Identity In Edwidge Danticat's The Farming Of Bones

Femininity and Identity are intertwined with the Haitian/Dominican dichotomy of
nationality to create Amabelle in Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones, a character
that slips in and out of identities throughout the text. Amabelle’s tenuous sense of identity
reveals the effect of colonialism on a person, exacerbated by the events of and leading up
to the Parsley Massacre. The language of the oppressor augments her ephemeral sense of
self. This crisis of identity is not only limited to the protagonist, but also seen throughout
the novel on the land itself.
Amabelle seems to fit into whatever role that is assigned to her, but lacks the
ability to make an identity for herself. She fulfills the role of the beautiful lover for
Sebastian, both a

servant and companion for Señora Valencia, the role of a midwife
forced upon her by Señora Valencia’s delivery and title given to her by the doctor, an
orphan with a home, a survivor and a victim of the Parsley Massacre, and at the end of
the novel she is neither alive nor dead. All these identities are superimposed upon the
question of whether she is Haitian or Dominican, the question of nationality. Raphael
Trujillo answers the question with the pronunciation of a word, ‘perejil’. Amabelle
reflects on this, she knows “as well how to say ‘pesi‘ as to say ‘perejil’” (Danticat 263).
Her tongue is able to pronounce both forms of the word proficiently, providing she is not
in a state of panic. This is indicative of her confused state, being born in Haiti, but
growing up in the Dominican Republic, she is in a constant state of flux. Amabelle has
grown up in Papí and Señora Valencia’s household since she was eight, making them as
FARMING BONES good as family, and effecting her speech. Amabelle holds identities as long as others
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acknowledge them, making it difficult for her to have an identity while she is alone.
Amabelle escapes the Parsley Massacre and eventually solitarily enters the river.
This river is the same river that swallowed her parents, but also the river that separates
safety from death. There is great significance in the neutrality of a river that belongs to
neither the Dominican Republic nor Haiti as the final resting place for Amabelle’s story.
Amabelle “cannot escape her memories to live more fully in the present moment; even
the act of having sexual intercourse—what had, in her former life with Sebastien, made
her feel completely alive” this inability to live in the moment, to find her identity is what
lead her to the identity-less river (Hewett 132). Hewett describes the importance of the
river’s nonaligned state, and how this is a space that has become necessary;
The river is a borderland in the way that Gloria Anzaldua understands it,
as a place that permits the existence of those who do not fit elsewhere, one
that has been created by the "bleed[ing]" of the two nations on either side
(Anzaldua 25). However, Shemak warns us against naive celebratory
readings of the border, observing that Amabelle's "ritual cleansing"
contains "contradictory images" suggesting the "ambiguous nature of the
border's history" (105). (141)
This interpretation of the river acknowledges the contradictory images present in
Amabelle’s bath, images that could imply that she is releasing all her pain to the river so
she can live, or that she is releasing herself with the pain. Amabelle has difficulty coping
due to her lack of identity, as Lynn Chun Ink emphasizes, “for women, nationalism binds
together family, nation, and self.” (800). With this sense of nationalism scrambled by
FARMING BONES birth and the sense of Señora Valencia and Papi as her next of kin, to the return to Haiti,
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and the realization that she and Señora Valencia are “neither strangers nor friends"
Amabelle is lost without her sense of self (Danticat 300). Valencia defends herself to
Amabelle for allowing her husband to continue his work by insisting "[i]f I denounce this
country, I denounce myself. I would have had to leave the country if I'd forsaken my
husband" (299). Ink points out that this horrible blow to Amabelle is actually a result of
structural violence as “Dominican nationalism, determined by institutions like the
plantation system, disallows the community of women across national boundaries.” (801)
Amabelle, lacking nationality, and fit into whatever identity she wore, whether it was a
maid, friend, or lover. Martin W. Todd states “Amabelle’s reconnection with her origins
is a key component of the ending of the novel, ” and reflects that it seems Amabelle has
found her sense of self and nationality (248). This is in direct opposition to the fact that
she leaves Haiti to lay in the country-less border, and to feel the water wash over her and
away.
Edwidge Danticat uses the Parsley Massacre to show the lingering racial effects
of post-colonialism. The Parsley Massacre occurred because Rafael Trujillo believed that
the light skinned Spanish were superior to the darker skinned Haitians, in fact, All
Dominicans with Spanish blood could speak Spanish, therefore were better than the
French speaking Haitians. This caused Amabelle’s life to pan out as it did, with her love
dying, being beaten so horribly that she is incapable of chewing;
Initially unable to eat solid foods, she is spoon-fed by Yves's mother, "as
though I were a sick, bedridden child" (225). In her reversion to a childlike
state, she finds herself bereft of the sexuality and beauty that had
FARMING BONES
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previously defined her identity.

For example, when she bathes herself with
a "bitter orange" that she hopes will heal her "cuts" and "bone aching," she
realizes that others perceive her differently (221). (Hewett 131).
As bad as her injuries were, there were worse physical injuries resulting in lack of limbs
and much death. Her already delicate sense of identity however, was further challenged.
She loses one of her identities, her sexuality, and gains a new one. Some would interpret
her new identity as a victim of the Parsley Massacre, but in an Interview by Opal Adisa,
Danticat expresses a strong view on the use of the word “victim”;
I don't like the word victimhood. The word victim has become so trite in
our culture. Amabelle and the others are survivors of this massacre.
"Survivors" is also a term that has become quite trite, but I prefer it in this
context to the term "victim." The book itself, the story, the telling, is
meant as a path towards healing. The pain goes into the telling of the
story, just as we discussed before. The pain goes into the telling, both for
me and for her. The rituals don't exist. No markers. We have to

recreate
them. Our words are the markers. (350)
Danticat refers to her book as a path toward healing, recounting the story of the Parsley
Massacre through the palatable cover of fiction. She says “our words are our markers”,
helping the survivors of the Massacre remember and acknowledge their experiences, and
almost more importantly, have others acknowledge what has been done. The women in
the novel have it more difficult, and need their identity crises known. As seen when
Oyewùmmí references Spelman “ ‘[h]ow one form of oppression is experienced is
influenced by and influences how another form is experienced’ ” (257) This implies that
FARMING BONES Amabelle’s experience is aggravated by her female gender in a patriarchal society.
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Amabelle’s identity is formed by the structures formed by the males in charge, which
becomes even more tumultuous when the males either are killed or trying to kill her.
The landscape of the Dominican Republic itself becomes male, as mountains are
named after Trujillo, streets are named after Trujillo, and even baby boys are named
Rafael. This is not an innocent changing of names, “such…names…do not reflect what is
already there: on the contrary, they embody the existential necessity the traveller feels to
invent a place he can inhabit.” (2006). This is evidence of Trujillo’s conquest, and of the
country itself becoming hostile. However, there is an integral flaw to this maniacal ego
trip, “how, without place names, without agreed points of reference, could directions be
given, information exchanged, ‘here’ and ‘there’ defined” (“”). Carter makes an excellent
point, in stripping the landscape of it’s identity, he makes it like Amabelle, confused,
losing points of reference, lacking the ability to find directions. Amabelle bathes herself
in a river which has managed to avoid all markers of identification, because of her family
history with the river, but also because the river is what saved her.
Lingering imperialist ideals in a postcolonial world seriously injures identity in
The Farming of Bones. Amabelle drifts through the novel, propelled by the identities
handed to her in wake of the massacre, she even assumes the identity of Haitian under
duress, as even when her life is threatened she cannot truly refuse any identity given to
her, due to her lack of tangible self- identity. When she originally rejects the title of a
midwife, she still ends up fulfilling that role later in the novel. Amabelle survives the
Parsley Massacre, but is deeply injured physically and mentally. She loses her sense of
purpose as well as her already missing identity, and goes to the river to be cleansed, to
FARMING BONES feel released, for a possibility of rebirth. This novel is a testament to the continuous
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devastation of colonialism in a post-colonial world.