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
Yves and Amabelle are placed in a truck and driven into Haiti. They travel through the Cap, a city that has survived multiple demolitions. Amabelle recounts how King Henry I had declared that he would not surrender the Cap until it was burnt down, and then set his own house on fire to prove it. As a result, the Cap’s current houses are less grand than their predecessors.
The stories of King Henry I’s determination and self-destructiveness reveal the consequences of national pride. King Henry was so proud of his home—a symbol of his Haitian heritage—that he was unwilling to forfeit the home to others. Instead he destroyed it, leaving smaller houses to be rebuilt. The smaller houses that remain in Haiti thereby provide a warning: maintaining one’s cultural pride above all else can result in future generations’ decline.
Themes
Amabelle looks up and sees the citadel of Henry I “leaning down towards the city,” and wonders if Yves notices such things. As she and Yves travel through the crowd, people and merchants notice and recognize them as the “nearly dead.” Amabelle believes that Yves is looking for “a place to enter,” but that he is acting as if he is lost.
Amabelle thinks about the citadel fondly, believing it almost bends towards the city in an embrace. Yves, on the other hand, seems lost and confused. Both characters’ actions represent their respective viewpoints on belonging. Amabelle feels supported and welcomed by Haiti, while Yves does not yet consider Haiti his true home.
Themes
One man recognizes Yves, and they talk about what has occurred in Haiti since Yves’s departure. Yves and Amabelle then arrive at Yves’s mother’s house. Yves sees his mother struggling with her blouse, and helps her put it on; the two tearfully hug. Yves then introduces his mother, Man Rapadou, to Amabelle; Man Rapadou asks if she is Yves’s woman. Amabelle is unsure how to respond, but Man Rapadou hugs her as well. When Yves tells his mother her name, Amabelle feels “welcomed.”
Slowly, Yves begins to grow more comfortable in Haiti. He talks with a man who recognizes him—this recognition provides a sense of belonging. He then aids his mother, an act that quickly reintroduces him into his own family. Amabelle, too, begins to reveal that she feels at home in Haiti. When Man Rapadou—a stranger—greets her, she feels at peace despite her lack of connection to the woman. Haiti is quickly becoming Amabelle’s new home, even though she hasn’t been there in so many years.
Themes
Amabelle, Yves, and Man Rapadou enter the house, and Amabelle notes how it reminds her of “the compound at Don Carlos’s mill.” Yves greets his family, and Man Rapadou serves everyone coffee; Amabelle drinks it quickly, saying that it replaces the taste of parsley and blood.
Amabelle’s recollections demonstrate how thoroughly memory works to preserve one’s past. Already, she views her new experiences in Haiti through the lens of what she experience in the Dominican Republic (like Don Carlos’s mill). Unfortunately, her keen memory also preserves traumatic memories, such as the taste of blood and parsley she experienced during her assault. Again, Amabelle’s experiences reveal memory to be a powerful but damaging force.
Themes
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Man Rapadou tells stories of Yves in his childhood, and Yves listens as if it is the first time he has heard the stories. Man Rapadou then tells everyone to remember the story of Yves’s father. She recounts how he died in the midst of a feast after he was let out of prison. Yves pushes his food away after hearing the story, causing his mother to laugh.
Even in Yves’s first meal after being reunited with his family, the presence of death is pervasive and inescapable. Man Rapadou’s willingness to bring up death even during this happy event illustrates how the effects of death linger and become part of everyday life
Themes
Amabelle claims that Man Rapadou is the only one who seems able to turn sadness into humor. Man Rapadou reminds her of the old women who were injured in the cane fields; their wounds healed eventually, but their skin never returned to the way it was before.
By comparing Man Rapadou’s behavior to the injured can workers, Amabelle makes it clear that the effects of this trauma and death never really go away. A person experiencing grief and pain can heal over time, just as scars heal over time. Still, their psychological injuries remain, and the person can never return to their carefree, painless self—even when they have a sense of humor as strong as Man Rapadou’s.
Themes
Amabelle then remembers a lesson her father taught her. In her youth, when her father would be attending to births and deaths, he explained to her how sadness is not a gentle or light emotion. Rather, sadness always has an impact; sometimes, that impact is visible to other people, but sometimes it is hidden and known only by its sufferer.
The lesson Amabelle remembers from her father ultimately explains how memory and grief function and exist in Amabelle’s life. Memory, for Amabelle, preserves a deep sense of grief: it constantly reminds her of the people she has lost. She hides her grief and does not share her painful memories with many people—except Sebastien—so it remains secret, just as her father predicted it might. .
Themes
Amabelle is still too injured to eat, and Man Rapadou notices her plate of untouched food. She then walks over to Amabelle and asks if she would like some soup. As Yves’s family watches, Man Rapadou feeds Amabelle like a “sick, bedridden child.”
Man Rapadou’s familial kindness and support is a marked contrast to Amabelle’s memory of her father. The juxtaposition of her father’s past lesson with Man Rapadou’s present compassion reveals how Amabelle’s sense of belonging may be shifting. Amabelle is slowly allowing new bonds to replace the family she has lost, which hints that she may also be able to feel a new sense of belonging in Haiti.
Themes
