essay
atmed.oshia1414
thefarmingofbones_lecture3_4-11-2017.pptxLecture 3
pp. 207- end
The start of the massacre (157-158)
Attack on the Haitians by the soldiers at the church.
Unel huled his machete at one of the young soldiers and cut him on the side of his face. As a small squad tried to grab him, Unel twisted and dived between him, all the while screaming that he had never lived on his knees. All of the soldiers were racing after him now, except for Senor Pico who was standing on top of the truck, watching.
Unel was trapped inside a circle. Three of the soldiers grabbed his right arm. Others grabbed the left, joining his arms behind him on the buttocks. One the more anxious soldiers pierced one of Unel’s arms with the point of his bayonet, cutting a gash from wrist to elbow (157)
Violence
“You know how much I admire the Generalissimo,” Mercedes said, her voice quivering beneath the weight of too much of her own firewater. “Even so, I say we are asking for punishment when we arrest the priests in their own church.”
“You should have been there to see it,” one of the soldiers argued,” They cried like new widows, those priests.” (158)
The role of the soldiers and loss of humanity: genocide de-humanizes the understanding of the ‘other’ ethnicity.
The separation of Amabelle and Sebestien
There is confusion surrounding the chaos at the church. Rumors start about Sebestien getting arrested at the church (163) and the violence that took place at the church.
There is a lack of trust among the Haitians and Dominicans. Dona Gilbert and Dona Sabine warn Amabelle to be careful about who is let in. After they leave, Amabelle makes a decision to go search for Mimi and Sebestien in Dajabon (165). She confides in Sebestien’s best friend, Yves.
Yves, Felice, and Amabelle start their journey to return to Haiti.
The massacre intensifies (173)
“ I am coming back,” he said, “ from buying charcoal outside the mill where I work, when two soldiers take me and put me on a truck full of people. The people who fight before going on the truck, they whip them with bayonets until they consent. After we’re all on the truck, some of us half dead, not knowing whose blood is whose, they take us out to a high cliff over the rough seas in La Romana. They make us stand in the groups of six against a wall of soldiers with bayonets pointed at you and some civilians where best to strike with the machetes so our heads part more easily from our bodies. ” Tibon usd his bony hand to make the motion of a machete striking his collarbone. “They make us stand in lines of six on the edge of the cliff.” he said, “they come back back to the truck to get more. They have six jump over the cliff, then another six, then another six, then another six”
This is a scene that was also described in the documentary, especially in the discussion of the violence that took place in Guatemala. Please expand on the connection further. What are the similarities between this particular moment in the novel and documentary.
Identity, Class, and belonging
“They have so many of us here because our country – our government – has forsaken us.” Tibon started again, but no one replied. “Poor people are sold to work in the cane fields so our own country can be free of them.” (178)
”he ruin of the poor is their poverty,” Tibon went on. “The poor man, no matter who he is, is always despised by his neighbors. When you stay too long at a neighbor’s house. It’s only natural that he become weary of you and hate you.” (178)
Tibon spends time here contemplating the rejection he feels from the Dominicans. Please note the reference to poverty and class. There is no mention of ethnicity here but this particular moment suggests that there are multiple elements that lead to a genocide/massacre. The tensions between the people who are have/have-nots also manifests here. People from Haiti feel disenfranchised and work in Dominican Republic to support the cane industries there.
The complicated figures: The dominican sisters (pp. 183)
As we walked away from them, I wanted to argue for allowing the sisters to come with us, but the fires down below made too strong a demonstration of fanger. Besides, the sisters would not have as many obstacles as we would in Dajabon. If they were asked to say “perejil”, they could say it with ease. In most of our mouths, their names would be tinged with or even translated into Kreyol, the way the name of Doloriatas’ man slid towards the Spanish each time she evoked him. Perhaps if we addressed the sisters publicly in Dajabon, someone might hear and at that moment decide that we should die.
Language determines if a person will live or not. However, here, we see that there were complicated figures who were attached to Haitians (be it romantically!). You see that the Dominican women are willing to risk their lives to be with the Haitian men but they don’t risk being caught across the border. The Haitian, however, realize that they do not have the same privilege as them.
Children and genocide
The influence of Trujillo is so great that the children constantly chant ”Viva Trujillo” as they enter Dajabon. The seeds of discrimination against the Haitians are being planted early.
Trujillo announces in the church (a religious institution) that the “problems with the Haitians would be solved” (189)
Think about other leaders who have committed the act of genocide. What leads them to make such decisions and carry the idea of “sub-human” forward of ”other” races. In the documentary, Daniel Goldhagen makes a point about the genocide being architected by a singular leader. He reiterates this point throughout the documentary. Why do you think the Parsley massacre is not acknowleged as a genocide, as according to the author, it was created by Trujillo.
How does the author represent Trujillo? Does she ”humanize” him like she humanizes the Haitians?
The killings begin– tibon and parsley (pp. 193)
At that moment I did believe that had I had wanted to, I could have said the word properly, calmly, slowly, the way often I asked “Perejil? Of the old Dominican women and their faithful attending granddaughters at the roadside gardens and markets, even though the trill of the r and the rpecision of the j was sometimes too burdensome a joining for my tongue. It was kind of thing that if you were startled in the night, you might forget, but with all my senses calm, I could have said it. But I didn’t get a chance. Yves and I were shoved down onto our knees. Our jaws were pried open and parsley stuffed into our mouths. My eyes watering, I chewed and swallowed as quickly as I could, but not nearly as fast as they were forcing the handfuls into my mouth.”
Here, Danticat allows you an insight into the mind of the victims of the genocide and its survivors. What can you understand from this particular moment in the novel?
The device of foreshadowing
The doctors states that “many of us start out as twins in the belly and do away with each other (Ch.4, p.19).” This foreshadows not only the death of Rafael, but also the fate of the Haitians. The Haitians and the Dominican both hail from the same island and struggle to survive among the same resources. However, it is the Dominicans who try to do away with the Haitians in the form of the killings.
The haitian revolution (212)
“ A smart man,” someone said, “in those times we had respect. When Desalines, Touissant, Henry, when those men walked the earth, we were a strong nation. These men would go to war to defend our blood. In all this, our so-called president says nothing, our Papa Vincent - our poet – he says nothing at all to this affront to the children of Dessalines, the children of Touissant, the children of Henry; he shouts nothing across this river of blood.”
“I hear the weight of river…The slaughter is the only thing that is mine enough to pass on. All I want to do is lay it down now and again, a safe nest where it will neither be scattered by the winds, nor remain forever buried beneath the sod.” (pp. 266)
Amabelle's parents drown during a hurricane, as did Sebastien's father, and in the 1937 slaughter, many Haitians were murdered on the bed of the river dividing the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Discuss the many functions of water in the novel, healing as well as destructive.
Worse than war: documentary information and link
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/worse-than-war/
In the Immediate aftermath of the genocide: Loss of memory
After the violent encounter, Amabelle awakes after three days. She believes that Sebestien is found. However, the people tell her it was Yves who rescued her.
Many of her friends including Odette and Wilner had died. (213) Yves is willing to take her to see Sebestien. He also informs her that killings have stopped (216).
Making sense of humanity (216-7)
The next morning, Yves went along with the priests, the doctors, and the others whose work it was to collect corpses along the riverbank. The work took the whole morning, even though the nuns too told us that the killing had ceased and there were hardly any more corpses to bury.
The room was full beyond its measure now, with everyone seeking shelter from the mud outside…
The man from the cadaver pit lay on his mat all morning, mumbling his woman’s name. Nounone, Nounone. Next to him was a crippled Dominican who could console him only in Spanish.
“Calmate, hombre,” mumbled the Dominican. He was black like the nun who came to re-dress his wounds. He’d been mistaken for one of us and had recieved a machete blow across the back of his neck for it.
There were many like him in the room, I said. (217)
This is a powerful moment in the novel. Here, a Dominican is mistaken for a Haitian and has survived an attack on him. What makes genocides different from a war zone? Think of the example of the Hutu killer who was in the prison and giving the interview. He had said that he was in a frenzy “mode” ready to kill without thinking. However, here we see that the Dominicans even harmed their own without realizing. What can we learn about humanity/human nature from the act of genocide?
Man Rapadou, Yves, and his relationship with Amabelle
The decorum around them is awkward. Yves still considers Amabelle – Sebestien’s romantic interest – even though at this point (222) we are not sure if Sebestien is even alive or not. Man Rapadou immediately says, “You have a woman. This is your woman?” however, Yves responds in a disciplined manner denying any romantic feelings towards Amabelle even though their journey from Dominican Republic to Haiti. They have been tortured, shared good memories, and protected each other from the violence. Yves is an honourable man.
Man Rapadou who learns of Amabelle’s story calls the killings – “a slaughter” (228) Here, Amabelle responds with shock thinking that she is encouraging her to embrace her son and forget Sebestien, which creates for an awkward situation.
Controversial compensation for the survivors (231)
Is compensation enough for the killings of people for no reason?
Yves: I hear there are officials of the state, justices of the peace, who listen to those who survived the slaughter and write their stories down. The Generalissimo has not said that he caused the killing, but he agreed to give money to the affected persons.
Amabelle: Why?
Yves: To eras bad feelings, “ he said, as if he was no longer linked to the slaughter.
Amabelle: And the dead?
Yves: they pay their families…
Yves: I dont know if you’ll be given money. The authorities might try to keep it all for themselves. They ask you to bring papers. They ask you to bring proof.
This is a troubling moment in the novel. First, this is where you see the notion of bio-politics we discussed earlier in class come to life. For one, the Generalissimo is trying to erase his actions by paying money to the survivors. However, there is also a mention of corruption within the beauracracy which holds utter disregard for the lives of the survivors and dead.
Why do you think Yves is so distant from this concept?
Amabelle meets Sebestien and mimi’s mother (238-9)
Mama Denise: Their father was killed in the hurricane; Sebestien had a cage full of pigeons that also died in the hurricane, this house was taken from us by the Yankis; they wanted to make a road of this house. It was given back to us only after they left. Because we had no house, my son went there first, and me, because I was weak in the lungs, I was to go live with my brother in Port-au-Prince. I had no money so my daughter followed Sebestien and they both sent me some.
The truth revealed (241)
Mama Denise: A young man came here to see me some days past. He came here to see me on his way to Port-au-Prince. He said he saw my children killed, in a court yard, between two government edifices there, in a place called Santiago. He said he saw them herd my children with a group, make them lie face down on the ground, and shoot them with rifles.
Then Mama Denise asks her to leave her alone. Here, Amabelle’s reaction is quite shocking. Instead of becoming emotionally shocked, she believes that Sebestien and Mimi are probably dead. She justifies it by stating what she had heard on her journey in Dajabon and La Romana. How does she react towards Mama Denise?
Death and its representation in the novel
Those who die young, they are cheated….I wish people would stop coming to tell me they saw my children die. I wish I had my hopes that there were living some place, even if they never did come back to see me” (242-243)
Yves reveals his knowledge of Sebestien and Mimi’s death – pp. 248-249
How does Yves and Amabelle’s relationship evolve? Does she forgive him for not telling the truth all this time?
The beginning of the end (277-310)
Man Rapadou’s Confession: She had killed Yves’s father for the name of her country (pp. 277)
Tourism and Haiti/Dominican Repulic: I wasn’t certain why I had picked that particular group of white foreigners and Haitian guide to follow until I realized that both the guide’s talk and the things that members of the group were whispering to one another was in Spanish (279)
At first glace, the Massacre appeared like any of the three or four large rivers in North Haiti (284)
Why does she choose to return to see Pico and his family? – pp. 300-onwards
Sylive’s question and story of the Generalissimo – page 304 – reread this passage again. It is important to understand the meaning of massacre/genocide. It shows that foreshadowing as the incident happens when the Generalissimo is a young man.
The end
Why does the novel end with Amabelle swimming in the river?
