A result of European colonialism, Haiti fosters a patriarchal mindset and, historically, those in power have used religion as a weapon for thought control. The Caco women have internalized this mindset, and now subscribe, most adamantly, to what Sophie calls a “virginity cult,” where mothers physically test the sexual integrity of their daughters (154). The Virgin Mary is referred to often throughout the text, signifying her importance to the Caco women. Sophie actually recites the Virgin Mother's Prayer as her mother tests her for the first time. Since Martine was raped and impregnated with Sophie, Sophie has a “Madonna image” of her mother. She finds it hard to imagine her mother sexually. Sophie begins her transformation by recognizing the trauma testing brings to Haitian women. Tante Atie describes Haitian mothers' treatment of their daughters:
They train you to find a husband … They poke at your panties in the middle of the night, to see if you are still 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 (136-137).
Sophie refers to the testing as “humiliation” (123). Despite religious customs or conventions, she ends the practice by taking her own virginity with a pestle. Even though she does not participate in sexual relations with a man, she dismantles her chastity, breaking her bond to the Virgin Mary. It is important to note that in addition to joining a sexual phobia group to deal with her trauma, Sophie also visits a therapist, who is an initiated Santeria priestess. The fact that a religious woman offers Sophie an avenue to heal herself indicates that challenging the trauma caused by testing is not blasphemous. Once Sophie learns that her mother is pregnant out of wedlock, the Madonna image is shattered. After Martine kills herself, Sophie dresses her for her funeral from head to toe in bright red, calling her a “Jezebel, hot-blooded Erzulie who feared no men, but rather made them her slaves, raped them, and killed them” (227). Sophie has abandoned her Virgin Mary mentality for one that puts women in control. No longer will she allow spiritual conventions to control her sexuality.
Sophie not only crosses spiritual boundaries, she traverses between cultures as well. Danticat illuminates a culture that had become infiltrated by the violent and bloody Tontons Macoutes, the personal security force of Haitian dictator FranVois Duvalier. Haiti's brutal history is that of a culture controlled by aggressive forces that work to keep particular individuals in a particular place. The Haitian culture is one that fosters the subjugation of women unto men, and that links women directly to the domestic space. According to Sophie, in Haiti, “nightmares are passed on through generations like heirlooms” (234). These nightmares manifest themselves in the form of stories, like the tale about “the girl who wished she could marry a star and then went up there and, as real as her eyes were black, the man she wished for was a monster” (164). These stories serve to keep women in their domestic space, to deter them from dreaming about crossing boundaries. Sophie's grandmother, Ife, tells a story about a lark who tries to steal a little girl's heart. The little girl in the story represents Sophie, and the lark represents opportunity. It is opportunity that threatens to take Sophie away from her mothers and her motherland. Ife interprets Sophie's return to Haiti as a denial of opportunity in America, and the embracing of her native roots. However, she soon learns that her granddaughter has returned home with a “greater need to understand” the purpose of the testing practice (170). Eventually, Sophie realizes she sympathizes with her mother, who has her own nightmares to deal with, and recognizes their individual pain as “links in a long chain” (203). Sophie divorces herself from her mother and the culture of her motherland first by deflowering herself with the pestle. She then marries Joseph, a man from a culture other than her own. She chooses education as an avenue out of poverty, even though the women in her family have traditionally avoided literacy. Sophie crosses cultural boundaries many different ways. Her journey is recorded in the name of her daughter, Brigitte Ife Woods, which reflects Sophie's encounters with multiple cultures.
A more subtle hurdle for Sophie exists in the political arena. She must cope with the political control the Tontons Macoutes have on the men and women of Haiti. She must also address her female specificity, which is dominated by men in both the old and new cultures to which she belongs. Sophie says that to her, “men were as mysterious … as white people” (67). Most men get wrapped up in the violence of the culture or lose “their sense of obligation to the family's honor,” and therefore, are simply not around to support the women of Haiti. Still, the culture awards greater political advantage to males. For example, as illustrated in the novel, when a baby boy is born, a light shines outside of the birthing house. If a baby girl is born, the light is extinguished for the mother to sit alone in the darkness with her new daughter (146). Additionally, Tante Atie says that the men in Haiti “insist that their women are virgins and have ten fingers” (151). Ife tells Sophie that it was her duty to keep her daughters chaste until they were ready for marriage. A woman's purity would directly reflect the honor of her husband. Sophie tells the story of a man who chose a virgin to marry, and on their wedding night, cuts her to make her bleed in order to defend his honor. The woman dies and the man parades around showing off sheets stained with her blood (155). Sophie also tells the story of a woman who had blood pouring out of her skin, so she asks Erzulie to change her into a butterfly so she will never bleed again. Ironically, even though butterflies do not suffer as women do, they also don't live very long lives. Martine becomes Sophie's butterfly, and exchanges her womanly suffering for a shortened life span. Sophie addresses her frustration with Haitian politics and female inequality by attacking the cane in the field where her mother was raped. By attacking the cane, she is battling against her mother's perpetrator, the Tontons Macoutes, and men in general. After Martine's funeral, Sophie will return to her new home in America to Joseph, the husband who, although he is not Haitian, utilizes his authority as a male to place domestic and sexual demands on his wife. Sophie must continue her “perpetual transition” as a Haitian-American woman, and now turn her efforts to demanding equality in a new political realm.
Danticat's tale verifies Davies' claims about Black women's migrating subjectivities. Sophie crosses one boundary after the next in order to embrace, celebrate and redefine what it means to be both a product of multiple cultures and a woman. She defies religious conventions to take control of her sexuality. She distances herself from harmful practices associated with her native culture. Finally, she begins to confront the political forces that have created the entire cycle of trauma the women of Haiti have been subject to. Because she has the power to evaluate and change her life, Sophie becomes a powerful figure for other boundary-crossing women who share in the “perpetual transition” of Black femininity.
Works Cited
Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Print.
Davies, Carole Boyce. “Introduction: Migratory Subjectivities: Black Women's Writing and the Renegotiation of Identities.” Black Women, Writing and Identity: Migrations of the Subject. New York.
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