breath eyes memory by edwidge danticat free download

Sophie, despite her mother's warnings to focus on school and no men, falls in love with Joseph, a musician who lives next door to them. The rising action of the story is when Sophie leaves Haiti at age twelve to join her mother in the United States in New York. She is also in turn fighting the weight of her inheritance, as well as her mother's past experiences. She grows into a woman who fights a battle with herself as a woman, wife, mother, as well as daughter. This, along with the fact that Sophie's mother practiced the act of testing (which is when she basically checks on her daughter to make sure that her daughter is still a virgin), causes Sophie to grow into the same type of woman as her mother. Her mother came to resent her own self and body and constantly has nightmares about the rape. Her mother as a result of the rape remained this wounded but very resilient woman. Because she is a child of rape (her mother had been raped at the young age of 16 by an unknown man), she is a reminder to her mother of the wounds that had been inflicted on her. The major conflict of the novel is the main character's battle with her inner self. Living with her mother in New York, Sophie discovers the trauma her mother endures inclusive of violent nightmares reminiscent of her experience prior to fleeing Haiti. At this point, Sophie is unexpectedly summoned by her mother, who lives in Brooklyn having gained asylum and immigrated to the United States. Sophie is the product of a violent rape and is raised by her loving aunt in a village near Port-au-Prince for 12 years. The narrator, Sophie Caco, relates her direct experiences and impressions from age 12 until she is in her twenties.

The novel is written in a first person narrative. As she has recounted in interviews, the book began as an essay of her childhood in Haiti and her move as a young girl to New York City. The novel deals with questions of racial, linguistic and gender identity in interconnected ways.īreath, Eyes, Memory was Danticat's first novel, published when she was only twenty-five years old.

Breath, Eyes, Memory is Edwidge Danticat's acclaimed 1994 novel, and was chosen as an Oprah Book Club Selection in May 1998.

Breath eyes memory by edwidge danticat free download