Breath, Eyes, Memory

by Edwidge Danticat

Francois Duvalier to Mais Gate, like it was before François Duvalier was president.”

Change in power. Political instability is constant. Can also reflect the end of Sophie’s life in Haiti

“Maybe the world, it is ending,”

Passage of time

A group of students

RIOT

Third location - New York Duality - Harlem vs Long Island - Poor vs Rich Immigrant / Hope Statue of Liberty

she did not belong there.

A place is different.

“His father died in that fire out front.

Family dynamic

Represents what she wanted to do.

Let me hear your voice.”

Speechless. Her voice is her control. Juxtaposes her mom’s talkative nature and Tante’s relationship. She talks to Tante.

Outside it was overcast and cool.

Difference in weather.

yellow

She did not look like the picture Tante Atie had on her night table. Her face was long and hollow. Her hair had a blunt cut and she had long spindly legs. She had dark circles under her eyes and, as she smiled, lines of wrinkles tightened her expression. Her fingers were scarred and sunburned. It was as though she had never stopped working in the cane fields after all.

Haggard. She doesn’t look like her mom and could look like her father (whom she doesn’t know either). Difference between Martine and Sophie. She doesn’t view her mom as her mother.

I still had not said anything to her.

Imagine our surprise when we found out we had limits.”

dim and hazy.

avoid a bottle that almost came crashing through the windshield.

protest in Haiti

“Your schooling is the only thing that will make people respect you,”

no one is going to break your heart because you cannot read or write.

You can raise our heads.”

yellow dress.

I looked

Her knees seemed to be weakening under my weight.

yellow sheets.

I couldn’t fall asleep.

Namamahay

She told me the story of a little girl who was born out of the petals of roses, water from the stream, and a chunk of the sky. That little girl, she said was me.

She pulled the sheet over both our bodies.

The sun stung my eyes as it came through the curtains.

As my mother’s daughter and Tante Atie’s child.

Relationship Dynamic

If I had the power then to shrink myself and slip into the envelope, I would have done it.

Around us were dozens of other people trying to squeeze all their love into small packets to send back home.

to school. My mother said it was important that I learn English quickly. Otherwise, the American students would make fun of me or, even worse, beat me.

Frankly, I was afraid.

My mother brought some face cream that promised to make her skin lighter.

BEAUTY STANDARDS

lemon perfume

children addressed one another in curses.

Lack of respect

quiet streets, where the houses had large yards and little children danced around sprinklers on the grass.

“You are going to be a doctor,” she told me.

Parental expectations

“She will have a boyfriend when she is eighteen.”

“And what if she falls in love sooner?”

Some of the people were my grandmother’s age, but could neither eat nor clean themselves alone.

She never had to work for anything because the rainbow and the stars did her work for her.

I knew that her story was sadder than the chunk of the sky and flower petals story that Tante Atie liked to tell.

pulled me into a cane field, and put you in my body.”

Raped

Daffodils would need more care and she had grown tired of them.

love is like rain. It comes in a drizzle sometimes. Then it starts pouring and if you’re not careful it will drown you.

He was old like God is old to me, ever present and full of wisdom.

yellow dress

pink and yellow lights

she tested me.

For purity

The love between a mother and daughter is deeper than the sea.

There are secrets you cannot keep.