Tante Atie Character Analysis

[Tante Atie] took the card from my hand. The flower nearly fell off. She pressed the tape against the short stem, forced the baby daffodil back in its place, and handed the card back to me. She did not even look inside.

“Not this year,” she said. […] “It is not mine. It is your mother’s. We must send it to your mother.

Tante Atie told me that my mother loved daffodils because they grew in a place that they were not supposed to. They were really European flowers […] meant for colder climates. A long time ago, a French woman had brought them to Croix-des-Rosets. […] A strain of daffodils had grown that could withstand the heat, but they were the color of pumpkins, […] as though they had acquired a bronze tinge from the skin of the natives who had adopted them.

“You’re a good girl, aren’t you? […] You understand my right to ask as your mother, don’t you? […] When I was a girl, my mother used to test us to see if we were virgins. She would put her finger in our very private parts and see if it would go inside. Your Tante Atie […] used to scream like a pig in a slaughterhouse. The way my mother was raised, a mother is supposed to do that to her daughter until the daughter is married. It is her responsibility to keep her pure.”

“Who would have imagined it?” [Tante Atie] said. “The precious one has your manman’s black face. She looks more like Martine’s child than yours.”

“They train you to find a husband. […] They poke at your panties in the middle of the night, to see if you are still whole. They listen when you pee… If you pee loud, it means you’ve got big spaces between your legs. They make you burn your fingers learning to cook. Then still you have nothing.”

[Tante Atie] took the card from my hand. The flower nearly fell off. She pressed the tape against the short stem, forced the baby daffodil back in its place, and handed the card back to me. She did not even look inside.

“Not this year,” she said. […] “It is not mine. It is your mother’s. We must send it to your mother.

Tante Atie told me that my mother loved daffodils because they grew in a place that they were not supposed to. They were really European flowers […] meant for colder climates. A long time ago, a French woman had brought them to Croix-des-Rosets. […] A strain of daffodils had grown that could withstand the heat, but they were the color of pumpkins, […] as though they had acquired a bronze tinge from the skin of the natives who had adopted them.

“You’re a good girl, aren’t you? […] You understand my right to ask as your mother, don’t you? […] When I was a girl, my mother used to test us to see if we were virgins. She would put her finger in our very private parts and see if it would go inside. Your Tante Atie […] used to scream like a pig in a slaughterhouse. The way my mother was raised, a mother is supposed to do that to her daughter until the daughter is married. It is her responsibility to keep her pure.”

“Who would have imagined it?” [Tante Atie] said. “The precious one has your manman’s black face. She looks more like Martine’s child than yours.”

“They train you to find a husband. […] They poke at your panties in the middle of the night, to see if you are still whole. They listen when you pee… If you pee loud, it means you’ve got big spaces between your legs. They make you burn your fingers learning to cook. Then still you have nothing.”