The Farming of Bones
A Historical Narrative by Edwidge Danticat
The Farming of Bones
By Edwidge Danticat
Published by Penguin Books (1998)
ISBN 0140280499
In The Farming of Bones, Edwidge Danticat writes from the narrative of the fictitious Amabelle Desír, a young Haitian woman orphaned at the age of eight and subsequently taken in by a Dominican family proud of its Spanish blood. Amabelle is an outsider – which she lives every day as a servant – but she still employs a child-like naiveté when acknowledging her place in Dominican society.
Her caregiver, Papi, is viewed as benevolent for having undertaken the task of “father” when she loses her parents in a flood. Thus, Amabelle’s concerns are far and away from the plight of Haitians. The relative comfort she enjoys as Papi’s daughter’s childhood playmate and confidante inhibits her understanding that Haitians are soon to be embroiled in Rafael Trujillo’s nationalistic campaign.
Rafael Trujillo, Follower of Adolf Hitler
General Rafael Trujillo revered Adolf Hitler; the Fuehrer’s racial theories resonated with his plan to “whiten” the Dominican Republic. Trujillo, whose granmèrès was Haitian, believed that his Hispaniola neighbors threatened the complexion of his countrymen. The cane-cutters that crossed the river Massacre every year had become too ingrained in the fabric of Dominica, even going so far as to marry and mongrelize the natives.
Following his mentor’s Final Solution for the Jews, “On October 2, 1937, while…drunk at a party in his honor not far from the Massacre River…[Trujillo] gave orders for the ‘solution’ to the Haitian problem.” Since Haitians pronounced the Spanish word for parsley differently, “perejil” was the test that decided if they would see the next sunrise.
The Curse of Being Haitian
Amabelle’s boyfriend, Sebastien, experiences firsthand the war between the foreigners and the natives. As a cane-cutter, he’s routinely subjected to the degradation and second-class citizenship assigned to migrant workers from Haiti. He won’t ever belong, won’t ever be accepted, and the resulting frustration wrestles with his manhood. “Not me, not my son, not one of us has ever seen the other side of the border. Still they won’t put our birth papers in our palms so my son can have knowledge placed into his head by a proper educator in a proper school” (69). The system essentially emasculates Sebastien, a proud man who cannot possibly provide for his woman.
Amabelle, on the other hand, does not approach their reality with absolute clarity, and this remains the point of contention between her and Sebastien. For him, Dominica is black and white; for her, the shades of gray cannot be easily dismissed. As she tells him after another cane-cutter’s death, “The señora and her family are the closest to kin I have” (110). Not until the chatter of genocide is substantiated among Haitians does she see the truth for what it is. “‘You never believed those people could injure you,’ [Sebastien] said with a scowl that seemed truly hateful…‘Even after they killed Joël, you thought they could never harm you’” (143).
Ironically, Amabelle’s relationship with Papi’s daughter, Señora Valencia, saves her life. Delayed at the last minute to care for her mistress, Amabelle misses Sebastien and his sister, Mimi, at the designated meeting place to escape across the border. Trujillo’s military guards had been tipped off that Haitians were assembling at the church to leave en masse, so they confront them at the Mass, swiftly execute them, and then throw their bodies into the Massacre River. Others who are captured are either burned alive or thrown into the river and killed if they made it to shore.
Spilling Haitian Blood in Dominica
Half-way through The Farming of Bones, Danticat cuts deep with exacting precision into the heart of the massacre and bleeds the pain of the Haitian victims. Amabelle makes it to Dajabón with Sebastien’s roommate, Yves, and they’re attacked by a mob of Dominican revelers celebrating the Generalissimo’s appearance in the town square. The anguish Amabelle, Yves, and the others feel as they are forced to relinquish whatever ties they had to Dominica is heart-wrenching. Those who managed to survive El Corte, or “the cutting,” “alluding to the machetes the Dominican soldiers used so they could say the carnage was the work of peasants defending themselves,” are intimidated and violently coerced to leave the country.
Amabelle’s trip back to Alegría years after the massacre is particularly jarring. Señora Valencia and her husband, Pico – who by this time had risen through Trujillo’s military ranks – are living apart, and she has moved to a new house. In her employ is Sylvie, a Haitian woman serving as Amabelle’s replacement. Sylvie captures the mood of moment and the entire cutting. “Why did they choose parsley?” she asks her mistress, as if any answer could possibly justify the cutting. Señora Valencia’s simplistic response fails to explain the victims’ fate. As the servant puts succinctly, “I have always wished, Madame, for an answer” (305).
The Farming of Bones
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