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Chapter 27
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
The van ride to the airport is rough and rocky, and yet Brigitte sleeps calmly through most of it—even when she wakes, she is quiet and good. Martine marvels at the child’s disposition, telling Sophie that “it’s as if she’s not here at all.” Inside the crowded airport, Martine bribes the ticket counter to switch her and Sophie’s seats so that they’re next to each other.
Martine is so unused to the idea of peaceful sleep that Brigitte’s ability to sleep quietly and calmly actually disturbs her. It’s clear that she has become so accustomed and desensitized to her own trauma that anything else seems alien.
Themes
On the flight, Martine is nauseous and ill, claiming that her “discomfort with being in Haiti” has made her sick. She calls out Sophie’s own reluctance to eat, however, prompting Sophie to confess that she is bulimic. Martine doesn’t know what the disease is, and Sophie explains it to her mother. Martine remarks that the disease is “very American,” and wasteful to boot. Martine recalls that when she first arrived in New York, she ate every meal as if it were her last—and had trouble convincing herself to eat differently as time went by.
The revelation about Sophie’s bulimia shows just how much she has internalized the violence Martine perpetrated against her. Sophie’s eating disorder likely stems from latent feelings of shame about her body and her sexuality due to Martine’s abuse, as well as a desire to reclaim a sense of control over her own life by controlling her eating habits.
Themes
After they land in New York, Martine asks Sophie to spend the night with her in Brooklyn before heading on to Providence—Sophie agrees, and they take a cab to Nostrand Avenue. The apartment is still decorated all in red, and when Martine checks her messages, they are all from Marc. Sophie goes upstairs to her room to find that her things are gone. Martine apologizes for burning Sophie’s belongings in a fit of anger, but Sophie insists she doesn’t need her old things anymore.
Even though Sophie notices that her things are gone, she doesn’t feel particularly sad about their absence. Her possessions represent her connection to the past—and suggest that perhaps Sophie is reaching a point where she’s ready to let go of more than just material things.
Themes
Martine makes spaghetti for dinner, and confesses that after Sophie left, she ate only spaghetti for a long time—everything Haitian, she says, reminded her of Sophie. After dinner, Martine gets ready to go out for a little while. Sophie asks if she’s going to see Marc, and if she’s ever going to marry him, but Martine says to do so this late in her life would be “senseless.”
Even though Martine and Marc have been together for many years, there’s a part of Martine that’s afraid to legitimize their relationship or admit to needing (or perhaps even wanting) him to stick around. Although Marc is a good man, it’s clear that Martine is still associates men with violence, pain, and loss due to her rape.
Themes
Get the entire Breath, Eyes, Memory LitChart as a printable PDF.
One Martine is gone, Sophie picks up the phone and calls Joseph. She tells him she’s back from Haiti and staying in Brooklyn for the night. Joseph is relieved that Sophie and Brigitte are okay—though he is slightly angry and anxious about Sophie’s having left. Sophie promises that she’s coming home soon. Joseph tells her that she needs to stick with therapy and work through her problems rather than running away from them—he promises to wait until she’s ready to have sex, and assures her that he’ll be patient.
This passage makes it clear that Joseph understands why Sophie did what she did in running away—but wants desperately to work with her to heal the scars of her past. Sophie is clearly struggling to do just that—but running away from her problems hasn’t quite helped, either.
Themes
Joseph asks if Sophie and her mother have worked things out, and Sophie vaguely states that the two of them talked. Joseph asks several questions about Brigitte and how she’s been. Joseph clearly misses the two of them and offers to drive down to get them right away, but Sophie insists on making her own way back.
Sophie knows that because she was the one to leave, she should be the one to make the journey home—there are parts of Sophie, clearly, that still cling to ritual and metaphor despite her alienation from her native culture.
Themes
Martine comes home from seeing Marc, explaining to Sophie that she had something important to tell him. Sophie asks if Martine’s news was good or bad, and Martine replies that that “depends on how you look at it.”
This passage foreshadows that something momentous is about to happen in Martine’s life—and that she is unsure of how to feel about whatever it is that’s coming for her.
Themes
