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Chapter 40
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
Amabelle walks down to the Massacre River and sees an unclean man in three layers of clothing; he claims he is “walking towards the dawn,” and kisses her. When he leaves, she finds a boy by the river and asks to be taken over the border into the Dominican Republic. She is told to go tonight, as she does not have papers.
Amabelle is finally capable of confronting the Massacre River, the scene of many traumatic experiences in her life. By walking to the river, she comes to accept it as a part of her personal history and a part of her country. Having accepted that Haiti and the river are important forces in shaping her identity, she is finally comfortable returning to the Dominican Republic on her own terms.
Themes
Amabelle returns at night, and meets a man who takes her across the border. She sleeps as she passes through the military checkpoints, and thinks to herself that sleep has been a comforting routine for her. She adds that sleeping is the closest thing to disappearing. She wakes up the next morning, and the man drops her off in Alégria, which he calls her “joyful land.”
Amabelle realizes that she lost part of her life to dreams, which have long been a source of comforting monotony to her. In this way, dreams were a sort of “death” for her. Although she survived the massacre—escaping death in a literal sense— she disappeared from the world due to grief and fear. This disappearance has been a sort of demise: it kept her from truly living her life or enjoying her existence.
Themes
Amabelle notes that Alégria now looks like a “closed town,” where the houses have defenses that make them seem like fortresses. Amabelle does not recognize much of what she sees, and feels as if she has never been in the town before. Eventually, she gets lost; she believes the cane fields have disappeared, and is too scared to ask for directions.
The idea of home can change rapidly. The physical transformation of Alégria and the newfound unfriendliness of the houses demonstrate how a familiar place can quickly become foreign. In fact, Amabelle finds Alégria—a place she lived in for decades—so unfamiliar that she must ask for help to navigate it.
Themes
Amabelle shows up at many houses before finding one that looks similar to Señora Valencia’s new living quarters. She eventually meets a young girl and boy, and speaks to them in Spanish; she is surprised that she can still speak it clearly. She meets a woman who speaks Spanish with a Haitian Creole accent, and tells her that she wants to see the señora.
Despite the fact that Amabelle has spent many years in Haiti and considers it much more familiar and welcoming than Alégria, she is still able to speak Spanish and communicate with the locals. By doing so, she is once again superseding cultural and lingual barriers. Despite the Dominican Republic’s effort to expel her and her fellow Haitians from the country, she is still able to rejoin their society and speak the native language, demonstrating how superficial cultural divides often mask deeper unity.
Themes
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The handmaid escorts Amabelle inside, where she looks at a parlor filled with photographs of the family. Señor Pico’s photos show a growing number of medals and honors; Rosalinda’s photos show her married off to a man in a uniform that looks like her father’s. The biggest portrait depicts a baby boy in baptismal garb.
Only through photographs is Amabelle given a window into the life of the señora’s family. The photographs reinforce how thoroughly Amabelle’s sense of home has changed: she no longer knows anything about the people to whom she once felt very close. Additionally, a portrait of Rafael, the señora’s dead son, takes up more space than the photographs. Symbolically, this represents how grief for the dead can overshadow the joys of the living. To the señora, it seems, the loss of her son means more than all her family’s other milestones.
Themes
She is finally introduced to Señora Valencia, who does not recognize her; the señora chastises Amabelle for using her old worker’s name. When her old employer does not recognize her, Amabelle begins to feel like Alégria never existed. She wonders how the señora cannot recognize her voice, and begins to list details from their history together. The señora does not believe her, and asks her to recount how Amabelle was found many years ago.
The señora’s inability to recognize Amabelle, combined with Amabelle’s feelings of unfamiliarity in Alégria, illustrate how both women’s idea of home have altered over their lives. Neither woman offers the other a sense of belonging, despite their shared history and prior closeness.
Themes
Amabelle describes being found by the river’s edge, and the señora finally believes her. She gestures at Amabelle to sit down, and Amabelle looks at the señora’s hands, which are unscarred and pristine. Amabelle wonders to herself why she never dreamed of Señora Valencia, and considers whether she ever loved her employer.
The señora’s hands are undamaged by toil, which shows how different her life has been from Amabelle’s. This clear disparity further erodes their former sense of connection to one another. Amabelle begins to realize the distance between them, and questions whether she and the señora ever truly saw each other as family. Amabelle’s realization about her relationship with her employer again demonstrates how her conception of belonging has changed: she no longer feels connected to the household in which she grew up.
Themes
Señora Valencia explains how her family moved to a new house: Señor Pico bought it from the family of a colonel. She tells Amabelle how most of her acquaintances, such as Doña Eva and Beatriz, are in New York now. She says that when she moved into the new home, Luis and Juana went back to “their people.”
The señora’s stories illustrate how other characters have moved on. The señora’s acquaintances have rebuilt homes in another country, and her workers have relocated to new places. Although these characters were originally members of a single household and shared a sense of familiarity, their ideas of home have all evolved. These characters illustrate how the concept of home is dynamic, and how it is always possible to uproot and start again.
Themes
Señora Valencia then tells Amabelle that if she condemns her country, she must condemn herself; she claims that she would have had to leave the country if she betrayed her husband. She admits that she never asked him any questions about his actions. She then says that during the massacre, she hid many of Amabelle’s people; she confesses that she hid these strangers because she could not hide Amabelle herself.
The señora is a character caught in-between. She respects her homeland, yet feels unfamiliar there as she has a new home and has lost her friends. Additionally, she is willing to break cultural borders to help out the Haitians. The señora’s behavior, though somewhat paradoxical, illustrates how nuanced the ideas of home and cultural identity can be: her competing beliefs and loyalties cause her to act in ways that she thinks are right while staying silent about her country’s (and her husband’s) transgressions.
Themes
Señora Valencia tells Amabelle that her husband was merely following the orders he was given. She then marvels that they are both alive and awaiting a natural death. Amabelle thinks to herself that she and the señora were caught between being friends or strangers; now, however, they act like two passersby on the street.
The señora prioritizes her Dominican identity—and the high societal position it confers on her—over everything else. Despite the fact that Amabelle is her childhood friend, and that the two once considered themselves to be family, the señora is determined to defend her country’s cultural beliefs. The señora’s hehavior illustrates a likely cause for Amabelle’s disorientation in the Dominican Republic: Amabelle was never truly valued by her employer, and thus never truly belonged in her home. Due to her employer’s belief in a separate Dominican culture, she never treated Amabelle with genuine respect; rather, she considered her a foreigner, despite their fond relationship.
Themes
Amabelle asks Señora Valencia about a stream and waterfall she remembers from her time in Alégria, and the señora agrees to show her the closest waterfall she knows. The señora drives Amabelle and Sylvie, her housemaid, to a waterfall nearby; when they arrive, the señora comments that Amabelle was always “drawn to water” in her youth. The señora says that she would search for Amabelle near rivers and streams after Amabelle left for Haiti.
Despite their years apart, the señora reveals how she has preserved her childhood memories of Amabelle. By doing so, she illustrates how separation cannot overwrite the past. The señora’s behavior also suggests that she did care deeply for Amabelle, even though she prioritized her loyalty to the Domincan Republic over their friendship.
Themes
Sylvie, the housemaid, interrupts their conversation to ask the señora why the Dominican soldiers used the word for “parsley” to target Haitians. The señora replies that when Trujillo was a guard working in the cane fields, one of the Haitian workers escaped. Trujillo chased him, but could not find him. He asked the worker to announce his location; if he did, Trujillo would spare him. The worker obeyed, but also kept running; he would, however, shout out the names of the field’s crops as he passed through them. Trujillo realized that Haitians “can never hide as long as there is parsley nearby.” The señora adds that one’s language can reveal “who belongs on what side.”
This legend demonstrates the longstanding cultural divisions and prejudices in the Dominican Republic. Even before Trujillo had governmental power, he believed that language could help separate Haitians and Dominicans. The scene in the field convinced Trujillo that Haitians could not blend into their surroundings; their language (a key part of their culture) would always prevent them from truly fitting in.
Themes
Amabelle and Señora Valencia say goodbye, and Amabelle tells the señora to go in peace. Amabelle is picked up by her driver, and she asks him what he does for a living; he tells her that he helps bring workers into the Dominican Republic to help with the sugarcane. She asks him if he knows of the massacre, and he says his mother escaped from it when he was a child, and that his father died in it. Amabelle tells him to leave her by the river, and insists on waiting alone.
Amabelle says goodbye to her former friend and employer, but she is also bidding farewell to her home in the Dominican Republic for good. She then asks her driver—who ferries Haitians into the Dominican Republic—if he remembers the massacre. He reveals that his family suffered losses in the massacre, but perhaps because he did not personally experience it, his actions repeat history in a way he does not seem to notice. Before the massacre, Haitians traveled to the Dominican Republic for work; he is contributing to the same cycle. The driver’s actions provide a warning about forgetting the past: people who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.
Themes
Amabelle walks down to the river, which looks nearly invisible in the darkness. With the river nearly undetectable, she thinks to herself that she can pretend, momentarily, that the river’s victimsher mother and father, and Odettedied natural deaths. She admits that she used to visit the river in hopes that it would reveal what her parents wanted for her after their deaths.
Amabelle’s inability to see the river is a physical representation of how Amabelle has repressed her past. By not acknowledging the river, she has refused to confront the deaths she witnessed. Eventually, however, these fantasies of an invisible river disappear, and she accepts her reality. Amabelle understands that her fantasies were shields against her fear, and that only letting them go—and looking at the river directly—can give her the wisdom and understanding she’s always wanted.
Themes
Amabelle sees the man who kissed her back in Haiti stepping out of the river, and wants to ask him to lower her into the river, or into Sebastien’s arms, or into her father’s laughter. Instead, she takes off her clothes, gets into the river, and floats in its current. She admits that she “looked to [her] dreams” for relief and calmness, and to escape the image of blood in the river. She realizes that she, like the man, is “looking for the dawn.”
When Amabelle floats in the river—a place that has caused such deep grief—she is symbolically accepting her past and her sorrow for the first time. Finding the dawn, a symbol of a new start, is Amabelle’s next priority. Amabelle learns, then, that confronting her sadness allows her, ironically, to start trying to find happiness and eventually hope. Although desolation and optimism seem like opposing forces, Amabelle’s experience shows that hope for the future can actually grow from the grief of one’s past.
Themes
