The Farming Of Bones Analysis

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In the book The Farming of Bones, the author Edwidge Danticat tells the story of a Haitian girl, Amabelle, as she attempts to survive through the Parsley Massacre of 1927 by escaping Haiti; forcing her to leave everything she has ever known behind in the Dominican Republic. Throughout this enticing story Danticat uses parsley to symbolize cleanliness.
According to the book everything about the plant is connected to cleanliness, including the taste. In the beginning of the story Amabelle is watching Kongo wash himself with a stalk of parsley and explains how the taste of parsley has a “...damp summer morningness of it, the mingled sprigs, bristly and course, gentle and docile all at once, tasteless and bitter when chewed, a sweetened wind inside
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This scene is performed almost like how one would imagine an exorcism, or “the expulsion or attempted expulsion of an evil spirit from a person or place” according to the dictionary. In this scene the haitian bodies of Yves and Amabelle are symbols of the entire Dominican Republic country and the Dominican’s act of shoving parsley down the Haitians throats is an important symbol of the Dominicans forcing the Haitians out of their country. The Dominicans act of forcing the parsley down the Haitians throats to the point where if they fight back they die, can be perceived as the the Dominicans forcing the Haitians life out of the Haitian’s body. This is symbolic because just like in this story the Dominicans are forcing the Haitians out of their homes, where their lives are, and where their bodies are, and if they do not accept this eviction then they die. Also the use of parsley being shoved down the Haitian’s throat is highly significant because parsley is known to cleanse people down to their core. So in this analogy if the Haitians represent the Dominican country then the Dominicans are forcing a cleanse on their country that will start from the inside and will eventually affect the entire country.
In conclusion, the author Edwidge Danticat used the item of parsley as a symbol of cleanliness throughout her novel The Farming of Bones. She explained how everything about parsley has cleaning capabilities according to both the Dominican and the Haitian people. Because of theses reasons it was greatly used throughout the Parsley Massacre of 1922, to aid in the Dominican Republic’s goal of purging the country of all