The purpose of this article is to study the concept of trauma of Black Haitian femininity in the novel Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat. The novel tells the story of a young Haitian-American woman Sophie Caco, who tries to rebuild her identity and find a way to recover from her past experiences. The main female characters in the novel suffer from a wide range of different traumas, which together construct the trauma of black Haitian womanhood, which can, therefore, be understood as a collective accumulation of traumas, their sources and effects. The women in the novel are affected by the traumas they experience individually and directly from female sexuality, sexual violence, and surrogacy. The thesis is based on a diverse set of theories on memory, identity and trauma. Memory is a key theme in Breath, Eyes, Memory and also a significant factor in the formation of trauma. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original EssayIn the novel the women are held captive by their own memories of the traumatic conflicts they have endured and seem unable to let go of these traumatic memories. Sophie has suffered immense trauma throughout the novel. She has had to suffer from feeling abandoned and suddenly has to readjust to living with a strange authority figure, Martine, who expects Sophie to see her as her mother. It is then that Sophie feels she has been abandoned twice in her life, first by her biological mother and now by her other mother Atie. Sophie is ashamed and may think she is guilty. For Sophie, the trauma of motherhood lies in abandonment. Sophie cannot establish a maternal relationship with Atie, because she continues to reject her while trying to protect them both from heartbreak. When Sophie is finally reunited with her biological mother, Martine sets Sophie strict rules on how to behave. Martine becomes the other and an enemy who oppresses Sophie's individuality and sexuality to colonial male values. Martine pushes Sophie away from herself by testing her. She doesn't give Sophie the motherly love that Sophie lacks, which makes her feel abandoned once again. As a result, she experiences the trauma of motherhood as a daughter who lacks maternal bonding with both her biological mother and her other mother. Although Atie tries to remind herself that she is not Sophie's biological mother, she loves her deeply and sees her as her mother. own child, because she has taken care of her since his birth. Atie even calls Sophie his daughter when she forgets to be more careful, for example when she tells a taxi driver that her son cleans his yard, referring to Sophie: “Before driving away, the driver turned around and complimented us on our cleaning the courtyard: 'My daughter, he cleans it,' said Tante Atie.” However, it could also be that Atie is ashamed of the fact that she is not Sophie's biological mother, or "real" mother, and wants to hide the fact from the taxi driver. Atie's trauma during motherhood is that she is not fully recognized as Sophie's mother by society. If we went back to Anzalduà's categories of women in patriarchal societies, Atie would not belong to any of them. Atie does not know what her place in society is, because she cannot anchor her identity to the existing conventional functions of women. Every time he remembers Sophie, the memory of society's rejection comes forward. Severely traumatized, Atie begins gambling and drinking excessively to cope with her trauma. Of course, this does not erase Sophie's trauma and memories, because Atie, like Martine when she moved to New York, is trying to escape hertrauma, and both consequently fail in their efforts to recover. As discussed before , the rape and testing traumatized Martine, but equally traumatizing is the fact that she became pregnant and gave birth as a result of the rape. AS Memory is the creative force behind the trauma, Martine cannot escape the memory of the rape, because Sophie is a direct link to that event. Martine reveals that she always sees her rapist in Sophie, because Sophie is nothing like the other Caco women. He loves Sophie, but can't bear the memory of the rape. Thus, for Martine the trauma of motherhood stems largely from the recurring memory of rape. However, Sophie and Martine share a deep bond. Martine and Sophie often claim to be each other's "marassas", two spirits destined to be together and that they are "the same person, duplicated in two". Even though the two have a difficult and turbulent relationship, they seem to be connected in a way that Sophie and Atie are not. Sophie even has the same nightmares as her mother about being raped after leaving Martine's house. This symbiosis reinforces both women's traumas, and they seem unable to recover from their traumas when they share this curious bond. The women in the novel have different ways of negotiating with their traumas. Motherhood is not only a source of trauma, but it can also help women cope with trauma. Atie decides to realize his long-term dream and learns to read and write. The motivation behind this was her ambition to be able to write the verse of the Mother's Day card that Sophie had made for her when they were still living together in Haiti. When Sophie returns to Haiti, Atie reads the text to her while simultaneously revealing his infinite maternal love for Sophie. For the first time, Atie also reveals that she considers herself Sophie's mother: "Sometimes I wish I could go back in time with you, to when we were younger." He closed his eyes, as if falling asleep. The past is always the past,” he said. “Children are the reward of life and you were my son.” Atie recovers from his trauma and perhaps can now begin to deal with it. Atie uses narrativization as a way to negotiate, putting her trauma into words. In this way he can process the traumas of his life and the traumatic memories of his past. Sophie started the process of creating a witness before coming to Haiti. She is seeing a therapist and going to a meeting for survivors of sexual violence. He has opened up about his traumas and is trying to let go of the memories. When she told them about her maternal relationships and her trials, she created witnesses to her traumas and they can carry the weight of the trauma with them. When Atie claims Sophie as her daughter, she and Sophie may finally have a chance to resolve their issues about motherhood, and she can begin to address that trauma. Sophie also expresses her thoughts on the tests to Ifé, who apologizes to Sophie for the horrible tradition. Now Sophie has made Ifé listen to her story of the trauma of sexual violence and has had Ifé's support. For Sophie, her traumas concern her mothers. As stated, Martine and Sophie share a bond with each other, and this bond continues to fuel their traumas. In the novel, Sophie is told that a Haitian woman cannot become a woman before her mother is dead. When Martine dies, Sophie brings her body back to Haiti. The Marassas' bond was severed by death. After Martine is buried, Grandma Ifé and Tante Atie declare to Sophie “ou libéré,” proclaiming that she is now free. After the elimination of this problematic bond, traumatic memories may now begin to fade. In the end, Martine is the only one to succumb to trauma. The constant memories of the rape and the tests keep recurring,.