How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Page)
Quote #7
My flesh ripped apart as I pressed the pestle into it. I could see the blood slowly dripping onto the bed sheet. I took the pestle and the blood sheet and stuffed them into a bag. It was gone, the veil that always held my mother's finger back every time she tested me. (12.88)
Sophie doesn't understand why her mother feels she has to perform regular virginity tests on her, but she does know how to make it stop. If she breaks her hymen, Martine will think she's lost her virginity. But what Sophie does is closer to self-mutilation, a reflection of self-hatred that's been brewing since she learned that she was a product of rape and the stuff of her mother's nightmares. Her actions here also show a terrible strength: Sophie is willing to do whatever it takes to preserve herself from more humiliation.
Quote #8
I turned back for one last look. The coal vendor was curled in a fetal position on the ground. He was spitting blood. The other Macoutes joined in, pounding their boots on the coal seller's head. Everyone watched in shocked silence, but no one said anything. (17.118)
Suffering is not limited to personal or familial grief in this work. All around the Caco family in Haiti is a violent and corrupt governmental system, along with an out-of-control paramilitary force wreaking havoc on the citizenry. Even though Sophie had escaped the initial bouts of violence when she left Haiti as a child, she returns to find that not much has changed for the better.
Quote #9
But the Macoutes, they did not hide. When they entered a house, they asked to be fed, demanded the woman of the house, and forced her into her own bedroom. Then all you heard was screams until it was her daughter's turn. If a mother refused, they would make her sleep with her son and brother or even her own father. (21.139)
The brutality of the Tonton Macoutes isn't confined to those who experience it first-hand—stories of their evil deeds sow seeds of terror in the Haitian people and keep them paralyzed in the face of violence. The level of their depravity clearly affects Sophie and the women in her family, who have already been torn apart by the sexual assault of Martine.