Breath Memory Trauma

In Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, and Memory, trauma comes two-fold, as the migratory experience’s rupture of motherhood is furthered by the climate of sexual violence of Haiti’s patriarchal society. Haiti’s political, social, and economic turmoil, caused by a legacy of slavery, oppression, and intervention, funnels immigration into the United States as violence and poverty drive people to escape their native country. Countless women have migrated, many of whom had to leave their children behind, causing rupture and trauma to exist within the familial sphere, as women are forced to mother across the border. This trauma is augmented by the type of mothering that develops once this mother and daughter are reunited, as under this violent climate mothering …show more content…
This furthers the trauma that Sophie faces. The trauma that Martine faced was a sexual one in nature, borne from a war-torn nation’s means of oppressing the masses. The trauma from that rape still haunts Martine as Sophie states, “Sometimes the fright woke her up, but most of the time, I had to shake her awake before she bit her finger off, ripped her nightgown, or threw herself out of a window” (196). The pain and suffering are so intense that Martine’s nightmares lead her body to suicide. Martine’s fears and suffering are augmented through Sophie, as she is the living embodiment of the pain that was inflected onto her. Sophie is the afterimage of Martine’s rape due to Sophie’s resemblance of the unseen man that raped her mother. Sophie, therefore, is the face that Martine has not seen but the face that has haunted her since her rape in the sugar cane fields. It is stated that “I never thought it would make me so sad to look in Sophie’s face,” (139) since she is the reminder to Martine and the other Caco women of the violence that Martine had to face. Due to this, Martine’s mothering further ruptures itself and Sophie as their lives after their union is fraught with conflict and