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Chapter 1
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
Amabellea comments that overseeing births was her parents’ work, and not something she ever expected to do herself. But one morning she hears Señora Valencia scream from inside the house. She runs inside to find that Señora Valencia’s water has broken. Don Ignacio—Señora Valencia’s father— rushes in, then says he will go get the doctor. As he rushes back out, he pushes Amabelle toward Señora Valencia as if to say that he is putting his daughter’s life in Amabelle’s hands. For a few quiet moments, Amabelle remembers when she and Señora Valencia were girls, and they used to sleep in the same room. Amabelle was supposed to sleep in a cot, but sometimes Señora Valencia would invite Amabelle to jump with her on the bed. As Señora Valencia goes deeper into labor, she asks if she is going to die, and claims that the worse pain she suffered before this was a bee sting.
In its opening the book establishes Amabelle’s social situation as a servant to Señora Valencia and Don Ignacio. Yet the novel also shows how such clear lines can at times be blurry. As a child, Amabelle and her mistress were in some ways more like friends, jumping on the bed together. As adults some of that friendship seems to remain, and yet Amabelle’s status as servant—shown bluntly in the way Don Ignacio shoves her—is never lost on her. More broadly, the opening hints that Amabelle’s parents aren’t around, and weren’t even when she was a fairly young girl—she has had to grow up among non-family members, and so her conception of home is complicated. Señora Valencia’s comment that her previous greatest pain in life before childbirth was a bee sting highlights her privileged upbringing, and how different her experience has been from that of Amabelle, who has clearly suffered real loss and grief since childhood. Yet Señora Valencia’s fear of death is nonetheless real—the two women’s experiences illustrate how death is universal, yet its influence is unique in each person’s life.
Themes
Realizing that the local physician, Doctor Javier, will not make it in time, Señora Valencia tells Amabelle that she will have to rely on Amabelle for help. Amabelle, remembering some of her parent’s birthing expertise, helps the señora through the birth and delivers the señora’s son. The boy is pale-skinned, the color of “coconut cream.” When Amabelle strikes him to successfully induce his first breath, he doesn’t cry. Señora Valencia claims that she believed her child would be a girl, as all the local male children would “crowd” around her as if they were “in love” with her unborn child.
Amabelle aids her employer with the delivery by calling upon the knowledge she learned from her mother, who was a healer. By doing so, Amabelle is both honoring her mother—by relying on her advice—and preserving her legacy of healing into the future. Furthermore, although Señora Valencia does not realize it, her children are a testament to Amabelle’s mother’s life. Their existence, which is dependent on Amabelle’s ability to deliver them using her mother’s past advice, will further remind Amabelle of her family in the future.
Themes
Señora Valencia cries out in pain once more, and Amabelle at first believes she is merely delivering the afterbirth. Unexpectedly, however, another newborn arrives: a little girl. The newborn arrives with a caul over her face and an umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. Señora Valencia claims her daughter’s delivery is marred by a “curse,” and comments on her daughter’s skin, which is a “deep bronze.”
The señora’s newborn daughter looks different from her brother, as she has dark colored skin. Señora Valencia makes a negative comment about this discrepancy, revealing her discriminatory beliefs about people with darker skin colors. The señora’s comment about her own child reveals how deeply prejudiced she is: even when someone is related to her, she judges them on their skin color. To the señora, then, racial identity (even when it’s only superficial) comes before all else.
Themes
The señora names the newborn girl Rosalinda, after her dead mother, and claims that her daughter “favors” Amabelle. She speculates whether Rosalinda will always be “the color” she is now, and calls her a “poor love.” The señora wonders aloud whether Rosalinda will be “mistaken” for a Haitian.
Señora Valencia names her child after her own mother, a means of honoring her mother’s memory into the future. The señora then further reveals her racial prejudices by implying that her daughter’s darker complexion will result in people treating her as a Haitian. The señora’s comments reveal her ideas about race and identity: namely, that skin tone determines one’s identity, and that some identities are better—and deserve better treatment—than others.
Themes
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