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.