How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Page)
Quote #4
"The details are too much," she said. "But it happened like this. A man grabbed me from the side of the road, pulled me into a cane field, and put you in my body. I was still a young girl then, just barely older than you." (8.61)
Martine tells Sophie that she was not, in fact, born from rose petals as her Tante Atie had claimed. This revelation comes at the tail end of her explanation of virginity testing, which Martine says her mother stopped doing because of the rape. In this moment, Sophie learns more than she ever wanted to know about her mother and the life of the women in her family—and these memories will become part of her own psychological pain as she grows.
Quote #5
Whenever my mother was home, I would stay up all night just waiting for her to have a nightmare. Shortly after she fell asleep, I would hear her screaming for someone to leave her alone. I would run over and shake her as she thrashed about. Her reaction was always the same. When she saw my face, she looked even more frightened. (10.81)
Sophie takes on the responsibility of controlling her mother's night terrors. In the process of doing this, she also takes on part of Martine's suffering. By the time she's grown, Sophie feels that the rape is as much a part of her past as it is her mother's. In some ways, she feels complicit in her mother's suffering, since she assumes that she looks like the assailant who fathered her.
Quote #6
She took my hand with surprised gentleness, and led me upstairs to my bedroom. There, she made me lie on my bed and she tested me. I mouthed the words to the Virgin Mother's prayer: Hail Mary... so full of grace. The Lord is with You... You are blessed among women... Holy Mary. Mother of God. Pray for us poor sinners. (11.84)
Martine continues the pattern of personal violation that was practiced on her and Atie when they were girls. Although Martine understands firsthand the humiliation of virginity testing, she also feels that she needs to be vigilant in this way in order to be a good mother: it's up to her to preserve her daughter's purity. For Sophie, testing not only causes her physical and psychological discomfort, it destroys any positive ideas she could have about sex and her own sexuality.