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Jaya Arora 1806827

Supervisor: Dr Daniel O’Gorman

Word Count: 10,760

‘They no longer need to speak in codes’: Trauma and Testimony in Contemporary

Caribbean Literature by Women.

Oxford Brookes University

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Abstract:

This dissertation focuses on the writings of two Caribbean female diasporic writers

who use their works of historical fiction to represent a shared cultural trauma.

Edwidge Danticat and Julia Alvarez write from their Francophone and Hispanophone

Caribbean respectively, highlighting that despite their geographical separation, the

trauma endured on either side of the Massacre river is collective.

Each chapter within this study will focus on one novel, introducing a form of past

trauma as well as the importance placed on the act of testifying to past suffering as a

means to heal. The notion of healing will be further discussed, specifically focusing

on healing for the individual and for the collective. The ‘individual’ refers to the

singular person who has been subjected to the past trauma. Therefore when

analysing the novels in support of my argument, the character which has endured

previous suffering is referred to as the ‘individual’. However, I simultaneously take a

broader stance by exploring the collective, which refers to the wider community of

survivors both within and outside the novel. This enables me to argue that the

authors use their novels as a vehicle to retell silenced stories of their shared

ancestral trauma. This highlights their ability to raise awareness of their largely

misunderstood violent history, hence the conscious decision to write their work in

English, creating wider accessibility. I conclude by arguing that the novels in

themselves serve as a form of testimony, allowing the authors to confront their

cultural traumas as well as give a platform, through the representation of their

fictional characters, to those voices of the many victims who have been silenced.

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Table of Contents:

Introduction 4

Historical Context | A Female Perspective | Parameters of This Dissertation

Chapter 1 9

Verbalising past trauma as a means to heal in Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming

of Bones.

‘Hunger to Tell’:Survival Testimonies in Bones | ‘Desire to be Heard’:The Importance

of a Listener to Bear Witness in Bones

Chapter 2 16

Individual vs Collective Healing in Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies.

Dedé Account: A Voice for the Collective | Significance of a Written Testimony

Chapter 3 22

The Function of Recalling and Confronting Past Sexual Trauma in Danticat’s

Breath, Eyes, Memory.

The Function of Recalling Past Sexual Trauma | Confronting the Site of Past Trauma

to Heal

Chapter 4 30
Does this
heading Dislocation and Loss of Cultural Identities in Julia Alvarez’s How the García
make
sense? Girls Lost Their Accents.

Traumas of Cultural Displacement | Fractured Identities | Reclaiming Linguistic

Control to Heal.

Conclusion 38

Bibliography 40

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‘They no longer need to speak in codes’: Trauma and Testimony in

Contemporary Caribbean Literature by Women.

Introduction

Julia Alvarez and Edwidge Danticat write from entirely different sides of Hispaniola:

the Dominican Republic and Haiti respectively. Despite this, their narratives allow

them to reclaim their histories through voicing the individual testimonies of oppressed

subjects. Danticat, the author of The Farming of Bones (1998) and Breath, Eyes,

Memory (2006) provides a direct Caribbean perspective with a diasporic

consciousness. Her relocation from Port au Prince in Haiti to the United States at the

age of twelve allows her to revisit her individual, as well as a collectively cultured

trauma, within her writing. Her novels, set in Haiti, parallel her upbringing in the

Francophone Caribbean and represent her desire to rediscover her lost ancestral

home. Similarly Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies (1994) and How the

Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) writes fiction that reflects her upbringing in the

Hispanophone Caribbean. Like Danticat, Alvarez was a migrant, relocating from her

ancestral home of the Dominican Republic to New York in 1960. The latter novel is a

semi autobiographical account of this migration, reflecting Alvarez’s struggles with

the feeling of displacement in the United States.

The novels considered within this study are used as a vehicle to address the

individual traumas Alvarez and Danticat endured, consequently creating a hunger to

rediscover their cultural origins. Both writers use their texts to depict individual

accounts of trauma through their characters, whilst also using their novels to form a

testimony of its own. Kali Tal argues that ‘literature of trauma is written from the need

to tell and retell the story of the traumatic experience, to make it “real” both to the

victim and to the community’.1 Thus, both novels explore the importance of testimony

as a device for healing the characters in the novel as well as their respective

1Kalí Tal, Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), p.21.

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Caribbean collective communities. Through a focus on the writings of Alvarez and

Danticat, I argue that they create a narrative space to represent a collective trauma,

providing a voice to those suffering either side of the Massacre River.

Danticat and Alvarez wrote and published their novels in English as opposed to

Haitian Creole, French or Spanish, indicating their desire to raise awareness about

their shared cultural trauma within an English-speaking domain. Publication in the

English language allowed both writers to expand the under-represented genre of

contemporary Caribbean literature to a wider English-speaking audience, further

incentivising their need to tell and retell the misrepresented stories of their collective

ancestral trauma. By writing narratives that reflect a return to their cultural homes,

the writers enable a sense of rediscovery for themselves as well as the protagonists

within their novels.

Historical Context

Danticat’s decision to title her novel The Farming of Bones directly ‘invites us to draw

comparisons between the cane fields and the 1937 massacre’,2 using this piece of

historical fiction to illuminate the cruelty inflicted upon Haitians residing in the

Dominican Republic in 1937. This massacre, known as the Parsley Massacre

amongst an English-speaking audience (El Corte in Spanish and kout koutoa in

Creole) was named after the importance placed upon the pronunciation of ‘parsley’,

immediately indicating who was of Haitian and Dominican descent. Further, the title

of the novel also directly refers to the physical pain Haitians endured in the cane

fields, and alludes to these workers being ‘farmed’ until they were reduced to skin

and bones. Similarly, Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory presents life in Haiti told from

the perspective of Sophie, a young female character who journeys into adulthood as

the novel progresses. The novel is set during the 1980s and 1990s whilst the Tonton

Macoutes (referred to as the ‘Macoutes’ throughout the novel) were an active

2Heather Hewett, ‘At the Crossroads: Disability and Trauma in The Farming of
Bones’, MELUS, 31, 3, (Fall, 2006), p.127.

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presence in Haiti, advocating violence on behalf of the dictator Francois Duvalier.

This study analyses sexual trauma within this novel, primarily focusing on Martine’s

rape, which was acceptable under Duvalier’s regime. Although The Farming of

Bones is not an autobiographical text, Breath, Eyes Memory is said to directly mirror

Danticat’s childhood, paralleling her parents’ move to America whilst leaving her in

Haiti to be raised by her aunt.

Alvarez’s perspective, meanwhile, is rooted in her experience of the Dominican

Republic, and her literary work serves as a form of historical fiction attesting to the

pain and suffering inflicted upon both individuals and communities under the regime

of the dictator Rafael Trujillo (1930 to 1961). Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies

details a fictional narration surrounding the four Mirabal sisters, historically known for

their political activism against Trujillo. Alvarez’s father was a member of an anti-

Trujillo underground movement which resulted in their migration to the United States

when Alvarez was 10 years old, where she followed in the footsteps of her father in

exposing the dictator’s barbaric actions. Similarly, Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls

Lost Their Accents chronicles the migration of a Dominican family to the United

States, introducing the struggles and hardships that emerged with this dual

American-Dominican identity. Vázquez argues that Alvarez’s reworking of history

‘provides a therapeutic tool for working through collective historical trauma’,3 The

historical contexts surrounding each of these primary texts are embedded within the

respective chapters in this study, aiding my argument that the function of testifying

serves as a means to heal effectively from past trauma.

A Female Perspective

The inclusion of strong female protagonists within each of these novels allows for a

new representation of women in Caribbean history, diminishing the perception of the

marginalised female voice. The retelling of past traumas from a female perspective

3David J. Vázquez, Triangulations: Narrative Strategies for Navigating Latino Identity

(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011). p.144-145

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allows for history to be rewritten and exposed through contemporary writing, raising

awareness of the traumatic experiences to which women were specifically subjected.

Johnson argues that ‘the narrative space created by Danticat and Alvarez fills with

the voices of women, the poor, and the disenfranchised on both sides of the

Massacre River’.4 This highlights the significance of choosing leading female

characters within the female written texts to represent trauma specific to women

during Trujillo’s and Duvalier’s dictatorships.

Parameters of This Dissertation

Throughout this dissertation, I will focus on four diasporic texts written by Danticat

and Alvarez to aid in the exploration of previously silenced truths through the act of

testifying as a means to heal from past traumas. As both authors write from either

side of Hispaniola, I have structured this study to alternate between the two authors

amongst chapters, allowing direct comparisons to be made between their respective

works. This also creates a seamless continuity throughout this study, as both texts

reflect a shared cultural collective trauma from their respective ancestral

geographical and temporal locations, giving each text its unique critical lens.

Chapter 1 begins by introducing the act of testifying to past traumas and the impact it

can have on the process of healing. My analysis within this chapter will be supported

through a close reading of Danticat's The Farming of Bones, explicitly focusing on

the act of telling and retelling past traumas as well as examining how the presence of

an implied listener is vital to allow healing. This leads me to my second chapter in

which my analysis is divided into two sections questioning who effectively heals from

testifying to past traumas - the individual, the collective communities or both. This will

be argued through an exploration of different forms of testimonies provided within

Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies. This facilitates a discussion on the impact of

4Kelli Lyon Johnson, ‘Both sides of the massacre: Collective Memory and Narrative
on Hispaniola’ in Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature,
Winnipeg:Jun, 2003, Vol 36, Issue 2, (1-12) (pg.77)

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testifying as means to heal from individual suffering or on behalf of the collective. The

third chapter within this dissertation returns to the work of Danticat, focusing on

Breath, Eyes, Memory. This novel differs from the other texts discussed as it

introduces a new form of trauma, specifically the sexual trauma the narrator’s

mother, Martine, was subjected to, resulting in the birth of her daughter, Sophie. I use

this novel to prove that memories of past trauma can continue to haunt in the present

day, arguing that confronting the place that symbolises this past trauma is vital to

ensure effective healing. My concluding chapter returns to Alvarez, focusing on How

the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents to show the ongoing traumatic effects of being

dislocated from their ancestral home. I argue that this novel is autobiographical -

Alvarez uses her female protagonist, Yolanda, to represent her own migration to the

States. The racial prejudices the sisters are subject to as a result of their relocation

leads to the traumatic loss of their cultural identity. I once again argue that through

language, this trauma can be mitigated.

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Chapter 1

Verbalising Past Trauma as a Means to Heal in Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming

of Bones.

This chapter will be divided into two parts. I will begin by detailing the act of sharing

and testifying a past trauma as a means to heal, further arguing that the presence of

a listener to bear witness to these anecdotes of suffering is vital in order to validate

these past traumas. By discussing this at the forefront of my study, I am able to

explore the various types of trauma as well as the forms of healing surrounding the

1937 Haitian massacre further in this piece.

Danticat’s The Farming of Bones serves as a form of historical fiction exposing the

violence and brutality of Trujillo’s dictatorship. Through recounting the past horrors of

this regime, Danticat uses her novel as a form of literary testimony in itself, voicing

the silenced survival stories of the many oppressed civilians. The story is narrated by

Amabelle Désir, an orphaned Haitian woman working for a prominent Dominican

family. She calls upon her past memories to detail the events leading up to the 1937

massacre and her life after. Désir’s first person narrative grants the reader access to

her personal stream of thoughts, immediately gaining insight into the recurring

dreams that haunt her and her preoccupation with the memories of her parents. This

resurfacing of past memories encourages the confrontation of trauma, enabling the

acceptance to heal. Amabelle acts as a voice for those victims of the Parsley

Massacre who were and still are unable to testify to their traumas.

‘Hunger to tell’: Survival Testimonies in Bones

This para is
Amabelle’s narrative voice in The Farming of Bones takes the first person
too long -
could we perspective enabling the reader to gain insight into personal testimonies told from
shorten it
or split it surviving victims under Trujillo’s brutal regime. Danticat highlights the urge and
into two
paras? desperation for her characters to tell and continuously retell their personal past

traumas to allow themselves to process and accept the pain they endured. The novel

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vividly details the brutality of Trujillo’s regime and its attempts to rid Haitians from the

Dominican Republic, immediately causing Amabelle to flee Alegría after Sebastian

disappears, signalling the beginnings of the Parsley massacre. Radar details the

brutality of the regime, noting that ‘the 1937 massacre marks a disturbing point in

time and space where some machete-armed Dominicans adopted General Trujillo’s

attitudes of ethnic cleansing’.5 Journeying across the mountains, she meets with

other surviving victims sharing the same desire to cross the border into Haiti. Tibon, a

fellow survivor, describes in detail the physical harm he endured, recalling when the

soldiers would ‘have six jump over the cliff, then another six, then another six, then

another six’.6 The repetition emphasises the endless killing and dominance Trujillo

had over the Haitians working in the Dominican Republic, conveying the many who

were unable to recount their experiences, therefore dying nameless and voiceless.

Additionally, this repetition may also represent the recurring memory that ‘haunts’

Tibon, strengthening Robbins’ argument that a traumatic history ‘becomes a past that

haunts the victims’.7 This violent imagery is furthered as Tibon draws attention to the

‘many cuts on [his] body where the water sliced [him], some tears on [his]

ankles’ (Bones, p.175). Danticat’s use of the violent lexical set allows her to subvert

the purity of water into a catalyst for death, foreshadowing the death of Odette, a

fellow traveller who drowned in the river, as well as paralleling the death of

Amabelle’s parents, orphaning her at the age of eight. Tibon’s description of his

‘scabbed and deep’ (Bones, p.175) cuts suggest to the reader that his scars will not

fade, his body serving as physical testimony of this brutal history. The desperation for

Tibon to tell his story suggests there is a benefit to his continuous sharing. Robbins

5Pamela J. Rader, ‘What the River Knows: Productive Silences in Edwidge

Danticat’s The Farming of Bones and ‘1937’’, Antipodas, XX (2009), 27-46 (p.28).
6 Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones (London: Abacus, 1999) (pg.173). All
further references are to this edition and will be given in parenthesis in the body of
text.
7Emily Rebecca Robbins, "At The Enter Of Her Art”: Ex/Isle, Trauma, And Story-
Telling In Julia Alvarez’s First Three Novels" (unpublished Thesis, University of
Kansas, 2007).(p.51).

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argues that once ‘the silence in broken […] people are able to speak their truths’.8

Amabelle observes that ‘now and then, Tibon would pierce the silence with his

voice’ (Bones, p.177) depicting his recurring urge to tell and share his story. The verb

‘pierce’ conveys a sense of precision yet importance suggesting his voice gains

awareness and attention, contrasted with the ‘silence’ amongst the group. Serani

furthers this, arguing that ‘the key to healing from traumatic stress is the telling of

your own story’9 supporting the importance of testifying to past trauma as a means to

heal. This is furthered throughout Amabelle’s narrative, where she comments that

‘Tibon started again’ (Bones, p.117) and ‘Tibon went on’ (Bones, p.178) further

highlighting his urge to testify to his physical and psychological trauma in order to

begin healing.

Danticat presents the urgent need of Trujillo’s victims to testify to their past traumas

through their ability and inability to verbalise their personal suffering. Throughout The

Farming of Bones, Danticat explores the oppressed subjects’ fundamental need to

verbally provide a collective testimony, focusing on their ‘hunger to tell’ as opposed to

their ‘desire to be heard’ (Bones, p.209). Having escaped the massacre, Amabelle

and Yves are led to a makeshift hospital by ‘a priest and a young doctor’ (Bones,

p.204) where they receive medical assistance. Amabelle observes the surrounding

victims’ eagerness to testify to their past traumas, implying the prior voicelessness of

these victims. Amabelle recalls the urgency and desperation of those victims who

‘exchanged tales quickly’ noticing ‘the haste in their voices sometimes blurring their

words’ (Bones, p.209). This suggests that it is not about the quality of their spoken

word, rather the importance lies in being able to verbalise the past trauma,

regardless if there is a listener present. Vargas supports this notion, stating that

‘talking is an expression of survival and decipherability is less crucial than the simple

8 Ibid p.71
9Deborah Serani, ‘Why Your Story Matters’, Psychology Today, (2014), https://
www.psychologytoday.com/blog/two-takes-depression/201401/why-your-story-
matters [accessed 02 December 2020].

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act of verbally articulating the traumatic experiences’.10 Amabelle is no longer sharing

her own personal testimony and is instead listening to fellow victims who feel

compelled to tell their stories. The urgency of these victims to share their stories is

depicted through Amabelle’s narration, observing that 'a stutter allowed another

speaker to race into his own account without the stutterer having completed

his’ (Bones, p.209). The desperation to speak implied by the verb ‘race’ portrays the

assertion desired by these victims to speak their testimony to vocalise their past

trauma as a means to begin to accept what they endured. This presents a sense of

competition amongst the survivors battling for the narrative space, ultimately ridding

certain survivors of the opportunity to tell their stories of survival, compromising their

ability to effectively heal. Morgan and Youssef argue that ‘through their speaking,

they reconstruct themselves as empowered survivors’.11 This strongly supports the

argument put forward within the first section of this opening chapter, proving that the

act of testifying past traumas functions as a healing device from the suffering

previously endured under the genocide ordered by Trujillo.

‘Desire to be heard’: The Importance of a Listener to Bear Witness in Bones.

Although the urgency to tell one’s trauma signals a desire to begin the healing

process, I argue that the significance of testifying is elevated when there is an

audience to bear witness to the story being told. As opposed to simply telling and

retelling survival stories, there is an explicit difference and outcome when recounting

a story of survival to a listener who is physically present. The presence of a listener

provides confirmation to the teller, thus authenticating their suffering. Once returned

to Haiti after fleeing the massacre, Amabelle and Yves are confronted with a ‘group of

more than a thousand people’ (Bones, p.232) who are eager to retell their past

10Jennifer Harford Vargas, "Novel Testimony: Alternative Archives In Edwidge

Danticat’S The Farming Of Bones", Callaloo, 37.5 (2014), 1162-1180 <https://doi.org/
10.1353/cal.2014.0187>. p.1169
Paula Morgan and Valerie Youssef, ‘Narrative as Palliative in Danticat’s Fiction’ in
11
Writing Rage: Unmasking Violence Through Caribbean Discourse (Kingston:
University of the West Indies Press, 2006) p.210.

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trauma in exchange for an official statement, adding political relevance to their

suffering. Amabelle observes the many victims who ‘shared their tales, as if to

practise for their real audience with the government official’ (Bones, p.232). The verb

‘practise’ here implies an element of performativity - they are eager to rehearse their

stories in case the opportunity arises to testify directly to the government. Vázques

argues that ‘storytellers aid in renarrativizing traumatic events, they create the

possibility of moving beyond fragmented history’.12 Rehearsing to an ‘audience’

heightens the importance of a physically present listener to provide meaning to the

victims testifying. Yves and Amabelle consider entering together to ‘make both our

stories one’ depicting a shared trauma under Trujillo’s dictatorship. Through collating

two individual testimonies, their respective personal stories of trauma are mitigated,

diminishing the uniqueness of their testimonies and ultimately providing a distorted

truth. Radar argues that ‘Amabelle and Yves are fictional characters who serve as

Danticat’s ambassadors or agents for relaying oral testimonies and educating her

readers’,13 providing a further dimension as to why the act of testifying is significant

for both the individual but also for the collective communities whose voices have not

been heard. Their desire to combine their stories allows them to ‘give someone else

a chance to be heard’ (Bones, p.232). The noun ‘chance’ highlights the nature of this

testimony as fundamentally rooted in luck, with some survivors denied the

opportunity to heal through the act of verbalising past trauma. The narrative

highlights the importance of a listener by noting that those victims who were not able

to have their testimony recorded simply ‘wanted a civilian face to concede that what

they had witnessed and lived through did truly happen’ (Bones, p.236). According to

Laub and Felman as quoted by Johnson, ‘testimony is a process that “includes the

listener.” For the testimonial process to take place there needs to be a bonding, the

12David J. Vázquez, Triangulations: Narrative Strategies for Navigating Latino

Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011). p.153
13Pamela J. Rader, ‘What the River Knows: Productive Silences in Edwidge
Danticat’s The Farming of Bones and ‘1937’’, Antipodas, XX (2009), 27-46 (p.37).

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intimate presence of another-in the position of the one who hears’.14 The presence of

a listener provides significance to the experience of retelling past trauma, allowing

victims to accept their own stories as ‘real’. This desire for confirmation further

emphasises the importance of a listener to bear witness as means to heal.

The importance of an official recording of past traumas is focalised within this novel,

using private testimonies to represent the collective cultural trauma, although the

reliability of how the testimony is recorded can be questioned. This doubt over the

recording of truth is exemplified when Yves and Amabelle consider offering their story

at the Justice of the Peace. Yves’ reluctance is foregrounded as he comments ‘you

tell the story, and then it’s retold as they wish, written in words you do not

understand, in a language that is theirs and not yours’ (Bones, p.246), thus

introducing concerns regarding the recording and dissemination of such personal

stories, ridding the survivor of their ownership over their own trauma. Radar supports

this notion, remarking that ‘what is documented becomes what is officially

remembered’,15 re-emphasising the lack of control over a personal story once in the

hands of the government. This perhaps explains why Amabelle does not explicitly

address her personal past trauma and is presented as more of a listener to the

stories told by other survivors. Her inability to not only confront her past trauma, but

also her inability to verbalise it, is shown when she offers her testimony to the

government officials, stating that ‘I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. I wanted to scream,

but summoning the will to do it already made me feel weak’ (Bones, p.244). Danticat

comments that ‘once victims are able to tell their stories, they are going to be OK.

The biggest obstacle is often telling the story of what has happened to you’.16

However, Danticat overtly depicts Amabelle’s internal conflict in regards to her past

14Kelli Lyon Johnson, ‘Both sides of the massacre: Collective Memory and Narrative
on Hispaniola’ in Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature,
Winnipeg:Jun, 2003, Vol 36, Issue 2, (1-12) (pg.86)
15 Rader, ‘What the River Knows’, pg.36-37
16Edwidge Danticat and Bonnie Lyons, ‘An Interview with Edwidge Danticat’,
Contemporary Literature, 44.2 (Summer 2003), 183-198 (p.197).

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trauma through the stream of memories and dreams that are constantly occupying

her present thoughts. The novel begins by introducing Amabelle as the narrative

voice, where the reader is made immediately aware of the ‘nightmare’ she has ‘all the

time’, explicitly stating it is about her ‘parents drowning’ (Bones, p.1). Her inability to

prevent herself from regularly having this dream highlights how it still disrupts her

stream of consciousness in the present. This is exemplified through the typography

between chapters, dividing the narrative between her account of the present marked

by regular font, contrasted with the memories and flashbacks that consume her mind,

marked by a bold font. Vargas argues that ‘the two narrative styles first enrich each

other in their contrasts, then bleed into each other, and by the end of the novel

mutually inflect one another’.17 The first half of the novel is presented in a rigid order

with each chapter consecutively alternating between the two typefaces. After she has

fled Alegría in the hope of finding Sebastian, the chapters follow in regular font, using

her narrative voice to document the present, until the last two chapters which return

to the bold font, concluding the novel with her intimate thoughts. The chapters written

in bold font allow the reader to see a more intimate version of Amabelle, as she

details her relationship with Sebastian as well as her memories of her relationship

with her parents. These specific chapters indicate a space of comfort for the narrator,

allowing herself to express her true thoughts. Through recalling these past memories,

she is able to recollect happier memories from her childhood that include the

presence of her parents in a positive way. This enables her to source hope for her

future, resulting in an optimistic outcome despite past trauma.

17Jennifer Harford Vargas, "Novel Testimony: Alternative Archives In Edwidge

Danticat’S The Farming Of Bones", Callaloo, 37.5 (2014), 1162-1180 <https://doi.org/
10.1353/cal.2014.0187>. p.1165

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Chapter 2

Individual vs Collective Healing in Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies.

In Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies, the narrative voice is shared amongst the

four Mirabal sisters, providing the reader with more than one perspective of

Dominican history under the dictatorial Trujillo regime. While Danticat’s The Farming

of Bones is a detailed retelling of the 1937 Parsley Massacre, Alvarez’s novel

explores a larger period of time during Trujillo’s reign, spanning 20 years from 1940

to 1960. The novel is split into three parts, each covering a span of ten years within

this range, providing the reader with a solid understanding of historical context

through the story’s progression. Alvarez and Danticat both create historical fiction

writing from either side of Hispaniola, making these texts comparable in depicting a

shared historically traumatic experience.

Chapter 1 explores the importance of testifying as a means to heal. I will build upon

this by focusing on the outcome of testifying to past traumas as opposed to the act of

testifying itself. Therefore this chapter aims to specifically focus on healing for the

individual as well as the collective. This will be examined in relation to Alvarez’s In

the Time of the Butterflies, focalised through two of the four Mirabal sisters. Dedé,

the surviving sister, uses her voice to present the Mirabal sisters as historical figures

of resistance as well as to confront the shared national trauma by bringing it to a

contemporary light. Similarly, Maté, the youngest sister, creates a written testimony in

the form of a private diary, presenting an uncensored perspective of the past traumas

she endured yet was not able to verbalise under Trujillo’s regime. As the novel

progresses, the function of her diary shifts once pages of her writing are given to

provide evidence of her trauma and those with her. The addition of signatures within

her diary adds to this notion of a shared trauma, presenting her written testimony to

allow for individual healing as well as for the collective communities.

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Dedé as a Voice for the Collective

Alvarez creates a clear distinction throughout In The Time of the Butterflies between

testifying for individual healing and collective healing. The polyvocal narrative

narrates the lives of the four Mirabal sisters, Dedé, Minerva, Mate and Patria, with

each sister using their voice to share their perspective within each part and each

chapter. Unlike Amabelle’s unheard testimony in The Farming of Bones, Dedé is able

to confront her past trauma through her powerful narrative which opens the three

parts within the novel, allowing her truth to take precedence before her sisters.

Alvarez labels Dedé ‘the sister who survived’18 and her individual testimony depicts

both the suffering inflicted upon her whilst also serving the wider purpose of

documenting experiences of the regime on behalf of the collective community. As the

last surviving Mirabal sister, Dedé carries the responsibility of re-telling the stories of

her sisters in order to understand and process the trauma which she has suffered as

well as to testify on their behalf. Dedé’s final narrative in the Epilogue illustrates the

aftermath of her sisters’ deaths, serving as a space for her to recognise the

responsibility she has in sharing the many stories regarding their shared traumas.

She confirms that after they died, ‘instead of listening, I started talking. We had lost

hope, and we needed a story to understand what had happened to us’ (Butterflies,

p.313). The personal pronoun ‘I’ emphasises the singular responsibility that is placed

upon Dedé to testify to the traumas of the voiceless Mirabal sisters and to

acknowledge and accept the traumas they endured on behalf of the whole nation.

Alvarez’s use of the collective pronoun ‘we’ supports Robbins’ interpretation that

Dedé’s ‘personal family trauma is representative of the national trauma’.19 The

adjective ‘needed’ suggests the necessity of sharing or creating a story to allow

herself and those around her listening to ‘understand’ and make sense of the trauma

18Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies (Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 1994).
(pg.5). All further references are to this edition and will be given in parenthesis in the
body of text.
19Emily Rebecca Robbins, "At The Enter Of Her Art”: Ex/Isle, Trauma, And Story-
Telling In Julia Alvarez’s First Three Novels" (unpublished Thesis, University of
Kansas, 2007). (p.68).

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she and her sisters endured under Trujillo’s regime. The transition from ‘listening’ to

‘talking’ suggests the story has a purpose in being told, implying the benefit the teller

gains from sharing their past traumatic experiences, allowing these victims to

comprehend their trauma to move past it and begin to heal. Johnson argues that

‘Dedé is no longer the listener but the teller, testifying and witnessing the girls’

lives’.20 Indeed, Dedé’s character extends her voice to re-tell the story of the Mirabal

‘Butterflies’. Alvarez employs a rigid structure by introducing each section throughout

the novel with Dedé’s narrative, portraying her character with the most consistency

and stability, perhaps foreshadowing her survival. By allowing Dedé to survive,

Alvarez enables her to continue the legacy of the Mirabal sisters through the act of

retelling, thus enabling her to process and ‘understand’ the pain they endured and

opening up the possibility of healing from their shared traumas.

Whilst in The Farming of Bones, Amabelle and Yves occupy the dual function of teller

of and listener to testimony, the importance of an audience to hear one’s testimony is

also explored in Alvarez’s novel through the characterisation of Dedé. In the

Epilogue, Dedé’s role shifts from testifying to the trauma of her sisters’ deaths to

serving as a listener to those who ‘would come with their stories of that

afternoon’ (Butterflies, p.301). The plurality of ‘their’ suggests the many witnesses

who desire to share their testimonies with Dedé. Whilst listening to these testimonies,

Dedé recalls how ‘each visitor would break my heart all over again, but I

would[…]listen for as long as they had something to say’ (Butterflies, p.301). This

metaphor depicts the pain it causes Dedé to repeatedly listen to the stories of her

sisters’ deaths, implied by the violent verb ‘break’ juxtaposed with the vital ‘heart’. ‘All

over again’ further implies the recurring pain Dedé experiences when listening to the

stories from witnesses who had seen her sisters that afternoon, yet highlights her

strength in continuing to listen for the benefit and healing of the teller. Johnson

20Kelli Lyon Johnson, ‘Both sides of the massacre: Collective Memory and Narrative
on Hispaniola’ in Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature,
Winnipeg:Jun, 2003, Vol 36, Issue 2, Pg.75, (1-12) (pg.88)

18
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argues that Dedé ‘creates memory from these witnesses’ stories’.21 This suggests

Dedé’s memory regarding the death of her sisters is accumulated from the many

testimonies to which she has listened, implying a fragmented and distorted memory.

Alvarez draws attention to the importance of an audience when testifying as an

effective means to enhance one’s memory and understanding of the trauma, paving

the way for the process of healing.

Significance of a Written Testimony

Contrastingly, Alvarez presents a private form of testimony through Mate’s prison

diaries, which is initially used for individual healing as opposed to the collective

healing depicted in The Farming of Bones. Mate’s inability to verbalise the trauma

she experiences in the notorious La 40, ‘an infamous location for torturing political

prisoners’,22 allows the literary action of testifying to be introduced. Later, it arguably

enables it to be used as evidence to prove the injustices of Trujillo’s regime on behalf

of the collective. Mate’s narratives take the form of diary entries; in the second

section of the novel, in her second set of entries, Mate receives a new diary gifted

from her elder sister, Minerva, after the funeral of their father. Mate writes that

Minerva thought ‘it would help me most now’ as she ‘always says writing gets things

off her chest and she feels better’ (Butterflies, p.118). Mate’s diary functions as

testimony within the novel, highlighting her inability to vocalise the traumatic loss of

her father, yet her ability to testify through the action of writing it down. In Mate’s third

and final narrative, Alvarez further examines Mate’s inability to verbalise her trauma

as she is unable to tell Minerva what happened to her at La 40. Mate tells Minerva

‘she can’t talk about it yet’ (Butterflies, p.241) to which Minerva replies: ‘write it down,

that’ll help, Mate’ (Butterflies p.241). Mate’s inability to tell her sister exactly what

21Kelli Lyon Johnson, ‘Both sides of the massacre: Collective Memory and Narrative
on Hispaniola’ in Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature,
Winnipeg:Jun, 2003, Vol 36, Issue 2, Pg.75, (1-12) (pg.88)
22Charlotte Rich, ‘Talking Back to El Jefe: Genre, Polyphony, and Dialogic
Resistance in Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies’ MELUS, 27.4 (Winter
2002), 165-182 p.171

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happened highlights the brutality of the regime. Caminero-Santangelo argues that

victims who have suffered from a trauma have an ‘urgency to narrate’,

acknowledging that ‘though trauma is marked by the difficulty, perhaps even

impossibility of telling, it is also marked by the need for telling’.23 This emphasises

that despite the pain Mate undergoes when relating what happened at La 40, her

need to tell allows her to heal from her individual pain. The written action of testifying

can further serve as a record, proving their prolonged suffering was real, allowing

herself to individually heal.

Alvarez introduces a further dimension to Mate’s written diary, presenting its function

to serve as a testimony for the collective as well as Mate personally. Whilst the

sisters are in the SIM prison, excerpts are taken from her private diary to be

presented to the Peace Committee of the Organisation of American States to provide

evidence of the suffering endured under the regime, in the hope it will award them

their freedom. Minerva suggests they ‘tear out the pages in your journal and put them

in with our statement’ (Butterflies, p.251). The notion of ‘tear[ing] out the pages’,

presents the careless action of ripping the pages in her private diary to provide

evidence for a collective trauma. In Mate’s first narrative, situated in the first section

of the novel, her diary is her personal space to discuss frivolous subjects. Her

innocence begins to deteriorate as the novel progresses, signified through her

second narrative after receiving a ‘new diary book’ which she engages in more

political writing. She includes diagrams and drawings, one of which illustrates the

mechanism of a bomb. Alvarez is using Mate’s once innocent diary to underscore her

increasing immersion in the revolution against Trujillo’s dictatorship. By her third

narrative, her diary becomes a form of testimony in itself due to her repeated entries

regarding her emotional and physical pain within the prison. Johnson said that ‘if an

event is written, documented, contained in a book, it is real. As part of the written

23Marta Caminero-Santangelo, ’At the Intersection of Trauma and Testimonio:

Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones’, edited Roy C. Boland Oseguenda,
Antípodas, XX (2009), 5-23, (p.20)

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record, their testimonies somehow will become truth’.24 This conveys that in order for

a testimony to be ‘real’ it must be ‘written, documented, contained in a book’. This

heightens the significance of Mate’s literal form of testimony, providing evidence of

her suffering in prison and the torment of being a victim of Trujillo’s regime. This is

exemplified when Mate leaves the prison and wants her fellow prisoners to ‘sign my

book like an autograph book’ (Butterflies, p.253). The signatures in her diary from her

fellow prisoners serve to validate their role as witnesses to the accounts written in

her diary. This conveys a sense of solidarity introducing a collective trauma between

those in the SIM prison, allowing their marginalised voices to be heard through

Mate’s written testimony. Through the creation of a physical record, Mate and her

fellow survivors are able to allow themselves to accept their past suffering, effectively

enabling themselves to heal.

24Kelli Lyon Johnson, ‘Both sides of the massacre: Collective Memory and Narrative
on Hispaniola’ in Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature,
Winnipeg:Jun, 2003, Vol 36, Issue 2, Pg.75, (1-12) (pg.88)

21
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Chapter 3

The Function of Recalling and Confronting Past Sexual Trauma in Danticat’s

Breath, Eyes, Memory.

In this chapter, I return to an additional text written by Danticat, focusing on her

Breath, Eyes, Memory to illustrate past sexual trauma experienced by Haitian women

under the Duvalier regime.25 This chapter focuses on two notable acts of sexual

violence which continue to psychologically haunt Martine and Sophie into adulthood,

depicting a shared trauma between the mother-daughter duo. The ritual of ‘testing’ as

well as Martine’s rape will be analysed, emphasising the ongoing physical and

psychological ramifications it has on the individual as well as the female collective

within and outside of the novel. Additionally, this chapter explores how the recurrent

motif of the cane fields throughout the text symbolise a shared site of trauma for

Haitians, ‘where sexual violence on the plantations served as a gendered and

racialized tool of social control that established the masters’ power’.26

Recalling Past Sexual Trauma

This para is Martine and Sophie are both victims of sexual violence whose past traumas
too long -
could we psychologically and physically torment them. The ritual of being ‘tested’ is
shorten it
continuously apparent within family life, conducted by mothers to ensure the purity of
or split it
into two their daughters remained intact for marriage. This cultural ritual in Haitian culture ‘is
paras?
seen to be some of the most painful and hidden Haitian tradition due to the

25François Duvalier, nicknamed ‘Papa Doc’ served as the president of Haiti between
1957 to 1971 until his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, nicknamed ‘Baby Doc’ continued
his fathers reign from 1971 to 1986.
26Lauren Mellem, "The (Nation) State Of The Family: Remembering The Links
Between Collective Rape And The Cult Of Virginity In Edwidge Danticat’S Breath,
Eyes, Memory.", 2014 p.7

22
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embarrassment that it puts on women’.27 Mellem draws upon this link stating that the

novel presents a ‘compelling revelation of the relationship between the policing of

sexuality within the family and the operations of social and political control enacted

by the state’.28 This ritual was deemed essential, equating the importance of finding a

suitor as a woman in Haitian society with respectability and control over her own

body. Tante Atie recalls that when she and Martine ‘were children [they] had no

control over anything. Not even this body’.29 When Sophie is reunited with her mother

Martine in New York, Martine recalls memories of her and Tante Atie being tested by

their mother, Grandmother Ife, telling Sophie that ‘when I was a girl, my mother used

to test us to see if we were virgins’ (Breath, p.60). Martine explains that ‘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’ (Breath, p.60). The term

‘responsibility’ suggests the purity of a woman is a reflection of how their mother

raised them. Francis supports this, arguing that ‘virginity or purity constitutes

women’s exchange value within a heteropatriarchal system that positions daughters

as exchangeable property, and mothers as the ensurers of their value’.30

Grandmother Ife tells Sophie that ‘if I give a soiled daughter to her husband, he can

shame my family, speak evil of me, even bring her back to me’ (Breath, p.156). The

fear that a daughter could be ‘returned’ to her family if found impure, highlights the

secondary stance women uphold within Haitian society. The ritual of ‘testing’ has

continued through the three generations of the Caco family including Sophie, despite

her mother’s hatred for it. I argue that Martine’s past sexual trauma tormented her to

27Elizabeth Sprague, Haitian Life, Traditions, and Culture in the Works of Edwidge
Danticat (unpublished Thesis, Bridgewater State University, 2019) In BSU Honors
Program Theses and Projects. Item 400. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/
honors_proj/400 p.26
28Mellem, "The (Nation) State Of The Family: Remembering The Links Between
Collective Rape And The Cult Of Virginity In Edwidge Danticat’S Breath, Eyes,
Memory.", 2014 p. 29
29Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory (London: Abacus, 2006). p.20. All further
references are to this edition and will be given in parenthesis in the body of text
Donette A. Francis, Fictions Of Feminine Citizenship (New York: Palgrave
30
Macmillan, 2010), p.86

23
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the extent that she blames herself for her rape, therefore continuing the ritual of

testing onto Sophie to give her the opportunity for a married life that she did not

have. Martine tells Sophie that the ‘testing’ stopped for her after her rape as she was

no longer ‘pure’ and therefore ineligible for marriage. Human Rights Watch argues

that ‘for the woman who is a victim of rape will find it difficult to find a suitable man to

marry her’,31 once again emphasising the importance of virginity in a marriage. After

experiencing being ‘tested’ herself for the first time, following her late return home

one night, Sophie began to understand why Tante Atie would ‘scream like a pig in a

slaughterhouse’ (Breath, p.60) after being tested. She admits to having learnt to

‘double’, a normalised practise amongst her ancestors. This technique of ‘doubling’ is

used to make the process less traumatic by imagining ‘all the pleasant things [she]

had known’ (Breath, p.155). Although this made the process of being tested more

manageable in the moment, the weekly tests continued to haunt Sophie. Sophie

admits to ‘doubling’ whilst her and Jospeh were intimate, having to ‘bite her tongue to

do it again’ (Breath, p.156). She tells her grandmother that the tests were ‘the most

horrible thing that ever happened to [her]’ (Breath, p.156) highlighting the long lasting

ramifications of her mother’s early sexual violence on her present marriage.

The physical impact the testing had on Sophie parallel that of her mother’s, furthering

the notion of a shared trauma. When Sophie is first reunited with her mother in New

York, her face is described as ‘long and hollow’ implying her skinny physique. As the

novel progresses, Sophie tells her grandmother that the testing led her to hate her

body, admitting that she was ‘ashamed to show it to anybody, including [her]

husband’ (Breath, p.123). When she returns to Haiti after giving birth to her daughter,

Brigitte, she is told that she look ‘very mèg’, (‘bony’), similar to how she described her

mother when she was first reunited with her. Vanderlinden and Palmisano found in

their study that ’childhood traumatic experiences appear to be related to an increase

31 Human Rights Watch, Rape in Haiti: A Weapon of Terror, 1 July 1994, available at:
https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a7e18.html [accessed 20 February 2021]

24
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in binge/purge behaviours’32 supporting Sophie’s developed body dysmorphia. The

reader learns that she waits for her husband to fall asleep before she can ‘eat every

scrap of the dinner leftovers’ (Breath, p.200). However, she is unable to enjoy the

simple act of eating as she then went ‘to the bathroom, locked the door, and purged

all the food out of [her] body’ (Breath, p.200). By allowing herself to eat the food as

well as making the conscious decision of ‘purging’ it, she is able to finally exert

control and ownership over her body - a right to which she had previously been

denied.

Danticat’s novel heavily centres around Martine’s rape, a further act of sexual

violence against a key female character. As a result of her experiences, Martine

migrates to the US alone in an attempt to distance herself from the trauma she

endured. Kang comments that ‘for Martine, Haiti is transformed into a space of terror,

and by fleeing this space, Martine buries her pain instead of finding a way to come to

terms with it’.33 However, Martine’s past trauma continues to psychologically and

physically haunt her in the present. When Sophie reunites with Martine in New York,

Martine begins to recall her rape which subsequently led to the birth of Sophie, but

warns her that ‘the details are too much’ (Breath, p.61). Martine provides a concise

description of her ordeal, minimising her trauma by saying ‘but it happened like
This para is this’ (Breath, p.61) as if she is about to tell a short story. She recalls that ‘a man
too long -
could we grabbed me from the side of the road, pulled me into a cane field, and put you in my
shorten it
body’ (Breath, p.61). The punctuation used presents her disjointed recollection
or split it
into two suggesting her desire to rid it from her memory. Sophie states that when her mother told
paras?
her how she was born, she ‘did not sound hurt or angry, just like someone who was

stating a fact’. (Breath, p.61) Sophie, however, retells her mothers trauma in more

graphic detail:

32Johan Vanderlinden and Giovanni Luca Palmisano, "Trauma And Eating Disorders:
The State Of The Art", in Trauma-Informed Approaches To Eating Disorders
(Springer Publishing Company, 2018), p. 18.
33Ju Yon Kang, "The Hidden Epidemic: Violence Against Women In
Haiti" (unpublished Independent Study, Duke University, 2011). p.61

25
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‘He grabbed her on her way back from school. He dragged her into the

cane fields, and pinned her down on the ground. […] He kept

pounding her until she was too stunned to make a sound. When he

was done, he made her keep her face in the dirt, threatening to shoot

her if she looked up’. (Breath, p.139).

The graphic lexical set of ‘dragged’, ‘pinned’ and ‘pounded’ marks how Martine was

subjected to such barbaric sexual violence, reducing her to nothing more than a

lifeless object. The harsh plosive sounds by the ‘p’ alliteration in ‘pinned’ and

‘pounded’ further conveys the brutality of her trauma. As Sophie was not the direct

victim, she is able to recount her mother’s testimony with far more accuracy. During

her ordeal, Martine was attacked until ‘she was too stunned to make a sound’ which

in turn granted her survival. However, it is explicitly her silence after the trauma that

ultimately leads her to her death. Sophie’s patience regarding her mother’s trauma is

shown when she says ‘I did not press to find out more’, explaining why it took her

‘twelve years to piece together [her] mothers entire story’ (Breath, p.61). Suárez

argues that ‘stories of survival and narrative restructuring of horrors may be the only

route to reconciliation and reconstruction of personal and national memory and

integrity’.34 Sadly, Martine is never able to work through this reconciliation and

reconstruction herself. She confesses to Sophie that she relives the rape ‘every

day’ (Breath, p.170). When Sophie is reunited with her mother, she expresses her

shock as ‘she did not look like the picture Tante Atie had on her night table’ (Breath,

p.42) conveying the tired change in her appearance since leaving Haiti. Danticat

draws upon the physical impact past trauma continues to have in the present, using

Sophie to draw upon the contrasting difference in her appearance from before and

after her ordeal. She concludes her description of her mother by saying she looked

as though ‘she had never stopped working in the cane fields after all’ (Breath, p.42).

The motif of the cane fields is hugely significant as the site for collective trauma

amongst Haitians within and outside of the novel. By likening her appearance to the

Lucía M. Suárez, The Tears of Hispaniola: Haitian and Dominican Diaspora

34
Memory (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2006), p.9

26
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cruelty Haitian civilians were placed under in the cane fields during the reign of

Duvalier, Danticat emphasis the ever-present physical toll her past trauma holds.

Francis alludes to this, commenting ‘how the bodies of poor Haitian females become

sites to speak of national trauma’.35 The latter division of this chapter will examine

this further.

Confronting the Site of Past Trauma to Heal

Sophie confronts her past sexual trauma by attempting to break the vicious cyclical

nature of the testing. Upon learning of Joseph’s departure, she felt ‘alone and

lost’ (Breath, p.87) resulting in her rash act to free herself from what seemed like the

perpetual testing ritual. She used her mother’s mortar and pestle, depicting the

violent imagery of her ‘flesh ripp[ing] apart as [she] pressed the pestle into it’ (Breath,

p.88). She recalls seeing the ‘blood slowly dripping onto the bed sheet […] finally

[she] failed the test’ (Breath, p.88). Her self mutilation serves as a form of

confrontation. The removal of ‘the veil that always held my mother’s finger

back’ (Breath, p.88), liberates her from this trauma and on another level, from her

mother. The distance between her and her mother continues to grow, paralleling their

relationship at the beginning of the novel, however, Sophie’s return to Haiti conveys

her hope of a reconciliation. Upon her arrival, she engages in a conversation with a

driver about her return, telling him that although ‘some people need to forget’ she

‘need[s] to remember’ (Breath, p.95), depicting her desire to confront her past trauma

rather than ignoring it. She questions her mother, asking ‘why did you put me through

those tests?’ (Breath, p.170) verbalising her pain and confronting her trauma. Sophie

takes on the role of questioner, and this role reversal from earlier in the novel reflects

the shift in power and control over the narrative. Through confronting her mother, she

is able to break the chain for herself and her own daughter. She takes responsibility

by stating that ‘it was up to me to make sure that my daughter never slept with

Donette A. Francis, Fictions Of Feminine Citizenship (New York: Palgrave

35
Macmillan, 2010), p.78

27
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ghosts, never lived with nightmares’ (Breath, p.203). I argue that the birth of her

daughter enables her to break this chain of sexual violence, therefore allowing her to

effectively heal.

Furthermore, Sophie takes an active role in enabling herself to heal from past sexual

traumas. She admits herself to a sexual phobia group where she is able to voice her

past sexual trauma amongst two other likened individuals, Buki and Davina. The

space enables them to share their individual stories of suffering, whilst presenting a

national trauma, allowing Sophie to admit she feels ‘a little closer to being

free’ (Breath, p.203). Chambers notes that ‘the sense of freedom Sophie

acknowledges is due to her willingness to confront the trauma of testing’.36 Sophie

examines her relationship with her mother thoroughly with her personal therapist,

creating an additional safe space where Sophie is able confront her past traumas

rather than ‘forget the hidden things’ (Breath, p.207). Her therapists advises her to

return to the cane fields telling her that she will be free once she confronts the site of

her trauma: ‘there will be no more ghosts’ (Breath, p.211). Sophie’s anger is vividly

described when she returns to the cane fields:

‘I ran through the field, attacking the cane. I took off my shoes a cane

stalk. I pounded it until it began to lean over. I pushed over the cane

stalk. It snapped back, striking my shoulder. I pulled at it, yanking it

from the ground. My palm was bleeding. The cane cutters stared at

me as though I was possessed. The funeral crown was now standing

between the stalks, watching me beat and pound the cane’ (Breath,

p.233).

Mellem notes that ‘Danticat’s depiction of centuries of sexual violation of Haitian

women serves to represent a history that remains otherwise untold in both popular

36Lauren Renee Chambers, Placing Identity: Journeys to Self Through Communal

Autonomy in African Diasporic Women’s Literature’ (unpublished Ph.D, The
University of Georgia, 2013). pg. 65

28
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media and dominant historiography’.37 The anger portrayed is exemplified through

the cathartic ‘pound’ which was used to describe her mother’s rape in the cane fields.

This allows her to regain her freedom which is celebrated here as she exercises her

pain on the cane fields as opposed to her body. Her grandmother watches alongside

her Tante Atie as they both shout ‘Ou Libéré?’ translating to ‘are you free?’ (Breath,

p.233). They are aware that by confronting this site she is able to transgress these

traumas for herself and her mother, liberating herself whilst breaking the cycle.

Francis argues that ‘this final act is a step in her journey to wellness, and it makes

the final scene an act of healing’38.The novel advances to this conclusive point,

creating a narrative of return enabling her to be physically and emotionally liberated.

The hopeful tone allows the reader to assume Brigitte, Sophie’s daughter will not be

subjected to the same trauma as the cycle has now been broken.

37Mellem, "The (Nation) State Of The Family: Remembering The Links Between
Collective Rape And The Cult Of Virginity In Edwidge Danticat’S Breath, Eyes,
Memory.", 2014 p.15
38Donette A. Francis, ""Silences Too Horrific To Disturb": Writing Sexual Histories In
Edwidge Danticat's "Breath, Eyes, Memory"", Research In African Literatures, Vol.
35.No. 2 (2021), p.88.

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Chapter 4

Dislocation and Loss of Cultural Identities in Julia Alvarez’s How the García

Girls Lost Their Accents.

I return to an additional piece of historical fiction written by Julia Alvarez to explore

the cultural trauma of exile from a Hispanic Caribbean perspective. This chapter will

focus on Alvarez’s How the García Girls Lost Their Accents to enable my exploration

into cultural trauma, and the physical and psychological ramifications that arise from

the García sisters’ migration to the United States from the Dominican Republic. The

novel details the lives of the García family told from the perspectives of each sister;

Carla, Sandra, Yolanda and Sofia. Their suspension of languages between English

and Spanish and their subsequent confusion of identity creates a cultural trauma for

them whilst residing in their diaspora. In this regard, Alvarez’s How the García Girls

Lost Their Accents parallels Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory, as both Sophie and

the García sisters are forced to relocate and rediscover their identities in a foreign

place they are told to call ‘home’. The structure and form this novel takes reflects the

sisters’ confused identities: the novel opens and closes in the Dominican Republic,

whilst the middle explores their lives in the United States. The return to the original

geographical setting at the end of the novel serves as an ever present form of

cultural trauma which continuously peers into their adulthood lives, subsequently

reflecting their transnational identities.

Traumas of Cultural Displacement:

The García family’s relocation to New York highlights their social displacement

presenting them as outsiders amongst their American community. Carla, the eldest of

the García sisters, remarks upon the differences between the landscapes of an urban

city and her ancestral home. Whilst walking to her American school, she observes

30
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there were ‘infinitesimal differences between the look-alike houses’39 which is

contrasted with her descriptions of ‘the lush grasses and thick-limbed, vine- ladened

trees around the compound back home’ (García, p.151). The strict design that is

shared amongst the houses in New York suggests the lack of acceptance for new

aesthetics as it does not fit the majority. This reflects the discrimination the sisters are

subjected to when they arrive to America due to their differing physical appearances,

accents and cultural practises. These differences, although superficial, antagonise

their American community as they are hurled insults from their neighbours and their

school peers. Whilst residing in their city apartment, their neighbour below ‘had been

complaining to the super since the day the family moved in’ (García, p.170)

demanding that ‘the García’s should be evicted. Their food smelled. They spoke too

loudly and not in English’ (García, p.170). The offence caused from cooking their

cultural food and speaking their native language highlights the racial discrimination

the family are subjected to whilst residing in their new ‘home’. Their positions as

outcasts in society is made overtly apparent as they are referred to as ‘spics’40 and

repeatedly told to ‘go back to where [they] came from’ (García, p.171). Their

migration to America leaves them with an overwhelming sense of ‘homesickness’,

pleading in their prayers to ‘let us please go back home, please’ (García, p.150). The

direct racial discrimination the García family are subjected to exemplify the cultural

trauma they endured as a result of their exile.

The trauma of their exile had a physical impact on the García sisters, most notably

Sandra. She tries to fit into Western beauty standards, subsequently leading to her

eating disorder. Her physical appearance is always described from the perspective of

her mother, Mrs García, who asserts that ‘Sandi wanted to look like those twiggy

models’ (García, p.51). After being admitted to hospital for her illness, Mrs García

39Julia Alvarez, How the García Girls Lost their Accents (London: Bloomsbury, 1991;
repr. 2004). p.151. All further references are to this edition and will be given in
parenthesis in the body of text.
40‘Spics’ is a racial slur used in the United States to refer to those from Spanish
speaking countries.

31
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provides a description to the doctor, drawing direct comparison between the four

sisters: ‘the others aren't bad looking, don't get me wrong. But Sandi, Sandi got the

fine looks, blue eyes, peaches and ice cream skin, everything going for her!’ (García,

p.52). The explicit detailing of her ‘peaches and ice cream skin’ adds to the notion of

Western beauty standards that advantages fairer skin tones, further emphasising the

cultural divide between their Dominican and American societies:

‘Sandra tries to negotiate between her parents’ expectations of her

maintaining Dominican values […] and the apparent promises of a

more independent life in New York by ‘choosing’ a third way, namely

that of anorexia’.41

This is further highlighted through her mother’s confusion as to why Sandra ‘wanted

to be darker complected like her sisters’ (García, p.52). The trauma from her

displacement paired with the constant fixation on her appearance led her to do ‘a lot

of drugs to keep her weight down’ (García, p.47). Her trauma is overtly shown

through her treatment of her body, similar to the eating disorder Sophie develops in

Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory. As a result of her abrupt displacement, Sandra,

much like her sisters, no longer associate themselves with their Dominican values

nor their liberal American attitudes, suspending them between the two. However, I

argue that Sandra creates a third space for herself, using her body as a means to

communicate and escape the harsh realities of xenophobia and pressures she is

constantly subjected to. Brüning further supports this, arguing that ‘for Sandra,

anorexia also presents a potential escape from reality into a world of her own’.42 The

trauma of exile silenced her, ridding her of the ability to voice her pain, thereby

turning to her body to communicate her suffering.

41Angela Brüning, "The Corporeal And The Sensual In Two Novels By Shani Mootoo
And Julia Alvarez", The Society For Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers, 3
(2002), 1-19 (p.12).
42Angela Brüning, "The Corporeal And The Sensual In Two Novels By Shani Mootoo
And Julia Alvarez", The Society For Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers, 3
(2002), 1-19 (p.12)

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Fractured Identities

As the novel progresses, the story details the impacts their abrupt displacement to

the United States had upon the García girls’ physical and psychological state. The

confusion over their identities is shared amongst the four sisters, presenting a

collective cultural trauma within the characters in the novel which also reflects the

wider immigrant community outside of the novel. Yolanda, the third eldest but most

dominant narrative in the novel, conveys her lack of individuality throughout, rejecting

her cultural origins in the quest for acceptance by the American community. Her

exclusion by those around her proves be an inescapable trauma:

‘For the hundredth time, I cursed my immigrant origins. If only I too

had been born in Connecticut or Virginia, I too would understand the

jokes everyone was making on the last two digits of the year, 1969

[…] I would say things like "no s***," without feeling like I was imitating

someone else’. (García, p.94-95).

The significance of the sexual example ‘1969’ emphasises the contrasting views the

two cultures have towards sexual attitudes and gender roles, further highlighting her

isolation. Yolanda begins to view herself as an outsider causing her to resent her

family’s origins and fear for her future. This becomes further apparent when Rudy

pressures her to engage in sexual activity, causing her to question if he truly

understands and respects the morals and beliefs she upholds. The feeling of being

misunderstood is reflected through the contrasting beliefs of her Catholic-Hispanic

conservative views and her American liberal attitudes. Although she is residing in

America, she is unable to secure and reconcile the two disparate parts of her identity.

Alvarez conveys the fractured identities of the García girls though language,

symbolising how their identities are suspended between their Dominican Spanish

and American English. As the novel advances, Yolanda is given multiple nicknames,

shortening her birth name to more accessible American versions. The inextricable

link between language and identity is shown when Yolanda is gifted a monogrammed

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pencil for Christmas from her mother, yet the inscription is wrong, recounting that ‘my

mother had tried for my own name Yolanda, but the company had substituted that

Americanized, southernized, Jolinda’ (García, p.90). Further nicknames include Yo,

Yoyo and Joe, creating a bigger separation between her Dominican and American

hybridity. This becomes apparent within her relationships as John regularly asserts

his power and control over Yolanda through language. This is shown when Yolanda

initiates a word game where the premise is to rhyme your name with a word. After

John rejects many of the words she rhymes her name with, she turns to her native

language to make her name rhyme with ‘sky’. She explains clearly to John why these

words rhyme, to which he responds by saying she needs ‘a goddam shrink!’ (García,

p.73). This male dominance he exerts escalates into the realm of the physical, when

‘he pried his tongue between her lips, pushing her words back in her throat’ (García,

p.75), forcefully preventing her ability to communicate. This reflects the title of the

novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, signifying the cultural abandonment

which facilitates their fractured identities as a result of the loss of their native

language. Her decision to end their relationship comes quickly after this, writing a

note which provides her with a narrative space free from interruption. Her note takes

multiple revisions, with the first saying ‘I’m needing some space, some time, until my

head-slash-heart-slash-soul—No, no, no, she didn’t want to divide herself anymore,

three persons in one Yo’ (García, p.78). Her acknowledgment of her divided identity

is highlighted and her desire to reclaim herself through language is evident. However,

her final note is much shorter and signed with her assigned nickname ‘Joe’,

reemphasising her fractured identity. After their split, Yolanda explains to her parents

that her and John simply ‘just didn’t speak the same language’ (García, p.81)

suggesting her identity throughout their relationship was diminished through

language, and the ways in which she was forced to suppress her Dominican identity

in order to be accepted in her new diaspora.

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Reclaiming Linguistic Control to Heal

While language is the vehicle which helps suspend the identities of the García

sisters, I argue that it is precisely language itself that closes the gap between their

transnational identities, allowing them to heal from their social and cultural trauma.

Alvarez uses the characterisation of her fictional character, Yolanda, to highlight her

own personal migration-related trauma. Barak argues that ‘Alvarez reinvents her own

literary and personal past and repeats it in the stories of the four sisters’.43

Significantly, ‘Yolanda’ is nicknamed ‘Yo’ at various points throughout the novel,

which translates to ‘I’ in Spanish, indicating how Alvarez herself is using language

within her novel to fictionalise her cultural trauma. Yolanda rejects this pressure of

monolingualism and works hard to improve her English language whilst also

continuing to speak her native Spanish. Yitah argues that 'it is through language that

she can harmonise the multiple selves that make up her identity’.44 Yolanda turns her

attention to language and uses it to give her strength, shown by her concentration:

‘hunched over her small desk, the overhead light turned off, her desk

lamp poignantly lighting only her paper, the rest of the room in warm,

soft, uncreated darkness, she wrote her secret poems in her new

language’ (García, p.136).

The imagery of light and dark reflects her focus on her studies in English Language

whilst being surrounding by her native culture. This perfectly reflects her bilingual

state, indicating how she is able to move freely between the two languages. She

demonstrates this when she finishes writing a speech: ’she read over her words, and

her eyes filled. She finally sounded like herself in English’ (García, p.143). By using

language to draw her two cultures and languages together, she allows herself to

embrace her hybrid identity, reconciling herself to happiness and acceptance.

43Julie Barak, ‘“Turning and Turning in the Widening Gyre”: A Second Coming into
Language in Julia Alvarez’s How the García Girls Lost their Accents’, MELUS, 23, 1
(Spring 1998), 159-176 (p.161).
44Helen Atawube Yitah, "Inhabited By Un Santo": The "Antojo" And Yolanda's Search
For The "Missing" Self In "How The García Girls Lost Their Accents", Bilingual
Review / La Revista Bilingüe,, vol. 27.no. 3 (2003), 234–243 (p.239) <http://
www.jstor.org/stable/25745808> [Accessed 8 March 2021]

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Language is further adopted as a means to heal from past trauma through the

function of storytelling. When Yolanda is hospitalised, she has an imaginary

conversation with her doctor through the window, admitting that ‘in the beginning,

Doc, I loved John’ (García, p.69). Her desire to talk and recall her past traumas in the

form of a story shows how acknowledging her past suffering is an act that brings her

comfort. When her doctor questions what ‘love’ means to Yolanda, ‘the skin on her

neck prickles and reddens’ as if she ‘developed a random allergy to certain

words’ (García, p.82). She admits that it is ‘scary not to know what the most

important word in [her] vocabulary means’ (García, p.82) highlighting that is precisely

the lack of knowledge surrounding the meaning of the word that creates fear.

Similarly, when John physically silences her during the word game, she describes the

words beat[ing] her stomach’ and peck[ing] at her ribs’ as she ‘swallowed

them’ (García, p.75), using a bird trapped inside a cage as a metaphor for words.

Yolanda describes the beating inside her as ‘more desperate than hunger […] a

thrashing of wings, up through her trachea’ (García, p.83). Once in a space of safety

and comfort she is able to confront the bird inside her. Yitah argues that ‘the

blackbird that she perceives when something stirs deep within her is symbolic of her

release of herself from her painful experiences’.45 This is supported as Yolanda

began to talk until ‘the words tumble out, making a sound like the rumble of distant

thunder, taking shape, depth, and substance’ (García, p.85). Robbins argues that

‘Yolanda (and Alvarez) must come to terms with her cultural past’,46 supporting her

fixation on language and storytelling to confront her past suffering which will allow her

to live peacefully as a bilingual speaker in the diaspora she resides in. The construct

of storytelling continues until the close of the novel when the narrator directly telling

45Helen Atawube Yitah, "Inhabited By Un Santo": The "Antojo" And Yolanda's Search
For The "Missing" Self In "How The García Girls Lost Their Accents", Bilingual
Review / La Revista Bilingüe,, vol. 27.no. 3 (2003), 234–243 (p.241) <http://
www.jstor.org/stable/25745808> [Accessed 8 March 2021]
46Emily Rebecca Robbins, "At The Enter Of Her Art”: Ex/Isle, Trauma, And Story-
Telling In Julia Alvarez’s First Three Novels" (unpublished Thesis, University of
Kansas, 2007) (p.48)

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the reader: ’you understand I am collapsing all time now so that it fits in what’s left in

the hollow of my story?’ (García, p.289) This explicit reference to a ‘story’ suggests a

narrative that is being told with a purpose to an addressed reader. Most poignantly,

the novel opens and closes in the Dominican Republic, creating a cyclical quest for

the reader to follow the narrative of the characters’ exiles, their subsequent traumas

and their return to their ancestral ‘homeland’. The act of storytelling for Yolanda, as

well Alvarez herself, allows the process of understanding and accepting past traumas

to enable the act of healing for the characters inside the novel as well as the wider

collective outside of it.

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Conclusion

Through analysing the works of Edwidge Danticat and Julia Alvarez, I have provided

a space for comparisons and contrasts to be drawn between the two Caribbean

authors that write from opposing sides of their Hispaniola. Despite this geographical

difference, they are both able to use their individual narratives to explore a shared

cultural trauma. I explore Danticat’s The Farming of Bones at the forefront of my

study to immediately introduce the notion of testifying as means to heal from past

suffering. Through her historical fiction, Danticat has created a physical testimony by

declaring silenced accounts of suffering to represent a shared traumatic history.

Vega-Gonzalez supports this notion, arguing the novel is:

‘a tribute to those nameless and faceless who died victims of the

abuses of power and racial persecution, providing them with names

and faces against silence and oblivion’.47

Danticat and Alvarez, specifically through their The Farming of Bones and In the

Time of the Butterflies, convey the everlasting impact past trauma can have in their

future. My analysis in the first two chapters of this study specifically focus on the

function of testifying as means to heal. Through voicing past stories of survival, the

ability to accept and progress, allows a healed state to be reached for the victim. The

latter half of this study slightly shifts from the act of testifying and rather focuses on

the specific types of trauma. The third chapter focuses on the sexual trauma in

relation to Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory and presents this drama to be

generational amongst he women in the Caco family. Sophie’s ability to return to Haiti

represents her confrontation with this her trauma, liberating herself and breaking the

chain for other women enduring the same pain. This notion of confronting a site of

past trauma is further discussed in the final chapter, which explores the trauma of

exile. For the Garcia family, their migration from their ancestral home to their new

47Susana, Vega-Gonzalez, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mouming and

History: Danticat's Insights into the Past. Revista Estudios Ingleses 17 (2004) p.6

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diaspora crumbles their identities, blurring their sense of self. The chapter focuses on

language as means to heal, regaining linguistic control to progress from their cultural

trauma.

Danticat and Alvarez’s works of historical fiction are arguably reflective of their own

personal traumas of migration to the United States from their respective Caribbean

homes. Therefore their novels function as a testimony within themselves,

fictionalising their personal suffering to create a narrative accessible to their collective

communities. Through confronting past trauma through literature, specifically writing

in the English language as opposed to their respective native languages, this

highlights the awareness the writers are raising to their silenced, largely

undocumented histories. These narratives create a space where this traumatic

history can be understood and accepted, giving recognition to those who died

‘nameless and faceless’. Subsequently these works of historical fiction provide a

much larger purpose than just telling a story, rather they educate new audiences and

encourage an awareness surrounding these silenced traumas.

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