How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Page)
Quote #7
He reached over and pulled my body towards his. I closed my eyes and thought of the Marassa, the doubling. I was lying there on that bed and my clothes were being peeled off my body, but really I was somewhere else. Finally, as an adult, I had a chance to console my mother again. I was lying in bed with my mother. I was holding her and fighting off that man, keeping those images out of her head. (30.200)
Sophie can't "keep her head in the game"--so to speak--when it comes to sex with her husband. Because sex and sexuality have been traumatic issues for her entire life, she feels she has to endure this time with her husband rather than enjoying it. We see Sophie engaging in a coping mechanism here, in which she separates her mind from her body and rejoins her mother in the suffering that has scarred both of them for life. The story of the Marassas (the divine twins) was told to Sophie by her mother when she would test her virginity.
Quote #8
Buki read us a letter she was going to send to the dead grandmother who had cut off all her sexual organs and sewn her up, in a female rite of passage. "Dear Taiwo. You sliced open my soul and then you told me I can't show it to anyone else. You took a great deal away from me. Because of you, I now carry an untouchable wound." (31.202)
Sexual trauma is a central issue in Danticat's work. Very often, this is violence/violation carried out by women and perpetuated from one generation to the next. In Sophie's support group, we meet this young Ethiopian woman who suffered genital mutilation at the hands of her grandmother. Sophie seems a little out of place in this group until we remember that she's not only recovering from the virginity tests, but also from the notion that a woman's sexuality is something to be feared and disabled.
Quote #9
I tried to imagine my mother, wincing and clenching her teeth as the large shadow of a man mounted her. She didn't like it. She even looked like she was crying, even though her lips were saying things that made him think otherwise. (32.210)
Sophie's therapist insists that Sophie understand her mother as a sexual being. But Sophie isn't having any of that. It's too hard to imagine her mother, who suffered from recurring nightmares about her own violent rape and denied Sophie's growing sexuality, actively and willfully engaging in sex. When she tries, Sophie can only imagine her mother "enduring it," as she does. In her view, sexuality is not a normal part of life; it is seen as something deviant and traumatic.