Children for Ransom: Reading Ibeji as a
Catalyst for Reconstructing Motherhood in
Caribbean Women's Writing
Nadia I. Johnson

https://fsu.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fsu:181798/datastream/PDF/download/citation.pdf

A Thesis submitted to the
Department of English
In partial fulfillment of the
Requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
Degree Awarded:
Spring Semester, 2005
Copyright © 2005
Nadia I. Johnson
All Rights ReservedFlorida State University Libraries
Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations
The Graduate School
2005

For my nanny, Ramdoolarie Ragoonath and my mother Samdaye Samaroo, and for all the
Caribbean mothers who bequeath to their daughters a legacy of strength in the face of
adversity.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract .......................................................................................................... vi

INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 1

1. REMEMBERING HOW TO DANCE: RECLAIMING A
SPIRITUAL INHERITANCE IN ELIZABETH NUNEZ-HARRELL’S
WHEN ROCKS DANCE ............................................................................. 23

2. A SOUL DIVIDED: BREAKING THE CYCLE OF SEXUAL TRAUMA IN
EDWIDGE DANTICAT’S BREATH, EYES, MEMORY .......................... 46

3. DISSOLVING NATIONS: REUNITING THE DIASPORA IN CRISTINA
GARCIA’S DREAMING IN CUBAN........................................................ 61

EPILOGUE .................................................................................................... 80

WORKS CITED ............................................................................................83

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .........................................................................89

ABSTRACT

This study is an attempt to provide a new alternative to understanding the way
that motherhood and the mother-daughter relationship are drawn and conceptualized in
Caribbean Women’s Writing in connection to propertied relationships that concern land
ownership and the female body. I argue that by invoking the metaphysical powers of the
ibeji, the Yoruba belief that twins are spirit children that possess certain powers, we are
provided with a new understanding of motherhood and are more fully able to
comprehend the complexities that motherhood and the mother-daughter relationship
entail in relation to the material world. In the selected works, the ibeji serve as a catalyst
to spur the women of the texts to restructure Caribbean constructions of the propertied
relationships dealing specifically with the land and the female body, as well as to create a
new space forged through the possibilities of diaspora. Thus, the way motherhood and
twins intersect is that they bring into dialogue the manner which African slavery in the
Caribbean was constructed around various propertied relationships such as those of land
and body.