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
Sebastien asks Amabelle to recall what she admires and respects most about her mother, Irelle Pradelle. Amabelle describes her mother’s “tranquility,” and explains how she said few words. Amabelle then emphasizes that her mother did not often smile. In Amabelle’s dreams, however, her mother is “always smiling,” except when her dreams shift into nightmares about her mother drowning.
Amabelle tells Sebastien about her mother and in doing so, she strengthens her mother’s legacy, since now another person will keep Irelle’s story from disappearing. Amabelle recalls her mother with stark honesty, describing how she was unaffectionate and unemotional. Although this is a painful truth, it further honors Irelle’s memory, because it keeps her genuine character alive. Still, Amabelle’s dreams of her mother’s smile foreshadow her tendency to rely on fantasies to lessen her grief. Instead of confronting her mother’s loss and accepting her mother’s flaws, she literally dreams of happier circumstances.
Themes
