Edwidge Danticat
Some summary and analysis I did on chapters 5-10
Chapter 5
Sophie sees the violence in Haiti, but she is sad because she does not want to leave her home. She is not able to say a proper goodbye to her Aunt and she doesn’t know when she will see her Aunt again. Sophie is shell shocked by being pulled away from everything that she knows so she has no emotion while the young boy is expressing his pain by yelling and attacking the people around him.
Chapter 6
Martine is happy to connect with Sophie, but Sophie is traumatized by the things that she experienced, and she is in no mood to be happy right now or talk with her mother. As Sophie rides in the car to the new neighborhood she will be living in she realizes that even though Haiti has extreme violence and poverty, her New York neighborhood doesn’t look like the safest place or like prosperity. While Sophie is feeling overwhelmed by everything Martine is only concerned with Sophie making the whole family proud.
Chapter 7
Sophie is concerned about being teased when she gets to school. Sophie is unsure of her mother’s boyfriend as she was raised by her aunt and grandmother, and they were strong on a woman’s purity. The food makes Sophie feel a little more at home, but when Marc looks at her, she is reminded that she is a stranger among her own people.
Chapter 8
Sophie is struggling to find her way in America and on top of that her mother is struggling financially and emotionally. Sophie wonders where the relationship with Marc and her mom will end up. Martine explained to Sophie how invasive it was for her own mother to check for her virginity and how Sophie’s aunt would yell, yet Martine is not opposed to doing the same thing to her to make sure she remains a virgin. Sophie is the product of a violent rape and thus Martine is projecting her own trauma that the same might happen to her and that’s why she is so obsessed with Sophie’s sexual desires that she doesn’t have yet.
Erzulie is a vaodou goddess associated with beauty, love, and womanhood.
Chapter 9
When Sophie meets Joseph, she remembers “Tante Atie once said love is like rain. It comes in a drizzle sometimes. Then it starts pouring and if you’re not careful it will drown you” (67).
When Sophie starts learning English, which Martine told her was crucial to assimilating, Sophie remarks, “The first English words I read sounded like rocks falling a stream” (66).
red, a color associated with Martine and life in New York, and, in death, with the Caco women. Red can, and does symbolize many things: blood, pain, sacrifice, heat, boldness, sexuality, power, and more.
Chapter 10
Martine and Sophie have a moment of togetherness when Martine tells Sophie about her fears, and hopes Sophie uses this as a time to be open too. The moment was too good to be true because Martine began to ask Sophie all sorts of questions regarding who this mysterious person was. Martine and her trauma has caused her to disrupt a moment with her daughter. She is so panicked with controlling Sophie’s sexuality that she doesn’t even realize her own daughter resents her.
All things literature 
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