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Doctor Javier
Antoine Désir is Amabelle Désir’s father. He died unexpectedly during Amabelle’s childhood after getting caught in a flash flood. He is an herb healer, and often helped with births and deaths in his Haitian community. Amabelle remembers him fondly, and explains to Sebastien how he would search for new cures and help his neighbors with their plowing and farm work. Amabelle’s description of her father preserves him in other characters’ memory; in this way, Antoine’s ongoing legacy demonstrates the power of recollection.
Antoine Désir Quotes in The Farming of Bones
The The Farming of Bones quotes below are all either spoken by Antoine Désir or refer to Antoine Désir. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 9
Quotes
The water rises above my father’s head. My mother releases his neck, the current carrying her beyond his reach. Separated, they are less of an obstacle for the cresting river. I scream until I can taste blood in my throat, until I can no longer hear my own voice […] I walk down to the sands to throw [myself] into the water […]
Two of the river boys grab me and […] pin me down to the ground until I become still. “Unless you want to die,” one of them says, “you will never see those people again.”
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Chapter 10
Quotes
“Give yourself a pleasant dream. Remember not only the end, but the middle, and the beginning, the things they did when they were breathing. Let us say that the river was still that day.”
“And my parents?”
“They died natural deaths many years later.”
“And why did I come here?”
“Even though you were a girl when you left and I was already a man when I arrived and our families did not know each other, you came here to meet me.”
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Antoine Désir Quotes in The Farming of Bones
The The Farming of Bones quotes below are all either spoken by Antoine Désir or refer to Antoine Désir. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 9
Quotes
The water rises above my father’s head. My mother releases his neck, the current carrying her beyond his reach. Separated, they are less of an obstacle for the cresting river. I scream until I can taste blood in my throat, until I can no longer hear my own voice […] I walk down to the sands to throw [myself] into the water […]
Two of the river boys grab me and […] pin me down to the ground until I become still. “Unless you want to die,” one of them says, “you will never see those people again.”
Related Characters:
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Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10
Quotes
“Give yourself a pleasant dream. Remember not only the end, but the middle, and the beginning, the things they did when they were breathing. Let us say that the river was still that day.”
“And my parents?”
“They died natural deaths many years later.”
“And why did I come here?”
“Even though you were a girl when you left and I was already a man when I arrived and our families did not know each other, you came here to meet me.”
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
