How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Page)
Quote #1
"When you love someone, you want him to be closer to you than your Marassa. Closer than your shadow. You want him to be your soul. The more you are alike, the easier this becomes. When you look in a stream, if you saw that man's face, wouldn't you think it was a water spirit? Wouldn't you scream? Wouldn't you think he was hiding under a sheet of water to kill you?" (11.85)
Martine's conversation with her daughter degenerates quickly into a strange and frightening assessment of what it means to her to be a woman in a sexual relationship. For Martine, violence is ever present, even in the case of finding someone to be your shadow or Marassa. She is trying to convince Sophie that she'll only be safe if she commits herself to a lifetime relationship with her mother, since any relationship with men can only end one way. It isn't healthy, but it's certainly a reflection of Martine's early experiences.
Quote #2
The woman thought of all the animals that she had seen, the ones that people feared and others that they loved. She thought of the ones that were small. Ones that were held captive and ones that were free. "Make me a butterfly," she told Erzulie. "Make me a butterfly."
"A butterfly you shall be," said Erzulie. The woman was transformed and never bled again. (12.88)
Sophie recounts the story of the woman who could not stop bleeding and asked the goddess Erzulie to intervene and help her. In a telling moment, Erzulie explains that if she wants to stop bleeding, she can no longer be a woman. For Sophie and the women of her family, then, to be a woman is to suffer—and not just any kind of suffering. This is the real soul-wrenching, body-tearing kind of suffering that makes life nearly impossible. As such, the woman in the story chooses to opt out and live her days as a beautiful butterfly. Sophie falls back on this story of transformation when she has to face her mother's suicide.
Quote #3
My grandmother was naked in the bath shack, with the rickety door wide open. She raised a handful of leaves towards the four corners of the sky, then rapped the stems under her armpits. She swayed her body several times, shaking the leaves loose from her buttocks. My grandmother had a curved spine and a pineapple-sized hump, which did not show through her clothes. Some years earlier, my mother had grown egg-sized mounds in both her breasts, then had them taken out of her. (16.113)
In our culture, we joke about the "horror" of seeing our mothers or grandmothers naked. But for Sophie, the vision of her grandmother's body allows her a moment of reflection on the bodies of the women in her family. Sometimes, things go awry—as in Ifé's hump and Martine's breast cancer. But these are things that the women cover up and don't show to world. All the general public ever sees is their endurance.