as a result of these tests. The tests also lead to a deterioration in the relationship between mother and daughter. When she marries Joseph, she is unable to have sex with him because she has a phobia of sex. The only way she is ever able to make love to him is through “doubling”: She must pretend she isn’t really there because the very act of sex so repels her.
Rising action
The rising action of the story is when Sophie leaves Haiti at age twelve to join her mother in the United States in New York. Sophie, despite her mother’s warnings to focus on school and no men, falls in love with Joseph, a musician who lives next door to them. Sophie is caught one night by her mother when she returns home late. Her mother in turn begins testing her constantly to make sure she is still a virgin. Depression causes Sophie to act irrationally. One night she decides to impale herself with her mother’s spice pestle so she can fail the test. When she fails her mother’s test, she is thrown out of the house. She then elopes with Joseph and they marry.
Climax
The climax of the story comes after she marries Joseph. Sophie begins to feel frustrated and confused, both by anxieties and responsibilities. To get away from it all, she flees to Haiti along with her infant daughter, without a word to her husband, Joseph, who is away touring.
The falling action is when her mother, Martine, also comes to Haiti. Sophie hadn’t spoken to her mother since her mother had thrown her out the house when she had failed the virginity test. That was about two years earlier. It is during that trip to Haiti that both mother and daughter reconcile. They return to New York and all seems well, until Sophie’s mother becomes pregnant by her fiancé, Marc, and in turn commits suicide.
Plot introduction
Edwidge Danticat’s first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, was published when Danticat was only twenty-five years old. As she has recounted in interviews, the book began as an essay of her childhood in HaitiHaiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
and her move as a young girl to New York City.
The novel is written in a first person narrative. The narrator, Sophie Caco, relates her direct experiences and impressions from age 12 until she is in her twenties.
Major themes
The novel deals with questions of racial, linguisticLinguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
and gender identity
Gender identity
A gender identity is the way in which an individual self-identifies with a gender category, for example, as being either a man or a woman, or in some cases being neither, which can be distinct from biological sex. Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to...
in interconnected ways.
Mhi! virgin), causes Sophie to grow into the same type of woman as her mother. She grows into a woman who fights a battle with herself as a woman, wife, mother, as well as daughter. She is also in turn fighting the weight of her inheritance, as well as her mother’s past experiences.
Testing"Testing" has been a Haitian tradition for centuries. During earlier times, the obsession with a woman’s purity put virginity on this high pedestal to the point of sacredness, turning into a symbolic thing. A young woman growing up in a Haitian household is encouraged to value her virtue and virginity. The novel describes how family values and virtue of women are very important to the Haitian culture. The main character, Sophie, is shattered throughout the novel, due to the traumatic experience of her mother’s continuous tests. Her mother would often test her vagina to make sure she was still a virgin. These tests leave a dynamic scar on Sophie even after she marries Joseph. She has low self-esteem as a result of these tests. The tests also lead to a deterioration in the relationship between mother and daughter. When she marries Joseph, she is unable to have sex with him because she has a phobia of sex. The only way she is ever able to make love to him is through “doubling”: She must pretend she isn’t really there because the very act of sex so repels her.
Rising action
The rising action of the story is when Sophie leaves Haiti at age twelve to join her mother in the United States in New York. Sophie, despite her mother’s warnings to focus on school and no men, falls in love with Joseph, a musician who lives next door to them. Sophie is caught one night by her mother when she returns home late. Her mother in turn begins testing her constantly to make sure she is still a virgin. Depression causes Sophie to act irrationally. One night she decides to impale herself with her mother’s spice pestle so she can fail the test. When she fails her mother’s test, she is thrown out of the house. She then elopes with Joseph and they marry.
Climax
The climax of the story comes after she marries Joseph. Sophie begins to feel frustrated and confused, both by anxieties and responsibilities. To get away from it all, she flees to Haiti along with her infant daughter, without a word to her husband, Joseph, who is away touring.
The falling action is when her mother, Martine, also comes to Haiti. Sophie hadn’t spoken to her mother since her mother had thrown her out the house when she had failed the virginity test. That was about two years earlier. It is during that trip to Haiti that both mother and daughter reconcile. They return to New York and all seems well, until Sophie’s mother becomes pregnant by her fiancé, Marc, and in turn commits suicide.