Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Breath, Eyes, Memory, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mothers, Daughters, and Generational Trauma
Virginity and Violence
Home
Memory, Storytelling, and the Past
Summary
Analysis
A couple of years later, Sophie is in a van on the way to La Nouvelle Dame Marie. She tries to ignore the lecherous, sexual, and yet poetic compliments her driver showers upon her and take in the sights, sounds, and smells of the village around her instead. Once they arrive at their destination, the driver takes his shirt off to combat the heat, and asks Sophie to undress, too. She replies that she is a married woman, and the driver admits he'd already figured as much because of the young child Sophie has with her. The driver compliments Sophie’s Creole and tells her she’s a good person for not forgetting where she comes from.
Sophie’s daughter, Brigitte, wakes from her nap and yawns. Another woman disembarks from the van and pays the driver. A young man with a kite has been waiting for the women, and he takes her luggage out of the back and carries it. No one is there to receive Sophie, however. As the driver goes over to a stand to buy a drink, Sophie realizes he is purchasing it from Louise, Man Grace’s daughter. Sophie watches as a female merchant drops her basket. The other women around her shout out “Ou libere,” asking the woman if she is free from—and unharmed by—her heavy load.
The image of the merchant woman dropping her load—but perhaps being freed rather than inconvenienced by the mistake—foreshadows Sophie’s need to liberate herself from her own heavy, tiresome burdens.
Themes
Sophie feeds Brigitte under the shade of a tree as some Macoutes use the van as a spot to sit and eat lunch. Louise approaches Sophie and asks her if she wants to buy a pig. Though Sophie insists she has no use for a pig, Louise begs her to take a look at the animal, which she is selling for 500 gourdes. Sophie changes the subject, asking if Louise has seen her Tante Atie. Louise says that she and Tante Atie are “like milk and coffee, lips and tongue […] two fingers on the same hand.” Louise says she knows who Sophie is—Tante Atie is always talking about her. Louise also says that she’s been teaching Tante Atie to read, but the only thing Tante Atie can spell is Sophie’s name. Sophie says she hopes Tante Atie will recognize her, and Louise promises her she will.
A lot has changed since Sophie left, though a lot of villagers still yearn to flee Haiti for America. Sophie is realizing that new relationships have been forged in her absence, and is surprised by the closeness that is evident between Louise and Tante Atie. Sophie begins to wonder if she has lost her place or her relevance at home in light of all that’s changed.
Themes
Louise admires Sophie’s ability to pay for the journey from America to Haiti, and admits that she herself wants to travel to the States—which is why she is selling her pig in hopes of earning passage on a boat. Sophie warns Louise that trips by boat are dangerous, but Louise says that it’s bad luck to talk of sad things in front of a baby. She asks how old Sophie’s daughter is, and Sophie answers that Brigitte is 20 weeks old. Louise says the birth must have been difficult, as Sophie is very thin and “bony.” Sophie admits that labor was like passing a watermelon.
Everything around love, sex, and birth is difficult for Sophie. That fact that she freely admits how difficult labor was to a total stranger, lamenting all that her body has been through, suggests that her mother’s abuse still lingers with her years after it took place.
Themes
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Louise fetches Sophie a cola from her own stand and gives it to her, but asks Sophie to pay her later. As Sophie drinks the refreshing liquid, she looks out onto the street and sees Tante Atie approaching. Sophie, overjoyed to see Tante Atie for the first time in years, introduces her to Brigitte. Upon looking at the baby’s face, Tante Atie remarks that “she looks more like Martine’s child” than Sophie’s.
