Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Farming of Bones, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Power of Memory
Dreams vs. Reality
Language and Identity
Death, Grief, and Hope
Home, Family, and Belonging
Summary
Analysis
The group stops to rest for the night, and everyone tries to fall asleep. Each time the Dominican sisters wake up, they must remind themselves of where they are, and they speak to each other in “secret grunts.” Yves, however, does not fall asleep; instead, he plays a game with a stick, and does not seem to notice smoke rising from a nearby village.
The Dominican sisters’ confusion about their location is the consequence of their willingness to subvert cultural boundaries. They are lessening their attachment to Dominican nationalism and culture by fleeing to Haiti; they wish to learn a new language and a new culture. This process, however, is disorienting, and as a result they rely on their native language as a source of comfort and security.
Themes
Eventually, everyone in the group wakes up and observes the smoke. The ash smells like burning flesh, and to Amabelle it smells familiar. She notes that it smells like the “bonfire of corpses” that was lit on fire after a hurricane; the Generalissimo had ordered the burning, and the odor is unmistakable.
Here Amabelle recalls the lingering scent of death. The smell, which is unmistakable and unforgettable, is symbolic of how death often has long-lasting and memorable impact on those who experience it.
Themes
Tibon suddenly confesses to Amabelle that when he was ten years old, he almost killed a Dominican child. He was motivated to bully the child because he wished to prove that despite their different livelihoodsthe child lived in a nicer hometheir lives were still equal. Tibon admits that the boy never said what he wanted to hear, which was that they were of the same flesh and blood.
Tibon’s bullying is yet another example of how prejudice and rigid cultural labels can lead to violence. Tibon, who was angered by society’s poor treatment of him, lashed out at a helpless child. Despite the bullying, the child never vocalized the idea that Dominicans and Haitians are equal. Tibon’s disappointment—and the fact that the child apparently didn’t learn anything as a result of the bullying—illustrates how violence and intolerance will never lead to effective change. Violence does not erase narrow-minded cultural beliefs, or solve cultural rifts; rather, it further separates people within society.
Themes
The group decides to keep traveling, and Wilner tells Dolores and Doloritas that they are no longer allowed to travel with them. He says he does not want to be killed for them, and claims that, for the sisters, this land is “their country.” He argues that wherever they go, “people will welcome them,” and that they are capable of finding the border themselves. Tibon worries that the sisters will betray them, but Wilner “sense[s]” that they will not do so.
The Haitian refugees tell the Dominican travelers to find their own way. The traveling troupe, initially a symbol of the breakdown of cultural borders and labels, therefore begins to re-divide along national lines. Despite this reaffirmation of cultural divisions, however, WIlner believes that the Dominicans will not betray the Haitians. In this way, although cultural boundaries are re-established, the fellowship between the two different cultures remains.
Themes
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At first, Amabelle wants to persuade the group to allow the sisters to travel with them. She then realizes that the sisters have no issues pronouncing “perejil,” the Spanish word for parsley; furthermore, she understands that their names, if spoken by the Haitian travelers, would be translated into Haitian Creole. She notes that when the sisters pronounce the name of Doloritas’s Haitian lover, the name sounds Spanish.
Amabelle ponders the linguistic boundaries between Haitian Creole and Spanish, noting that the Dominicanas’ pronunciation of the Spanish word for parsley is flawless. She also notes that a Haitian name, pronounced in Spanish, would no longer sound Haitian. Amabelle’s fixation on pronunciation demonstrates how, in the Dominican Republic, language defines one’s cultural identity. Moreover, the power of Spanish to make a Haitian name no longer sound like it is spoken in Creole indicates how powerful language and culture can be: they can reshape even something fundamental to one’s identity, such as a name.
Themes
The travelers leave the sisters behind, and Amabelle imagines what she will do when she returns to Haiti. She thinks she will “exchange the pesos for gourdes,” and wonders if she can reclaim her childhood home for herself. She has no papers that prove her past ownership, but asserts that the land is “still her birthright,” and that the soil once belonged to her mother and father.
Amabelle’s belief that she belongs in Haiti grows as she travels, revealing that the Dominican Republic—once a cherished home—is no longer as important to her. Still, these feelings of belonging are unstable: she has no documentation to prove that her old home in Haiti truly belongs to her. Amabelle also begins to fall into dreams of her return; as she is still a refugee in a hostile country, these fantasies indicate that she is trying once again to avoid her harsh reality.
Themes
The group comes across abandoned huts, and they discover that the huts belong to a large family of Haitian traders; the family hid the land papers under their mattress. At first, the travelers believe that if the huts’ owners return, they will welcome the travelers and protect them. The group further investigates, however, and finds twelve bodies hanging in trees near the huts. They decide to keep moving, afraid that the people who set the fires from earlier will come across them.
At first, the refugees are optimistic when they come across an abandoned compound. They soon lose hope, however, when they see multiple corpses. The dead homeowners, wishing to reaffirm their identity as Haitians living in the Dominican Republic, made sure to prove their identities with documents. Nevertheless, they were killed. Yet again, racial prejudice has resulted in outright violence. The deaths are traumatic and instill fear in the travelers; this fear is a product of death’s omnipresence, especially within a discriminatory society. The travelers, reminded that death is sudden and often violent, leave quickly.
Themes
