Haiti has endured a legacy of suffering in which slavery turned into one of the bloodiest wars in modern history. Despite having achieved their political freedom to date, Western powers impose economic strangulation and denounce their non-discriminatory citizenship, the legitimate form of democracy, which Beckles states as a crime “greater than slavery”. After the trauma of history, Haiti has resisted debt, imperialism and dictatorship, which have imposed oppression and anguish. Under Duvalier's totalitarian regime during the second half of the 20th century, extreme measures were taken to combat government resistance. These measures include, but are not limited to, the systematic rape and murder of numerous Haitian women to prevent community resistance. Haitian women have been subjected to objectification and identity denial throughout the patriarchal nation-state. The female gender is perpetually denigrated by strict traditions and the male construction of female identity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In Breath, Eyes, Memory Edwidge Danticat describes a 20th-century Haitian immigrant, Sophie, who leaves her small village in Haiti at age twelve, moving to New York to be with a mother she cannot see since his birth. This act of migration sets in motion a series of traumatic experiences around which Sophie will have to build her identity. According to Ashcroft, “a valid and active sense of self may have been eroded by dislocation, resulting from migration… Or it may have been destroyed by cultural denigration, the conscious and unconscious oppression of indigenous personality and culture by a race or a superior culture." model” (9). Sophie's sense of self, however, has been degraded on both fronts: first, her migration to New York takes her away from all the comfort she's ever known, Tante Ante and Grandma Ife, and moves her to a woman from which she was physically separated. since birth. Second, the cultural denigration of Sophie is actually the denigration of her gender; female identity is constructed entirely by and for male relationships in Haitian culture, to the extent that women are only given an identity through marriage and the system of oppression it entails. Women reinforce this ideology by subjecting their family members to the virginal test to ensure purity before marriage, which justifies this premium placed on virginity. “Danticat writes another version of Haiti's political history by focusing on women's bodies – and the stories within them” (Francis). In other words, the novel illustrates a lineage of violation and victimization of women that is subject to and intertwined with broader national oppression and subjugation. Yet it is through this lineage that a shared identity is formed and is inextricably linked to one another, across all forms of space and time, because the suffering manifested by violence perpetuates it. Danticat seems to suggest that violence against one Haitian is violence against them all, and violence done by one Haitian to another is equal to violence done to oneself. Breath, Eyes, Memory blurs the traditional boundaries of history, allowing memory to serve as a present force, rather than historical fact. Time and history are not linear. Martine and Sophie suffer from the connection that comes from their migration to New York from Haiti, and the painful nostalgia manifests itself as they cook food that has a history, an identity, and a memory in Haiti. Both of these women are oneconstruction of femininity where cooking a traditional cultural food represents the woman of that culture, the maid identity that has been constructed for them. Thus, when served their communication, Haitian food embodies a shared identity among the women Sophie rebels against. It is with a painful sense of repression that both Martine and Sophie refuse to cook food, foregrounding the current lack of family. “I usually ate random concoctions: frozen dinners, samples from global cookbooks, food that was easy to prepare and didn't cause me pain. No memory of a past sometimes cherished and other times despised” (Danticat, 151). The text also links the role of traditional "individual" identity to multiple others. The women of the Caco family are inextricably linked to each other's past, present and future. It is her mother's past sexual violence that informs Sophie's present, and it is for Sophie's future that her mother begins to sexually violate her daughter. In fact, she is so close to her family, Sophie states, "her nightmares had somehow become mine, so much so that I woke up some mornings wondering if we hadn't both spent the night dreaming the same thing" (Danitcat, 193) . Sophie's identity is so connected to that of her mother, that she too becomes a victim of her mother's pain. Furthermore, Sophie's identity is also linked to that of every other Haitian woman who has been victimized by men. Sophie tells the story of a rich man who marries a poor pure girl. According to tradition, he prepared the underwear to parade in front of the neighbors to demonstrate his conquest of her virginity. Since the bride was not bleeding, “he took a knife and cut her legs to show some blood” (Danticat, 155). She bled so much that she died. “The emphasis placed on the public display of evidence of a girl's virginity illustrates the ways in which women's bodies are used to satisfy male desires” (Francis), particularly, in this case, to the detriment of the woman's life and sexual organs. identity is equally connected to that of the dead bride: her “identity” is constructed entirely by and to serve male desires. It is through this recognition that Sophie can remove some of the responsibility for her own violation from her mother; “I knew that my pain and hers were links in a long chain and if she hurt me it was because she was hurt too. It was up to me to avoid my turn in the fire. It was up to me to make sure my daughter never slept with ghosts, never lived with nightmares, and never saw her name burned in flames” (Danticat ,203). Sophie recognizes the lineage of sexual violence that was perpetuated against and perpetuated by her mother and grandmother before her. By refusing to participate in the violation of her daughter, Sophie identifies her mother as a victim, but more importantly, as her abuser. Sophie understands Haitian culture, which in its failures and successes is inextricably linked to her families; that his own failure reflects the failure of his family: "If your son is dishonored, you are also dishonored... If I give a dirty daughter to her husband, he can shame my family, speak ill of me, and even bring her back to me" (Danticat, 165) and that «if you do something in life, we will all succeed. You can raise your head" (Danticat, 44). Therefore, despite his marginalized displacement, he still feels duty to his family and his family's honor. Her mother, subject to violent nightmares that force her to relive the rape every night, forced Sophie to wake her “before she bit her finger, tore her nightgown, or threw herself out the window” (Danticat. 193). And when Sophie woke her up she always said:“Sophie, you saved my life” (Danticat, 81). When Sophie starts having suicidal thoughts, “some nights I would wake up in a cold sweat wondering if my mother's anxiety was somehow hereditary or if it was something I had “caught” from living with her. His nightmares had somehow become mine” (Danticat, 193). Her mother has an equal dependence on Sophie, and during the first of her virginal trials, she says: “The Marassas were two inseparable lovers. They were the same person, duplicated in two. When you love someone, you want them to be closer to you than your Marassa. Closer than your shadow. You want it to be your soul... Wouldn't you scream? The love between mother and daughter is deeper than the sea. You and I could be like Marassas” (Danticat, 84-85). Throughout the text there is the theme of doubling; it is Sophie's doubling down during her mother's tests that gives her comfort during her own violation. However, Sophie also illustrates the suffering of the nation: “There have been many cases in our history where our ancestors doubled. Most of our presidents were actually a body split in two: part flesh and part shadow. This way they could kill and rape so many people and yet return home to play with their children and make love to their wives” (Danticat, 155-156). Doubling is used for both the victim and the executioner. Internalizing her own “embodied protest” (Susan Bardo), Sophie doubles down as she mutilates herself with a pestle to prevent her mother's test. Sophie becomes her own victim, a person who sexually violates herself to create autonomy from her mother's sexual violation. The sexual trauma suffered by her mother forces Sophie to double down during intercourse with her husband: “he reached out and pulled my body towards his. I closed my eyes and thought about my Marassa, about doubling” (Danitcat, 200). Sophie gives birth to her Marassa, who also serves as her mother and perpetrator of her trauma. Sophie's bulimia also functions as an articulation of violence. She was victimized both by her violence towards herself and her hatred towards her body and her violence against all those who committed violence against her. He is attempting to express free will over his own body. Bulimia, however, is well known for being an illness that the individual does not control. Bulimia symbolizes Sophie's lack of autonomy over her body despite her attempts. He is therefore staring at a cycle of suffering. It is perpetuating a system that brings violence upon itself under the illusion of its own agency. Tante Atie never marries, and therefore cannot be defined through her husband, and as a result is never identified, “my life, it's nothing… The sky seems empty even when I look at the moon and the stars” (Danticat 136 ). Atie exposes only part of the intergenerational conflict. Women are defined only through their husbands and are built at birth to be domestic. “Haitian men insist that their women are virgins and have their ten fingers. According to Tante Atie, each finger had a purpose. It was the way she had been taught to prepare to become a woman. Maternity. Boiling. Love. Baking. Nursing care. Frying. Healing. Washing. Ironing. Washing. It wasn't his fault, he said. Her ten fingers were named after her even before she was born” (Danticat 151). Since identity is to be given only to married women, and is limited to that, other women join this broader ideology of the female economy (i.e. the marriage market) and reduce their daughters to their genitalia by practicing virgin testing. Sophie understands how the tests work like a lie; her grandmother performed it on both her mother and Tante Atie, and her mother's virginity 2012