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Chapter 15
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Breath, Eyes, Memory, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mothers, Daughters, and Generational Trauma
Virginity and Violence
Home
Memory, Storytelling, and the Past
Summary
Analysis
In the morning, Sophie wakes with the dawn, then washes herself in the small bath house out in the yard. She appraises her body, ashamed of how heavy she still feels nearly six months after giving birth. She goes inside and gives Brigitte a sponge bath, then looks out the window to see Granmè Ifé taking her turn in the bath house. Seeing a large hump on her grandmother’s back, Sophie thinks of how, years ago, Martine developed lumps in her breasts and had a double mastectomy.
This short, lyrical chapter shows Sophie thinking about the bodies of her mother, grandmother, daughter, and herself. It hints at the passage of other things through generations of women—not just trauma—but also centers bodies and physical forms as inextricable, for better or worse, from femininity.
Themes
