But into this more hopeful (if only by a small margin) view of Haitian culture as one that is polysemous, Martine reappears. She and Sophie initially reconnect and there is a sense -- briefly -- that women in Haiti may be able to meet each other without the distortion of men's ideas about women's bodies and destinies. But then Martine becomes pregnant and kills herself, unable to bear the implications of her own fertility and sexuality. Despite the suggestion that a woman can rewrite Haitian cultural values, Martine finds herself overwhelmed by these values. As a Haitian she is enveloped by the rules of a culture designed to privilege those with privilege, which did not include women like herself.
Does Danticat want us to take a sense of encouragement from the fact that it is Martine and not Sophie who is defeated? Does each new generation of women (or other minorities) make it a little farther down the road away...
Two years later she began to write, gaining a voice that a character -- or indeed a woman -- like Martine could never have claimed. Is the biographical action of writing fiction a way in which culture can be fractured to let in other voices? Danticat's contention is a forceful 'yes'.
Works Cited
Charters, Mallay, "Edwidge Danticat: A Bitter Legacy Revisited," in Publishers Weekly,
August 17, 1998, p. 42.
Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Vintage Books, 1998. 2nd Vintage
Contemporaries Edition.
