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 Man Rapadou discuss Amabelle. Man Rapadou asks who Amabelle is, and where her “people” are. She asks whether Amabelle’s family is still in Haiti, or whether they died in the Dominican Republic. Yves and his mother continue to talk about “old friends,” acquaintances who have passed away, and his father’s untilled farmland.
Yves’s discussion with his mother highlights Amabelle’s isolation and lack of belonging. She is orphaned, with no ties to either Haiti or the Dominican Republic. Despite this, Amabelle is slowly integrating into Yves’s family, a sign that her definition of home is evolving to include new connections. Meanwhile Yves and his mother reminisce together, recalling people who have passed away. Their shared memory keeps their loved ones’ legacies alive long past their demise.
Themes
Amabelle tries to rest, but replays images in her head of Sebastien and Mimi drowning; it reminds her of her parents’ deaths. She daydreams about Henry I’s citadel to avoid these thoughts, and tries to focus on her “childhood visions” of being protected inside the citadel’s walls. She eventually falls asleep.
Once again, Amabelle demonstrates that she uses to dreams to avoid and cope with difficult situations. Her fantasies are, in fact, explicitly symbolic of this avoidant tendency: she dreams of a castle that protects her and hides her away. Just as her dreams figuratively protect her from reality, the castle shields her from intrusive thoughts.
Themes
Amabelle wakes up the next morning and crosses paths with Yves’s mother. Man Rapadou tells Amabelle that she knows Amabelle’s story, and reminds Amabelle that everything Amabelle has known has been lost after the attacks in the Dominican Republic. Amabelle wonders if Man Rapadou is telling her to forget her memories of Sebastien; she then thinks about how images of Sebastien replay in her head like a dream.
Man Rapadou explicitly states that Amabelle’s home is gone. Nevertheless, Amabelle is acclimating to Haiti and allows her memories of Sebastien to give her a sense of companionship —with her strong sense of memory, she does not feel alone. Still, Amabelle recognizes that memories of Sebastien are dream-like, and cannot sustain her forever. She worries about forgetting him, illustrating how important memory is for preserving a person’s legacy.
Themes
Amabelle locates the house of Man Denise, who is the mother of Sebastien and Mimi. At first, she decides not to visit, as Man Denise does not know her history with Sebastien. Gradually, Amabelle’s body begins to get better, but she wishes that her features would return to normal: her hair has not grown, and her smile is now crooked. She grows worried that Sebastien will not recognize her when he returns.
Amabelle remains hopeful that Sebastien and Mimi are alive, despite the grief she has experienced and the deaths she has witnessed. In fact, Amabelle is so hopeful that she seems almost delirious. She fixates on unimportant things, like her features, instead of directly confronting the possibility that Sebastien and Mimi may be dead. Here, Amabelle’s hope for the future is so strong it blinds her to the truth of her situation.
Themes
Get the entire The Farming of Bones LitChart as a printable PDF.
