Identity Struggles in Breath, Eyes, Memory

 Throughout Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat, the protagonist Sophie struggles with her identity. Like many people who immigrate to the United States, she never fully feels American or Haitian. Instead, she’s in a state of limbo. The novel is sprinkled with Haitian words pointing towards Sophie’s roots. She grew up in Haiti; it is her home, but her mother forces her to quickly assimilate and learn the language. Sophie’s identity crisis only adds to her poor body image and eating disorder. She fears she is never good enough for her mother or society. Martine puts an incredible amount of pressure on Sophie. When Sophie first arrives in the United States her mother tells her, “Your schooling is the only thing that will make people respect you… You have a chance to become the kind of woman Atie and I have always wanted to be… You can raise our heads,” (pg. 41). Sophie’s mother is putting the pressure of being successful not only for herself but her aunt and mother on Sophie’s shoulders. She also is implying that many will believe Sophie is unworthy of respect from others without an education because she is a Haitian woman. Sophie’s identity crisis not only stems from her moving to another country, but also her not knowing her father. When looking at a picture of herself as a baby a young Sophie thinks to herself, “It was the first time in my life that I noticed that I looked like no one in my family. Not my mother. Not my Tante Antie. I did not look like them when I was a baby and I did not look like them now,” (pg. 43). Sophie not only feels as though she does not fit in where she lives, but also as though she has no place in her family. She views Tante Antie as her true mother, but inherits much of her biological mother’s pain. At the end of the novel Sophie notes, “There is always a place where nightmares are passed on through generations like heirlooms,” (pg. 238). Sophie’s lack of resemblance to her mother strains their relationship. When Martine looks at her daughter, she is reminded everyday of her rapist. Throughout the novel Sophie struggles between balancing confronting her past and moving forward with her life. She feels tied to Haiti and it is where she chooses to return when her life seems to be falling apart. However, Haiti is where all her pain began. The testing that traumatizes her is a Haitian “tradition” that mothers pass on to their daughters. Haiti is where her life began after her mother’s rape. Haiti represents family and love as well as pain and sorrow. It where the nightmares come from, but it is also where the nightmares are cured. By visiting the place of her mother’s rape, Sophie is able to free herself from her mother’s burdens. Sophie struggles throughout the novel with her identity, but it is this struggle that ultimately makes her a stronger woman who can hopefully provide her daughter with a better life than her own.

The Symbol of Erzulie

            Erzulie, the Haitian goddess of love, strength, and women is mentioned several times throughout Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat. She is in a way her own juxtaposition. She is portrayed as both a motherly virgin and a powerful and seductive woman. She represents the ridiculous double standard that is expected of women in today’s society. Erzulie in Sophie’s mind is the ideal woman. Unfortunately, this image of perfection is unattainable. Sophie recalls, “As a child, the mother I had imagined for myself was like Erzulie, the lavish Virgin Mother,” (pg. 56). Sophie’s mother asks her if she was the mother that Sophie had imagined. Sophie responds, “For now I couldn’t ask for better,” (pg. 57). It is clear that Martine is nothing like Sophie imagined, but she knows that her mother is trying as best as she can to be a good mother to Sophie. Whether or not she failed at that task is controversial. She is the cause of a lot of pain in Sophie’s life, but her infliction of pain is unintentional. While she wishes that Erzulie was her mother, she comes to realize that this is impossible at the end of the novel. Through learning her mother’s story and returning to the sight of her mother’s rape, Sophie is able to reconcile with her mother. She comes to realize that by wanting her mother to be this heavenly and virginal figure, she has placed the own expectation on herself. During a session with her therapist she realizes that thinking of her mother as a sexual women makes her uncomfortable to the point where she is unable to actually fully comprehend the idea. She refuses to refer to Marc, the father of her mother’s unborn child, as her mother’s lover. When Sophie’s therapist asks her to imagine her mother in a sexual way, Sophie imagines her mother crying crying, just like herself. Erzulie is the symbol of the perfect woman who is impossible to be.

            Erzulie also represents the idea of doubling, transformation, and freedom. While being tested, Sophie imagines herself somewhere else, essentially “doubling” herself. This is a coping method many women used while being tested. Erzulie is doubled. She is both a virgin and sexualized at the same time. She represents the pressure women feel to be two people. She also is a symbol of freedom. Sophie recalls a story about Erzulie where Erzulie transforms a woman who bleeds constantly into a butterfly. This woman symbolizes all women who suffer continuously from the expectations of society. When she turns into a butterfly, she never bleeds again. The transformation to a butterfly, a symbol of freedom, represents the cure to this pain is freedom. Sophie’s mother frees herself when she kills herself, finally severing her tie with her rapist. Sophie is freed when she returns to the cane field where her mother was raped, confronting her father in her own symbolic way as she thrashes against the sugar canes. Sophie and her mother become their own butterflies.

The Obsession with Purity in Breath, Eyes, Memory

In Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat, the protagonist Sophie returns to her home country of Haiti on a whim. Her husband, a musician, is on tour and she feels pulled to her home. Towards the end of the novel, readers learn that Sophie’s real reason for returning is her crippling negative body image and her sexual phobia that stems from the trauma of “testing” she faced as a teenager. Sophie’s pull to home is connected to her own mother’s rape. Socialized into believing that all girls must remain completely pure before marriage, Martine’s rape terrorizes her for the rest of her life not only because of the intimate violation and violence she faced, but also because of the shame she felt afterwards. Having a child out of wedlock along with cultural norms causes Martine to be obsessed with keeping Sophie pure. This obsession leads to Sophie harming herself in order to escape her mother. The theme of the danger of society’s obsession with women remaining pure and innocent is is seen throughout the novel.

            Society’s view on women’s innocence is very complex. Girls are expected to remain pure both in body and mind until, essentially overnight, they are expected to suddenly go against what has been drilled into their brains since they were young children after they are married. When talking to her grandmother Sophie reveals, “I call [testing] humiliation… I hate my body. I am ashamed to show it to anybody, including my husband,” (pg. 122). Later, readers learn that Sophie struggles with bulimia as a result from her testing. Sophie’s mother is driven to suicide after she becomes pregnant again out of wedlock. Even though the father of her unborn child is a man she cares for, she is unable to separate it from her rapist and claims the fetus speaks to her. She hears the child say terrible things. Part of Sophie’s healing comes with the acceptance of why her mother tested her and why she acted the way she did. Sophie comes to realize she has inherited her mother’s pain saying, “I knew my hurt and her were links in a long chain and if she hurt me, it was because she was hurt too,” (pg. 207). While the ideal of pure young women is rooted in the beliefs of men, women have been socialized for so long into believing their bodies are to be temples for men’s benefit that they pass on this internalized sexism to their daughters. Danticat’s lack of substantial male characters in the novel highlights the role women play in their own oppression. Sophie’s daughter serves as a symbol of hope. Sophie contemplates, “The fact she could sleep meant the she had no nightmares, and maybe, would ever become a frightened insomniac like my mother and me,” (pg. 196).  Sophie hopes to break the cycle of socialization with Brigitte. She hopes she can offer her daughter a life free from pain and terror inflicted by her own identity.

The Use of Second Person Perspective in "The Thing Around Your Neck"

            Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie uses the title of her short story “The Thing Around Your Neck” as the title of her book that is a collection of various short stories she has written throughout her career. While all linked with similar themes, each story stands on its own. Most of the stories are written in the first or third person perspective. “The Thing Around Your Neck” is one of the two out of twelve that is written in the second person perspective. The story follows a young African woman who moves to the United States to live with a relative who subsequently molests her. Following the incident with her uncle, she moves into her own apartment and eventually falls in love. Throughout the story, the narrator refers several times to feeling as though something is choking her. Adichie writes, “At night, something would wrap itself around your neck, something that very nearly choked you before you fell asleep,” (pg. 119). In this instance, the thing around the narrator’s neck represents her lack of control of her life, isolation, and depression all coming together and being too much to bear, essentially having her anxiety choke her.

While many authors use the second person perspective to draw readers in and allow them to put themselves in the shoes of the narrator in order to create a personal connections to the story, I would argue that Adichie instead wants to point out to reads that they are unable to fully empathize with the character depending on the identities said reader holds. For example, a white male who was born and lives in the United States who is reading the story will take away something very different than that of a black African woman living in the United States, but that is the beauty of literature. Rather than being a rigid structure that is confined to only one strict interpretation, it is an amorphous blob that readers shape and sculpt based on their own experiences. Very few readers of “The Thing Around Your Neck” will be able to fully connect with the story. A white male does not understand the sexism and racism that the narrator must face. However, he may be able to understand being in love and having to let go for his own personal growth. A black female born and living in the United States will relate to the sexism and racism the narrator faces, but will not be able to fully comprehend the culture shock that the narrator is confronted with moving to the United States. The key to Adichie connecting to all readers is the idea of a thing around your neck. We have all had our own things around our necks. The intensity and reason for feeling choked may vary, but we have felt that weight upon us. I think Adichie is highlighting that while we can never fully empathize with someone else, we all have had a variation or a part of an experience that allows us to sympathize with a person. Using the title “The Thing Around Your Neck” shows the connection between all the stories. Each protagonist is struggling with something around his or her neck. Whether it is the desperation that comes from living under a corrupt government, the confusion of fighting a sexual identity, or the feeling of inadequacy and anger that accompany sexism and sexual harassment, each character is struggling in one way or another. These feelings of pain and sorrow link all the characters that we, as readers, all sympathize with.

Oppression in Jumping Monkey Hill

“Jumping Monkey Hill”, a short story included in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck, explores the complex interactions between oppressed and privileged social groups. Ujunwa, the main character of the story, is a black woman from Nigeria. She is attending a writing workshop led by a white, wealthy male who lives in London, England. The ignorance of Edward and his wife Isabel is obvious throughout the short story. During one of the first conversations that Ujunwa has with Isabel, Isabel remarks, “…surely with that exquisite bone structure, Ujunwa had to come from Nigerian royal stock,” (pg. 99). Ujunwa immediately wonders to herself, “…[Had] Isabel ever needed royal blood to explain the good looks of friends back in England,” (pg. 99). Isabel then goes on to speak about how she hoped that Ujunwa would support her cause to help the apes being slaughtered and quickly dismisses the idea of natives eating bushmeat, such as monkeys, for actual sustenance. She claims that natives only use specific parts of the animal for charms and disregard the meat. Isabel exemplifies the common misconceptions believed and preached by Westerners not versed in the various cultures throughout Africa. While colonization and the unwarranted “help” of Westerners in Africa seems like only a chapter in a history textbook to today’s generation, it is still a very real issue. The problem simply manifests itself in a different form. Bushmeat provides the needed protein to many people who live in the African bush, and not only does it serve for nutritional purposes, but it is also steeped in cultural value. Africans have been eating bushmeat for centuries and it has come to be part of the tradition of many villages where domesticated proteins are expensive or simply unavailable. Western conservationists who do not understand these traditions because they did not grow up with African culture believed it was there right to intervene and save the monkeys. While I believe that protecting endangered animals is an important cause, one must also consider that the endangerment of many of these animals are caused by foreigners exploiting the animals and their land for economic gain, not the native peoples who have lived on the land for centuries. There is also something incredibly unsettling about Isabel preaching about the slaughtering of apes used for the survival of villagers, while back in Ujunwa’s home of Nigeria, innocent people are brutally killed by a corrupt government.

 Isabel’s husband, Edward, also shows great ignorance towards Ujunwa. During the workshop, Ujunwa writes a story about a young woman who is sexually harassed while working for a bank. After sharing her story with the group, Edward remarks that the story simply is not plausible because women are not treated that way in society today. He called it “agenda writing,” (pg. 114). The story in fact is based on Ujunwa’s own experience. While Edward finds the sexism that Ujunwa to be impossible, the entire workshop he has been inappropriately sexualizing her. At one point he comments to Ujunwa, “I’d rather like you to lie down for me,” (pg. 106) when she offers to stand up for Edward and give him her seat. She laughs at the comment because many women have been socialized into believing this harassment is warranted and to be expected. She even feels jealous when Edward acts inappropriately towards another female author at the workshop. This story touches on very real issues in today’s society: aversive racism and sexism as well as internalized sexism. Many people believe that they are free from biases, yet as part of the privileged group of white westerners (and in Edward’s case also male) Isabel and Edward have been socialized to hold implicit biases towards the members of the workshop. By refusing to believe that sexism and racism exist, they are only perpetuating the problem. Ujunwa has also internalized the sexism she has faced and her self-respect has suffered because of it. She craves the special attention Edward gives to her while hating the fact that, "...what he felt for Ujunwa was a fancy without respect," (pg. 109). He simply sees Ujunwa as a sexual object and dismisses her work as an author all while claiming women in Nigeria could not possibly face sexism seeing as they have a female cabinet member in their government... Edward encompasses what is wrong with a majority of society today - ignorance.