M/othering the Nation: Women’s Bodies as Nationalist Trope in Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory

Abstract

In Gender and Nation, Nira Yuval-Davis argues that constructions of nationhood usually involve specific notions of womanhood and manhood and masculinity and femininity as a way of determining gender roles (1). Addressing nationalist or masculinist bias in gendering wherein and women's roles are relegated to periphery, she remarks that it is women who reproduce nations biologically, culturally and symbolically. Yet, she concludes, they remain excluded or 'hidden' in various theorizations of nationalist phenomena (2). These theorizations describe a protracted list of dos and don'ts that consist of women's exclusion from citizenship and reduction to operating behind scenes, as they thus reproduce aphorism children should be seen and not heard. Through state mandates, these same prohibitions also require to control their sexuality by espousing and practicing proper womanhood. Nationalism, as Tamara Mayer writes, functions as an approved language through which sexual control and repression is justified and masculine prowess is expressed and exercised (Mayer 1). Edwidge Danticat, in her debut novel Breath, Eyes, Memory, decodes this nationalist language that is, not surprisingly, articulated and dominated by men, and similar to dominance they exercise in state institutions. Men assume national stage as protectors and defenders of and state, and enforcers of state- regulated laws. It comes as no surprise then, as feminist theories of nationalism have drawn attention to this conflation, that nation and/or country is fundamentally constructed as feminine, a construction that deservedly requires being saved and protected. In other words, nationalist language establishes what Myriam Chancy refers to as the illusion that men have rights, which they exercise on behalf of themselves and their families, and that are cared for ... covered by legal rights extended to them as minors or wives (27). In keeping with this theory, are burdened with task of maintaining nation's (read men's) honor and integrity. As a result, they are accorded title mothers of nation, an assigned designation that surreptitiously further justifies controlling women's sexuality. In this article I demonstrate that despite making use of various state apparatuses, particularly conferral of state title mothers of nation, are actually perceived and accordingly treated as second-class citizens. The discourse of nationalism that serves to define and womanhood constructs them in private, domestic sphere, while it designs public, political arena to accommodate men and their nationalist pursuits. Drawing from theoretical analyses, including those of Nira Yuval-Davis, Patricia Hill Collins, Deborah Gaitskell, and Elaine Unterhalter, among others, I reiterate and expand point of view that women, who serve as complement and supplement to men, are also used to promote ethnic mobilization. Furthermore, policies are put in place to regulate women's experiences (of motherhood) in defense of state interests. While I agree that some are complicit in espousing nationalist agenda, I nonetheless discuss that in Danticat's novel unwittingly adopt certain stereotypical roles. Nevertheless, these very frame a counter-discourse by operating within existing (patriarchal) structures of state violence, using their mutilated, abused bodies as weapons to resist and rebel against nationalist agenda. These are ever vigilant that this revised script refutes homogenous categorizations of and mothers. In registering rebellion and resistance, these celebrate difference and otherness while simultaneously enacting othering of nation. In a close, analytical reading of Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory, I demonstrate how women's bodies undergo a form of dehumanization as they become subject to militaristic scrutiny by nationalist regime over which men preside. …