essay
atmed.oshia1414
edwidgedanticat_thefarmingofbones_lecture1_4-4-2017_2.pptxLecture 1
pp.1-103
Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat
born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti
when she was two years old, her father André immigrated to New York, to be followed two years later by her mother Rose .This left Danticat and her younger brother, also named André, to be raised by her aunt and uncle. When asked in an interview about her traditions as a child, she included storytelling, church, and constantly studying school material as all part of growing up.
At the age of 12, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, to join her parents in a heavily Haitian-American neighborhood. As an immigrant teenager, Edwidge's disorientation in her new surroundings was a source of discomfort for her, and she turned to literature for solace. Danticat did not realize the racism until she went to college because of the protection of her community.
Since completing her MFA, Danticat has taught creative writing at the New York University and the University of Miami.
She has also worked with filmmakers Patricia Benoit and Jonathan Demme, on projects on Haitian art and documentaries about Haïti.[1] Her short stories have appeared in over 25 periodicals and have been anthologized several times. Her work has been translated into numerous other languages, including Japanese, French, Korean, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish.
1937 Parsley Massacre
a genocidal massacre carried out in October 1937 against Haitians living in the Dominican Republic.
It was carried out by Dominican Army troops on the direct orders of President Rafael Trujillo. Estimates of the total number of deaths vary considerably, ranging from a low of 547 to a high of 12,166.
1937 Parsley massacre: Life or death
Dominican soldiers would hold up a sprig of parsley to someone and ask what it was. How the person pronounced the Spanish word for parsley (perejil) determined their fate.
The Haitian languages, French and Haitian Creole, pronounce the r as a uvular approximant or a voiced velar fricative, respectively so their speakers can have difficulty pronouncing the alveolar tap or the alveolar trill of Spanish, the language of the Dominican Republic. Also, only Spanish but not French or Haitian Creole pronounces the j as the voiceless velar fricative.
If they could pronounce it the Spanish way the soldiers considered them Dominican and let them live, but if they pronounced it the French or Creole way they considered them Haitian and executed them.
The aftermath of parsley massacre
Despite the number of deaths reported by Haitian, American, and British officials, and following over half a century of agricultural expansion and population growth which may have led to accidental unearthing of human remains, no mass grave containing the bodies of murdered Haitians has ever been found.
Nonetheless, the lack of graves does not prove that the killings did not take place; however, it does suggest that the number of dead was in reality much less than those commonly reported. Reports from the day have numbers ranging from as little as 1,000 dead up to 12,000. This inflation of the tally is attributed by some to the propaganda of anti-Trujillo exiles who wanted to rally international support against the dictator Trujillo.
On the Dominican side, there are no known formally documented first-hand witness accounts by military personnel carrying out the executions nor from civilians. Historian and former Dominican ambassador to the United States Bernardo Vega has cited that not many weeks after the end of the alleged massacre, Haitians were once again lining up for work at Dominican sugar cane plantations, something he considers as strange as "lambs willingly walking into the slaughterhouse.
Genocide vs. Massacre
What are the ways the documentary narrator describe aspects of genocide?
What is a massacre?
Sub-human – how does the documentary imply thus far how different state-sanctioned genocide choose its victims?
Plot overview
Historical fiction, published in 1998.
The story begins with with narrator Amabelle Desir speaking of her lover, Sebastian Onius. These two Haitians are later separated following the beginning of the 1937 massacre.
Set in 1937, the story starts out in Alegria which consists of many sugarcane mills that requires workers. However, with the government’s intentions to “cleanse the country,” the story soon travels within the Dominican Republic as far as the Massacre River that borders the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
Plot overview
Set in the Dominican Republic in the 1930s, The Farming of Bones tells the story of a young Haitian girl named Amabelle Desir. Orphaned by the age of 8, Amabelle works for Don Ignacio and his daughter. Although Don Ignacio and his daughter are important figures in Amabelle’s life, it is evident that Amabelle’s life revolves around her lover, Sebastien Onius.
After the accidental death of one of Sebastien’s fellow cane workers, the Haitian’s distrust of the Dominican government grows, and this distrust is warranted. With news of the Generalissimo’s intentions to “cleanse the country,” Haitian workers attempt to return to their home country.
The meaning of the title
The title The Farming of Bones is alluded to in Chapter 10 when Amabelle refers to the cane life as “travay te pou zo,” or the farming of bones. Working in the cane fields proves to be dangerous and even life-threatening as it scars and mutilates many of the workers.
Characters
Amabelle Desir: The Farming of Bones is told through the voice of the young Haitian protagonist.
Sebastien Onius: A young Haitian man who is in a romantic relationship with Amabelle.He attempts to create this narrative by listening attentively to Amabelle’s dreams or having a burning desire to be home.
Generalissimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo – Although the characters do not interact with the President of the Dominican Republic formally, he is an omnipresent figure. His presidency completely dictates the social dynamics of the Dominican Republic. (pp. 42-43)
Papi / Don Ignacio– Papi, is the kind man who finds Amabelle shortly after she is abandoned as a young girl. When Amabelle is not with Sebastien, her life is centered around Papi’s home and his relatives.
Kongo – The obvious symbol of Haiti and African roots in this novel. The stories which surround him, whether it be about his son contextualize the reality of working Haitians in the Dominican Republic, who are forced to the bottom of the social hierarchy.
Yves – Sebestien’s friend
Mimi- Sebestien’s sister
Sebastian – Novel’s form
Sebastien- who is from not of Haiti like I am, though we did not know each other when we lived there -feels haunted by the crooning of pigeons…Sebastien’s father was killed in the great hurricane that struck the whole island- both Haiti and the Dominican Republic – in 1930. He lost his father and almost everything else. This is why he left Haiti. This is why I have him. A sweep of winds that destroyed so many houses and killed so many people brought him to me.
Sebestien’s mother is still alive in Haiti. (25)
Structure of the novel
first person narrative through the character of Amabelle Desir.
Amabelle narrates in past tense with memories and dreams interlaced within it. The story is not told from the beginning of Amabelle’s life but instead, it encapsulates the period of the life leading to the massacre and her life after. The memories and dreams intermingled within the story gives insight into her character and add to story development.
Loss of Sebastien’s and Amabelle’s parents
I can tell, he is ready. He wants me to ask about his dead father. I can tell by the endless pause after I’m done speaking the way he opens his mouth now and again and then only sighs as if to ask himself where he could possibly make himself begin.
“How did the hurricane find your father?” I end up saying. (pp. 34)
In Dominican Republic
Senor Pico Duarte bore the name of one of the fathers of Dominican independence, a name that he has shared with the tallest mountain on the island, until recently, when it was rechristiened Pico Trujillo after the Generallismo.
The floor thundered under his boots as he ran from Papi’s automobile into the house to find his wife and newborn children, looking for hints of their presence in the parlor and all the different rooms in the house. (35)
Signs of tension
“Senor Pico shouted at the men and blew the klaxon.” Louis continued. “Two of the men ran off. The other one didn’t seem to hear the horn. The automobile struck him, and he went flying into the ravine. He yelled when the automobile hit him, but when we came out to look, he was gone. It was a barcero, maybe one who works at Don Carlos’s mill.”
I knew most of the people who worked with Sebastien at Don Carlos’s mill, lived in Don Carlos’s compounds. The valley was small enough that most of us were familiar with one another. I thought immediately of Sebastien. Surely another worker would have come for me already had Sebastien been struck by Senor Pico’s automobile (pp.39)
Literary device: dreams
Dreams as a vehicle of character development, but she also uses dreams as a vehicle for the characters to escape reality and nightmares as a means to haunt them of their past.
While Amabelle frequently dreams of her parents drowning in the river, Sebastien dreams of his father’s death in the hurricane.
Death of joel
Joel dead? How?
Yves, Joel, and me, we were walking along when an automobile hit Joel and sent him into the ravine.”
…
What’s Kongo doing? I asked. Perhaps Sebastien was staying calm by thinking on the next step, the next action.
Does Kongo know whose automobile hit Joel?
At this time, all he knows is thath is son is dead. He needs to make a coffin. Don Carlos won’t pay for the burial (48)
Chapter 9 – the memory of the loss of her parents (pp. 50-52)
My mother turns back to look for me, throwing my father off balance…The water rises above my father’s head...I scream until I can taste blood in my throat, until I can no longer hear my own voice (52)
Life after joel’s death
Tonight, Yves and me, we carried Joel’s corpse into the compound, he said, I thought about how both Yves’s father and my father died, his father organizing brigades to fight the Yanki occupation in Haiti and my father in the hurricane….
Sometimes the people in the fields, when they’re tired and angry, they say we’re an orphaned people,” he siad, “They say we are the burt crud at the bottom of the pot. They say some people don’t belong anywhere and that’s us. I say we are a group of vwayaje, wayfarers. This is why you had to travel this far to meet me, because this is what we are.” (56)
The parsley
Now Kongio was bathing in the middle of the stream, scrubbing his body with a handful of wet parsley while the sun climbed up in the sky above his silver-tipped hair.
We used pesi, perejil, parsley, the damp summer mourningness of it, the mingled sprigs, bristly and coarse docile all at once, tasteless and bitter when chewed,a sweetened wind inside the mouth, the leaves a different taste than the stalk, all this we savoured for our food, our teas, our baths, to cleanse our insides as well as outsides of old aches and griefs, to shed a passing year’s dust as a new one dawned, to wash a new infant’s hair for the first time and along-with boiled orange leaves – a corpse’s remains one final time. (62)
The parsley as a symbol
It is the pronunciation of parsley that determines who lives and who dies in the Dominican Republic. In one instance, parsley is referred to being used to “cleanse” insides as well as outsides and “perhaps the Generalissimo in some larger order was trying to do the same for his country (Ch. 29, p. 203).”
In this case, the Generalissimo uses parsley as a determinate of life or death. Furthermore, in another instance, parsley is an ability to conform to others
