Breath, Eyes, Memory

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of rape, sexual abuse, self-harm, unwanted pregnancy, abortion, and suicide.

Sophie is the novel’s protagonist and first-person narrator. At the start of the text, she is 12 years old and living with her aunt in Haiti. Her mother has emigrated to New York to make money to provide for her family. The text follows Sophie as she moves to New York to be with her mother, then leaves at the age of 18 to live with Joseph in Providence. She becomes pregnant and has her child, Brigitte, before returning to Haiti to question her aunt and grandmother about her past.

At the start of the text, Sophie is insistent that she does not want to leave Haiti and her aunt (Tante) Atie. Sophie’s limited, childhood perspective is clear throughout the first part of the text. She has little understanding of the violence, corruption, and poverty occurring in Haiti, and wants to stay simply because that is where her aunt is. Although she knows it to be true, she is unable to appreciate that her life is better off than most in Haiti only because of the money that her mother sends from New York.