Haiti has endured a legacy of suffering during which slavery evolved into one of the bloodiest wars in modern history. Although they have now won their political freedom, Western powers impose economic strangulation and denounce their non-discriminatory citizenship, the legitimate form of democracy, which Beckles considers a crime "greater than slavery". From the trauma of history, Haiti has resisted debt, imperialism and dictatorship, all of which imposed oppression and anguish. Under the totalitarian Duvalier regime during the second half of the 20th century, extreme measures were applied in order to combat government resistance. These measures include, but are not limited to, the systematic rape and murder of many Haitian women to prevent community resistance. Haitian women have been objectified and deprived of identity throughout the patriarchal nation-state. The feminine gender is perpetually denigrated by rigorous traditions and the masculine construction of feminine identity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay In Breath, Eyes, Memory Edwidge Danticat depicts a 20th-century Haitian immigrant, Sophie, who leaves her small village in Haiti to At the age of twelve, moving to New York to be with a mother she hasn't seen since she was born. This act of migration triggers a series of traumatic experiences around which Sophie must construct her identity. According to Ashcroft, "a valid and active sense of self may have been eroded by the dislocation resulting from migration...Or it may have been destroyed by cultural denigration, the conscious and unconscious oppression of the native personality and culture by a superior race or culture. model” (9). Sophie's self-esteem, however, has been degraded on two fronts: first, her migration to New York takes her away from all the comforts she has ever known, Aunt Ante and Grandma Ife, and moves her towards a woman whose she was physically separated. since birth. Second, Sophie's cultural denigration is in fact the denigration of her gender; Female identity is entirely constructed by and for male relationships in Haitian culture, to the extent that women are only given an identity through marriage and the system of oppression that this entails. Women reinforce this ideology by subjecting their own family members to virginal tests to ensure their purity before marriage. , which justifies this premium placed on virginity. “Danticat writes another version of Haiti's political history by focusing on women's bodies – and the stories embedded in them” (Francis). In other words, the novel illustrates a lineage of violations and victimization of women that is subjugated and intertwined with broader national oppression and subjugation. Yet it is through this lineage that a shared identity is formed and inextricably linked to each other, in all forms of space and time, because the suffering manifested by violence perpetuates it. Danticat seems to suggest that violence against one Haitian is violence against all Haitians, and that violence done by one Haitian to another is the same as violence done to oneself. Breath, Eyes, Memory blurs the traditional lines of history, allowing memory to serve as a current force rather than a historical fact. Time and history are not linear. Martine and Sophie suffer from the bond of their own migration to New York from Haiti, and the painful nostalgia manifests itself by cooking dishes that have a history, an identity and a memory in Haiti.These two women are a construction of femininity in which cooking a traditional cultural food represents the woman of that culture, the domestic identity that has been constructed for them. Thus, when their communication is served, Haitian food embodies a shared identity between women that Sophie rebels against. It is with a painful feeling of repression that Martine and Sophie both refuse to cook, which highlights the current lack of family. “I usually ate random preparations: frozen dinners, samples from cookbooks from around the world, foods that were easy to prepare and didn't cause me any pain. No memory of a past sometimes cherished and sometimes despised” (Danticat, 151). The text also connects the role of traditional “individual” identity towards multiple others. The women of the Caco family are inextricably linked to each other's past, present and future. It is her mother's past sexual violations that influence Sophie's present, and it is for Sophie's future that her mother begins to sexually violate her own daughter. In fact, she is so tied to her family, says Sophie, "that her nightmares had become mine, so much so that I woke up some mornings wondering if we had both spent the night dreaming of the same thing” (Danitcat, 193). Sophie's identity is so tied to that of her mother that she also becomes a victim of her mother's pain. Furthermore, Sophie's identity is also linked to that of all other Haitian women who have been victims of men. Sophie tells the story of a rich man marrying a poor, pure girl. Faithful to tradition, he prepared laundry to parade in front of the neighbors to prove his conquest of his virginity. As his wife was not bleeding, “he took a knife and cut her between the legs to draw blood” (Danticat, 155). She bled so much that she died. “The emphasis on the public display of evidence of a girl's virginity illustrates the way in which women's bodies are used in the service of male desires” (Francis), more specifically, in this case, to the detriment of life and sexual organs of a woman. Identity is also linked to that of the deceased bride: her “identity” is entirely constructed by and to serve male desires. It is through this recognition that Sophie can remove part of the responsibility for her own violation from her mother; “I knew that my injury and hers were links in a long chain and if she hurt me, it was because she was hurt too. It was up to me to avoid my turn in the fire. It was up to me to ensure that my daughter would never sleep with ghosts, never live with nightmares, and never see her name burned in flames” (Danticat, 203). Sophie recognizes a lineage of sexual violence that was both perpetrated against and perpetuated by her mother and grandmother before her. By refusing to participate in the violation suffered by her own daughter, Sophie identifies her mother as a victim, but above all as her aggressor. Sophie understands Haitian culture, where failures and successes are inextricably linked to her families; that her own failure reflects her family's failure: "If your child is dishonored, you are dishonored... If I give a tainted daughter to her husband, he may shame my family, speak ill of me, even give her to me." bring back” (Danticat, 165) and that “if you make something of yourself in life, we will all succeed. You can raise your head” (Danticat, 44 years old). So, despite her marginalization, she still feels a duty to her family and her family's honor. Her mother, subject to violent nightmares which force her to relive her rape everynight, forced Sophie to wake her “before biting her finger”, tore her nightgown or threw herself out of the window” (Danticat. 193). And when Sophie woke her up, she always said: “Sophie, you saved my life” (Danticat, 81). When Sophie begins having suicidal thoughts of her own, "some nights I would wake up in a cold sweat wondering if my mother's anxiety was hereditary or if it was something I 'caught' from living with her." She. His nightmares had in some way become mine” (Danticat, 193). Her mother is equally dependent on Sophie, and during the first of her virginal trials, relates: “The Marassas were two inseparable lovers. It was the same person, doubled. When you love someone, you want them to be closer to you than your Marassa. Closer than your shadow. You want him to be your soul... Wouldn't you scream? The love between a mother and her daughter is deeper than the sea. You and I could be like Marassas” (Danticat, 84-85). Throughout the text there is a theme of doubling; it is Sophie's doubling during her mother's tests that comforts her during her own violation. But Sophie also illustrates the suffering of the nation: “There have been many cases in our history where our ancestors had doubled. Most of our presidents were actually a body divided in two: part flesh and part shadow. This was how they could murder and rape so many people while returning home to play with their children and make love to their wives” (Danticat, 155-156). Doubling is used for both the victim and the perpetrator. Internalizing her own “embodied protest” (Susan Bardo), Sophie doubles down by mutilating herself with a pestle to prevent her mother’s tests. Sophie becomes her own aggressor, the one who sexually violates herself to create autonomy from her mother's sexual violation. Her own sexual trauma from her mother's tests forces Sophie to double herself during sex with her husband: “he reached out and pulled my body toward his. I closed my eyes and thought of my Marassa, dubbing” (Danitcat, 200). Sophie gives birth to her Marassa – who also serves as mother and author of her trauma. Even Sophie's bulimia functions as an articulation of violence. It is both her violence towards herself and the hatred of her body that has been victimized and her violence towards all those who have committed violence against her. She attempts to express her power over her own body. Bulimia, however, is well known to be an illness that the subject cannot control. Bulimia symbolizes Sophie's lack of autonomy over her own body despite her attempts. It therefore repairs a cycle of suffering. She perpetuates a system that causes its own violence under the illusion of her own action. Aunt Atie never marries, and therefore cannot be defined through her husband, and consequently, is never identified, "my life is nothing... The sky seems empty even when I look at the moon and the stars” (Danticat 136). Atie only reveals part of the intergenerational conflict. Women are only defined through their husbands and are built from birth to be servants. “Haitian men insist that their wives be virgins and have all ten fingers. According to Tante Atie, each finger had a function. It was the way she had been taught to prepare to become a woman. Maternity. Boiling. Affectionate. Pastry shop. Breastfeeding. Frying. Healing. Washing. Ironing. Washing. It wasn't her fault, she said. His ten fingers bore his name even before his birth” (Danticat 151). As the identity is only given to married women and is limited to that, other women subscribe to this ideology more 2012