“I do understand. You are usually reluctant to start, but after a while you give in. You seem to enjoy it” (196)
In Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory the sexual desires of the Caco women, Martine, Tante Atie, and Sophie, are haunted by testing for purity and rape. Sophie and her mother specifically mirror each other, or are Marassa, in their inability to have sex comfortably. Sophie and Martine’s sexual history are similar in the sense that they have both been sexually violated and feel pressure to sexually satisfy the men in their life to keep their companionship.
Martine and Sophie’s lack of desire comes from the same place of having their sexual experience tainted. Martine’s sexual experience is tainted by a rape that she has relived every night due to continuous nightmares. Sophie’s sexual experience is tainted by the testing she had to go through at her mother’s hand. Sex is not enjoyable for them because it is linked to an emotionally damaging event. Even though the women do not desire sex, they desire companionship. Cultural pressures have led them to the belief that to maintain the companionship of the men in their lives they must provide them with sex. They feel so obligated to provide sex to their male companions and are so desperate to keep them in their lives they suffer through sex. In the midst of their pretending the men in their lives are blindly naïve and hopeful that the sex is actually enjoyable.
When Sophie returns from Haiti and is questioned by her husband, Joseph, why she left she is blunt about the fact that they were not “connecting physically”. Joseph does not realize that he is not understanding Sophie’s inhibitions towards sex at all when he counters that she seems to “enjoy it”. Moreover, rather than being sympathetic, through his eyes the situation is overdramatic and comical. He wears a thick robe to bed rather than regular pajamas. For Joseph, this is a grand gesture, this is his way of exemplifying that he is understanding. If they were to touch Joseph claims that he would not be able to resist Sophie and this is the best way to police his behavior. However, were Joseph were truly able to understand Sophie’s feelings he would understand them not having sex is bigger than the issue of desire. It is an issue of psychological damage and sexual exploitation. Joseph not only lacks an understanding of the mental duress that Sophie is under but, also the larger implications of what sex is. For Joseph, sex is only an expression of desire and skin contact. For Sophie, sex is attached to guilt, shame, and humiliation.
Martine’s lover Marc is similar to Joseph in his lack of true understanding. Marc is aware of the nightmares that Martine faces yet engages in sex with her anyway. Moreover, he wants for Martine to have the child that she is carrying. Martine’s pregnancy for Marc seems to be about his desires for a child rather being able to comprehend the implications it will have on her health, and ultimately her life. Similar to the story that Grandma Ifé told about the man wanting a virgin bride so badly he mistakenly kills her, Marc desperately wanted a child and in the end also lost his lover.
Danticat expresses the cultural expectations of men and women in the relations between Sophie and Joseph as well as Martine and Marc. Their relationships both include women who are willing to suffer in silence for the sake of keeping a man who is clueless to their own needs. Additionally, she highlights different types of desire. Desire is not only an expression of sexuality. It is about companionship and intimacy beyond just the act of sex.
I agree with your assertion that the women suffer through sexual contact in order to live out their primary desire of intimacy. However, the post seems to get at an assertion of willful ignorance on the part of the men involved with these women. I don’t believe that is necessarily true. Both men were aware of at least basic circumstantial facts of their counterparts’ distress yet believed that they were doing the best that they could. Marc and Joseph both demonstrated as much love as they possibly could and conveyed a tremendous amount of care and support. Although Joseph may seem less concerned with Sophie’s despair, it could be argued that he only does so because he believed that the counseling sessions were helping her and that Sophie may never have been able to truly convey how discomforting it is for her. For Marc it may be that he believed that if he loved hard enough and built a new life with Martine, he could counteract her demons and help her move along.
I see why you may think I was harsh on my analysis of Joseph and Marc. I must admit that my general animosity towards them influenced my blog post/response. I do agree that there was a genuine love felt by Joseph and Marc towards their respective partners. However, I would like to think in the case of Joseph, when Sophie asked for some time she meant more than just a day. As far as Marc, he knew the nightmares had not stopped, and he had stopped checking on Martine when she woke in the middle of the night.
I think Marc and Joseph are in a tough and confusing situation regarding their intimate relations with Martine and Sophie. I agree that they both try to be considerate lovers; however, I think the reason they come off as less caring as they should be is because both Martine and Sophie are even closed off to their deeper pains and emotions. It seems they have numbed their own hearts and minds to themselves, which is why escaping and running away seem so appealing to them. From the perspective of Marc and Joseph, I can empathize with them trying to relate to their respective lovers who have not quite faced their demons yet, let alone resolved past traumas.
I also don’t see Marc and Joseph as being dismissive of Martine and Sophie’s struggles with intimacy. I feel they both tried to love their broken women as much as they could, but were incapable of fully understanding what troubled their women; it doesn’t seem as if Sophie truly could make sense of her issues until near the end of the novel, when she is finally able to forgiver her mother. I think Marc and Joseph’s ignorance is due to the fact that they aren’t women and, as men, have vastly different psychological experiences than women do during intimacy.