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Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Farming of Bones, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Power of Memory
Dreams vs. Reality
Language and Identity
Death, Grief, and Hope
Home, Family, and Belonging
Summary
Analysis
Sebastien returns later that night, and Amabelle warns him that he has to be careful coming and going on Señor Pico’s property. She realizes that the truth of Joël’s death has sunk in: Sebastien’s “friend had died” and “he could have died.” In fact, Sebastien was in “the house of the man who had done it.” Sebastien says that he and his friend Yves helped wash and clean the corpse, and recounts how Joël’s father, Kongo, “wanted to stay alone with the body.”
The grief left in the wake of Joël’s death brings Yves, Sebastien, and Kongo closer together, and they collaboratively try to honor Joël’s passing. Despite Sebastien’s prior detachment, death is eventually powerful enough to disturb him, and he finally begins to understand the gravity of the situation. Yves and Sebastien’s cleansing of the body, and Kongo’s vigil with the corpse, illustrate the various methods that the living use to confront death. Death is so unknowable and wretched that those left behind must undertake rituals to understand and accept it, though its pain still persists.
Themes
Amabelle changes the subject, and tells him that she dreamed about her parents’ drowning. Sebastien, upset to hear of her nightmare, tells her that she must give herself “a pleasant dream.” He tells her to dream that her parents “died natural deaths many years later.” He then concocts a “new life” for them, pretending that they met in Haiti and reunited in the Dominican Republic.
For Amabelle and Sebastien, dreams of an alternative life are a much-needed respite from grief. Sebastien’s fantasy is meant to rewrite their actual, painful circumstances; this revision is meant to be a source of hope to two people who have lost family members, friends, and their sense of home. Sebastien’s suggestion prompts the couple to reimagine their home—instead of feeling like isolated migrants, they act as if their new home is with one another, kindling new feelings of belonging.
Themes
Sebastien then tells Amabelle that there is prejudice against the Haitians, who are considered “an orphaned people.” He disagrees, however, and claims the Haitians are “a group of vwayajè, wayfarers.” He adds that this wayfaring tradition is the reason “why [she] had to travel this far to meet [him].”
Sebastien further illustrates his power to reinvent a feeling of belonging by explaining his vision of the Haitian people. Despite the Dominicans’ oppression of the Haitians, Sebastien turns the Dominicans’ critique into praise: Haitians are not lost wanderers, but travelers. Sebastien’s explanation gives agency back to the Haitian people: instead of believing the Haitians are victims of misfortune, he insists they have deliberately chosen to build new homes elsewhere. This ability to rebuild makes the Haitians resilient, according to Sebastien, as they are not beholden to a single home country.
Themes
