A Study Of Edwidge Danticat's Breath,Eyes,Memory From The Perspective Of Spatial Theory

Edwidge Danticat(1969 —)is one of the most outstanding Haitian-American black writers.She is hailed by Publishers Weekly as a distinctive new voice with a sensitive insight into Haitian culture.Concentrating her focus on her black and female identity,together with the life that she leaves behind in Haiti and her personal experiences as an immigrant to the United States,Danticat dedicates all her life to describing and shaping multiple and complex images,and holds an essential place in American Literary arena.Breath,Eyes,Memory,as Danticat's first typical literary work,powerfully demonstrates her special artistic accomplishment and literary talent.On the one hand,the book starts from child Sophie's viewpoint and takes her growth process as the main line,and at the same time,it skillfully and movingly tells Sophie's life experiences.In order to accomplish her role evolution as well as the change from daughter,woman,wife to mother,Sophie must face the survival contradiction and plight in front of her,cut the ties with past and break down the fetters.From innocence to resistance,Sophie has finished her transformation from daughter to mother,ended the pains and trauma of Caco family's four generations,and regained rebirth;on the other hand,Breath,Eyes,Memory is intentionally filled with the descriptions of Haitian customs and culture such as myths,parables,the old tradition of virginity,Haitian food,costume,Haitian females' confusions and fears and so on.Everything she describes in the novel shows her love and missing for Haiti.Thus,once published in 1994,Breath,Eyes,Memory has received a widespread attention in American Literary field.Through making a comprehensive view of the study of Breath,Eyes,Memory dynamically and internationally,most researchers focus on feminism,colonialism,trauma,identity,absurdity and other topics,and achieve fruitful results.However,no scholars have studied this novel from the perspective of space and explored the survival of Haitian females.Therefore,on the basis of the achievements made previously,this thesis starts with space and mainlyIV focuses on the survival situation of Caco family's four generations,and discusses the survival contradictions and original roots of Haitian females' survival plight,thus further explores how they respond to the harsh reality and the way of reconstructing their survival strategies.This thesis takes spatial criticism as the theoretical basis and pays a special attention to the deep connotations behind the multiple spaces.Spatial criticism concerns the abstract meanings and metaphors conveyed by natural landscape.In Breath,Eyes,Memory,physical space includes Haitian sugarcane field,the star,the color of bedroom,and the characters' spatial shifts.Through these four survival contradictions of Haitian females that reflected in physical space — trauma and recovery,hope and helplessness,calmness and revolt,flight and return,the novel vividly and strongly hints the fates of characters.In the text,social space is often manifested as a confrontation between one idea and another,or a revolt or an oppression of one group against another.As the vulnerable group in the third world,Haitian females are consonantly caged in by reality — the oppression from patriarchy,prejudice from racism,persecution from politics and the imprisonment from religion.However,such kind of state exactly indicates the original roots of Haitian females' survival plight.The personal space in Breath,Eyes,Memory vividly presents different kinds of Haitian female images in face of survival plight,as well as their inner activities and behaviors.Whether to escape,to forbear or to resist,they all make a good explanation of life,and their final fates tell the readers that flight and endurance are not the basis for survival,resistance is the only way to gain the freedom and rebirth.By applying the theory of spatial criticism,this thesis can make the readers have a better and clearer understanding of Breath,Eyes,Memory.In face of difficult situations,Haitian females need to wake up and change.They should release themselves from bondage and oppression,actively find their own survival space,and consequently reconstruct their survival strategies.Furthermore,the spatial expression of this novel once again proves that spatial criticism as an integrated and interdisciplinary critical approach has a significant role in evaluating literary worksand expanding the way of thinking.