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Chapter 4
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
Sophie is mesmerized as the van speeds through the streets of Port-au-Prince—she has never been to the city before. Tante Atie tells Sophie a story about how she and Martine used to save up all year for a Christmas Eve trip into the city to shop, eat, and flirt with tourists. As the car slows down, Tante Atie realizes they are stuck in traffic because of some “trouble” up ahead. At the airport, Sophie and Tante Atie see that army trucks have surrounded a car that is engulfed in flames. Students are throwing rocks at the car, and soldiers are shooting bullets and tear gas as well as pistol-whipping and punching them. Tante Atie begs Sophie to understand that she is leaving a world of violence for a better one, but Sophie says all she knows is that she is leaving Tante Atie.
Even as Sophie looks upon the extreme violence that is a part of life in Haiti, she feels sad to be leaving because she does not want to abandon her home or her aunt. Sophie can’t see the ways in which she might have a better life in America, because all she can feel is the acute emotional loss she is going through.
Themes
Inside the crowded airport, a breathless flight attendant approaches Tante Atie and Sophie, identifying Sophie as Sophie Caco. She promises to take good care of Sophie, but says they must go now—the van was late, and the flight is about to leave. Tante Atie and Sophie have a rushed goodbye, as the driver, too, urges Tante Atie to leave the airport before more violence occurs. Sophie follows the woman through the airport, looking back at Tante Atie one last time.
Sophie is quickly rushed through her goodbye with Tante Atie, unable to fully thank her aunt for all she’s done for her. Sophie and Tante Atie don’t know when they’ll see each other again, but aren’t afforded the luxury of an emotional farewell in the midst of the chaos and violence at the airport.
Themes
Sophie follows the attendant down the crowded plane’s central aisle. The woman seats her near a window, and when Sophie looks out, she sees smoke. The woman brings a hysterical little boy to sit by Sophie. The woman tries to calm the boy down, but he spits in her face. When Sophie reaches over to stroke the boy’s head, he bites her hand. The boy climbs from his seat onto another passenger’s lap, banging his head against one of the plane’s windows. Eventually, with the help of the passenger, the attendant manages to wrestle the boy into his seat. The flight attendant tells the man that the boy’s father, some “très corrupt” government official, just died in the fire out front. As the plane takes off, the sound of the engine drowns out the boy’s sobs.
While Sophie is calm and seemingly shell-shocked as she boards the plane, her seat companion is, perhaps, physically expressing the pain, suffering, and fear that Sophie wishes she herself could project. This passage also shows just how dangerous things are in Haiti, cementing her neighbors’ belief that Sophie is lucky to have the chance at a life in America.
Themes
