Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Girl Who Smiled Beads, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Faith
Narrative, Memory, and Fragmentation
Displacement and Identity
Women, War, and Survival
Charity vs. Sharing
Summary
Analysis
Clemantine yearns for a mother. She struggles to make her relationship with her mother work, so she invites her on a trip to Europe. She wants to restage their reunion. Clemantine flies to London ahead of her mother to plan a wonderful reception for her. In London, she buys nice groceries, arranges roses in a vase, and sets a new nightgown and a robe on her mother’s bed. She wants her mother to feel special when she walks in the room.
Clemantine wants to make her mother feel special and cared for. It is as if Clemantine wants to support her mother in a way that her mother was never able to support her (because of the genocide). Similarly, Clemantine cared for Mariette while a refugee as a way of acting out the mother-daughter relationship that she herself was missing.
Themes
Clemantine’s mother gets lost in the London airport. Except for immigrating to America, she has never traveled before. Her mother finally arrives with freshly painted nails and new clothes. Clemantine’s mother is in awe of the fancy black car that picks them up. She loves the flowers and the robe Clemantine got her. She is surprised that a Black family owns the house they are staying in and that they have a white housekeeper.
Clemantine’s mother hasn’t seen as much of the world as Clemantine has. Although they were both victims of the Rwandan Genocide, Clemantine was a refugee, whereas her mother stayed in Rwanda until immigrating to the States. Therefore, Clemantine’s mother isn’t as accustomed to navigating new places as Clemantine is.
Themes
Clemantine has mapped out an itinerary for her and her mother. At Westminster Abbey, her mother is in awe of the religious effigies. Clemantine tells the guard how important this moment with her mother is to her. Meanwhile, her mother touches everything in the garden, embarrassing Clemantine. They tour cathedrals and go shopping. After dinner, Clemantine’s mother insists on washing the dishes. Clemantine feels overwhelmed to be alone with her mother. She wants her to know everything that happened to her, but she also doesn’t want to tell her. Neither she nor Claire have ever told her their story.
Although everything on their trip goes to plan, there is a disconnect between Clemantine and her mother. After all these years, they clearly move through the world in much different ways. Therefore, Clemantine has a hard time bonding with her mother, who seems to take a completely different approach to life than she does.
Themes
Clemantine and her mother visit Paris. Clemantine buys her mother croissants, strawberries, and a beautiful brocade coat. They attend a fancy lunch at Clemantine’s friend’s house. Clemantine’s itinerary is going to plan, but she feels disassociated and lost. In the Tuileries Garden, Clemantine asks her mother is she misses her own garden. Her mother goes pale and doesn’t answer.
Clemantine tries to ask her mother about her old beloved garden, hoping to share their pain over what they have lost. She feels that her mother’s “forgive and forget” philosophy—like Claire’s—prevents their ability to have a deep and truthful relationship.
Themes
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Clemantine and her mother go to the Louvre. Clemantine’s mother loves the religious artworks. Clemantine wishes her mother wouldn’t pray to Jesus’s innocent face but to the faces of the Nigerian and Senegalese men selling goods in the street. They pass the Mona Lisa and come to The Wedding Feast at Cana, a painting of Jesus, the apostles, kings, and emperors. Clemantine points out that there is a Black boy under the table with a dog, but her mother repeats that the painting looks like heaven. Clemantine screams with fury that her mother doesn’t notice the degradation of the Black boy.
Clemantine is irritated that her mother ignores the racism and the mistreatment of the Black boy in the painting of Jesus. This painting illustrates how Clemantine feels about religion: namely, that religion ignores and enables the violence and abuse that goes on in the world. Clemantine and her mother are thus at odds with each other because her mother thinks turning to religion will make the world a peaceful place.
Themes
Clemantine and her mother fly to Rome. Clemantine can’t stand the trip anymore. She thought she and her mother would become different people on this trip; she’d tried to be the mother that her mother never was for her. However, she now knows that when you lose a mother at age six, part of you always remains a child. Clemantine tries to get her mother to notice her effort, but her mother only thanks God for the wonderful trip in Europe.
Clemantine acknowledges that when she was originally displaced at six years old, part of her was frozen in that time. She sees that her Europe trip was an effort for her mother to notice her, just like a child. In the same way that she wants people to notice that humans are responsible for evil, she wants her mother to see that Clemantine, not God, is responsible for good.
Themes
Clemantine and her mother don’t connect in Europe. Clemantine has a similar relationship with Claire. She owes Claire her life and admires Claire’s strength and pride, but she still feels unrecognized when her sister talks about their experiences as refugees. When Clemantine confronts Claire about this, Claire says she felt alone when they were refugees. When the sisters are together now, they feel both love and hatred for each other.
Although Clemantine and Claire survived the genocide together, there’s a permanent sense of distance between them. They had different ways of coping with the harsh circumstances, and Claire, as the older girl responsible for protecting the younger, felt she was alone. This shows that trauma and war painfully estrange even those who undergo many of the same experiences.
Themes
Claire focuses on feeding and supporting her whole community. She holds to her mother’s philosophy of sharing, flying to Rwanda every January and cooking a big New Year’s Eve meal for orphans. Afterwards, she puts on a fancy dress and has someone take pictures of her. Claire would rather do this than be stuck in grief. Clemantine knows that all she can do is let others live on their own terms; all she can do is examine the origin of her own habits and values and pain.
Whereas Clemantine heals from her trauma by examining her past and trying to express herself, Claire heals by supporting her community. Clemantine thinks that this is an escape mechanism for grief, and she would rather try to look her grief in the face. However, she acknowledges that everyone will cope with their pain differently.
Themes
Clemantine and her mother tour the Basilica of Saint Paul in Rome. Clemantine wanders off to analyze the architecture and calm herself down. When she returns, she finds her mother looking for Saint Brigid, the saint of children. When they find Saint Brigid, Clemantine’s mother kneels down in front of the statue, holding her rosary. She tells some nearby nuns that her girls were gone for years but that her prayers were answered and now her girls have returned. Clemantine’s mother looks content and peaceful—Clemantine envies her faith.
When Clemantine witnesses the full extent of her mother’s faith, she stops feeling annoyed and just feels envious. She seems to realize that her life would be easier if she could forgive her past and have faith that God has a plan. This shows that Clemantine’s rejection of faith isn’t necessarily voluntary. Her trauma is such that she simply can’t bring herself to believe that a good, just God exists.
Themes
The next day, Clemantine and her mother take a train to the airport. They wait together for their separate flights. Clemantine’s mother has a story that helps her survive; Clemantine only has “a character, a rubric.” The “girl who smiled beads” helps her feel like she has agency, but she still longs for a coherent narrative of her life. Clemantine wants Mukamana to tell her the plot, but she knows she must write it herself. She gets on her plane, opens her notebook, and starts writing her story.
Clemantine has come to terms with the fact that her identity is like a collection of scattered beads. However, she will always long for a logical story. Ultimately, what she misses most from her lost life is her storyteller—Mukamana—the woman who used to make sense of the world for her. She thus starts writing this memoir in an effort to find meaning and coherence in her own story.
Themes
