How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Page)
Quote #1
"When I was a girl, my mother used to test us to see if we were virgins. She would put her finger in our very private parts and see if it would go inside. Your Tante Atie hated it. She used to scream like a pig in a slaughterhouse. The way my mother was raised, a mother is supposed to do that to her daughter until the daughter is married. It is her responsibility to keep her pure." (8.60-61)
Martine explains a very traumatic tradition to her daughter Sophie. It's hard to tell how she feels about the experience from her tone here, but it's clear from Atie's response—and later, Sophie's—that it's truly humiliating and painful. While Sophie later tries to tell her grandmother how negatively this experience impacted her own sexuality, Ifé's defense of the practice is identical to Martine's: it's what a good mother does to protect her daughter.
Quote #2
I knew what my mother would think of my going over there during the day. A good girl would never be alone with a man, an older one at that. I wasn't thinking straight. It was nice waking up in the morning knowing I had someone to talk to. (9.72)
Sophie's conflicting feelings about sex and sexuality are a kind of culture clash that happens when the worlds of her Haitian mother and her own life in Brooklyn come together. While she understands that her home culture is unhealthily obsessed with virginity, Sophie can't let go of the nagging feeling that her natural attraction to Joseph is somehow wrong.
Quote #3
I heard him playing his keyboard as I lay awake in bed. The notes and scales were like raindrops, teardrops, torrents. I felt the music rise and surge, tightening every muscle in my body. Then I relaxed, letting it go, feeling a rush that I knew I wasn't supposed to feel. (9.76)
Just in case you're wondering: yes, Sophie is really feeling sexual pleasure at the sound of Joseph's music. A lot of it. Her attraction to Joseph happens exactly at the right time for a girl—she is an older teen, ready to take risks and have a life of her own—but it also causes her a lot of turmoil. She can't embrace her sexuality and live up to her mother's expectations. Hence, the guilt.