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.