<p>I do agree that Max Senior would like his son to stay in Haiti … running the school … with a son of his own. In other words, he wants Max Junior to have changed during his years in America and be the man that Max Senior wanted him to be. Max Senior seems to be clutching at straws here.</p>
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<p>So Max Senior gets Flore to come to the house with her son. Yet Max Junior arrives in Haiti with Jessamine. Why did he bring Jessamine? For support? Because he thought his father would like to see him with a woman?</p>
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<p>But Max Senior did not really support Flore and her son: he gave her two thousand dollars to “disappear.” </p>
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<p>Max Senior finds Flore in Port-au-Prince and asks her to come to meet with Max Junior.</p>
<p>Max Junior himself makes a comment about Pamaxime’s younger-than-norm behavior. When he notices the boy sucking his thumb, he asks Pamaxime if he isn’t too old for that. Also Flore’s interactions with the boy hint at something wrong:
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<p>In all honesty, I did not pay much attention to this at the time. Looking back it seems so obvious that something is not right with the boy. I’m going to assume that this is intentional on Danticat’s part as she has Claire’s behavior so right for her age.</p>
<p>As I was browsing through the book doing some re-reading, I found that Max Junior’s homosexuality is no secret in the community. I had missed that the first time around. In young Claire’s inner monologue, she muses about her father’s admonition to be careful, so that people would not “whisper behind her back that she was the Madame of many men” (p. 213). Her thoughts continue:</p>
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<p>And she reflects: </p>
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<p>How foolish, then, for Max Sr. to say, “he couldn’t know that this was his son’s child.” Everyone else certainly does!</p>
<p>I’m not entirely convinced that this is the full truth—although it makes a good story for the awful Di Mwen radio program. I think Flore may have received more, perhaps even earmarked for education, because of this brief exchange she has with Max Junior:</p>
<p>So many good insights! But I have to admit I am baffled by why Max Jr. brought home Jessamine. Has he been trying to deny his homosexuality? Does he just want his Dad to love him, and thinks he will if he seems to have a girlfriend? It seems significant to me that Max Sr and Jessamine hear the Di Mwen show, but it actually seems that Max Jr. didn’t he hears “a voice like Flores and then a bunch of commercials” - and is in despair anyway.</p>
<p>I like the parallels of Claire and Max Jr. running away.
<p>I think Max Jr brought Jessamine to Haiti because she was a good, non-judgmental friend (who also knew Haiti) and could provide moral support. I don’t think he could have expected to fool his dad into thinking Jessamine was his girlfriend.</p>
<p>Mathmom, I was also really struck by the fact that Max Jr did not hear the Di Mwen show and was in despair anyway!</p>
<p>Does anyone remember this from page 114 - when max drove up and saw jessamine with his father …
" he 'could imagine Jessamine having also told his father how she was not really his girlfriend and how she agreed to come with him just so his father would think he had a girlfriend, and ** and how they had even debated whether he should buy her a ring and call her his fiancée.**</p>
<p>^ And you are right as well, NJTM. The passage SJCM quotes continues with Max Junior explaining the true relationship between himself and Jessamine, and the reason for her presence: “Maybe she was telling his father how she had agreed to come with him, as a good and loyal friend, only so that he would come and meet his son” (p. 114).</p>
<p>I like the way Jessamine describes Max to his father:</p>
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<p>They both love Max Junior, no matter what. It reinforces the themes of healing/forgiveness that mathmom mentioned earlier.</p>
<p>Interesting that Jessamine feels comfortable putting paid to the deception. If Max Junior brings her along as his girlfriend, she doesn’t live up to that bargain. She doesn’t even attempt to divert Max Senior’s questions. Possibly Max Junior flees - not because of the radio interview - but because he intuitively knows that Jessamine is “plainly” speaking the unspoken to his father - or will. He looks at the two of them and flees. </p>
<p>I think Max Junior deliberately drove away and left Jessamine alone with his father because on some Freudian level, he wanted her to tell him. He couldn’t come out to his father himself, and needed a close friend to act as proxy.</p>
<p>But the sea doesn’t want him…She gobbles up Caleb and spits back Max. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, “drowning” is a recurring motif in the book. There’s Caleb and Max, literally drowning (or nearly), and the frogs, too: “The early-summer rains flooded the town’s creeks and rivers, drowning the remaining frog population and depositing a tall layer of sandy loam near Gaëlle and Laurent’s house” (p. 45).</p>
<p>When Bernard is tortured in jail, “With the smoke and the vomit and the cold water, he felt as though he were drowning” (p. 75). And Claire decides, “She had to go back and see her father and Madame Gaëlle, whose own sorrows could have drowned them” (p. 238).</p>
<p>Claire Narcis takes special care tending to the bodies of the drowned:</p>
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<p>It’s a morbid scene, but touching, too. I liked Claire Narcis – she seemed to be an exceptionally kind and sensitive woman. </p>
<p>No the sea doesn’t want him. I hope he finds some happiness in his life. I liked Claire too.</p>
<p>I thought it was interesting that Caleb, the drowned man, is the one who pens the letter for Nozias that he gives to Gaelle for Claire the daughter. So many interconnections!</p>
<p>I like Nozias. I had tears in my eyes when I read his letter to Claire … when he digs his thumb into his palm, trying his best not to break down when making arrangements for Claire with Gaelle … when he dresses in his best to go to the meeting at Claire’s school. I could go on …</p>
<p>I also like Yves Moulin. He seems to be a good man who follows Louise’s advice: “There are things we should never forget.” His part in Rose’s death haunts him and he seems to have no intention of not remembering the little girl who died. </p>
<p>I know some of you do not like Gaelle. I guess I am more ambivalent. However, I don’t like Louise. I can’t quite figure out if her radio show is a good thing - bad behavior gets outed - or a bad thing. She certainly uses her show to hurt Max Senior - hurt the father by shining the spotlight of exposure on his son (another example of the bonds between parent-child). Flore is just the blunt instrument Louise uses to attack, which belittles Flore’s painful experience in its own way. (Of course, Flore doesn’t know.) It just seems to me that the potential harm caused by Louise’s program may outweigh any good it does.</p>
<p>Ignatius, so it appears Jessamine betrays Max. I’m rethinking this character. And, I just reread Max’s walk into th ocean, and his last thoughts were not of Bernard, but of being the parent who abandoned his child, and the is the love Jessamine claims to be the most painful.</p>
<p>^ I’m with NJTheatreMOM. There are other ways to out bad behavior that aren’t so crass and so harmful to so many others. (For example, Pamaxime heard everything–“glued to every word”–despite the headphones.) </p>
<p>I don’t think Jessamine betrayed Max Junior. I don’t fault her a bit. They had debated having her masquerade as his girlfriend, but had not agreed to it. She didn’t broadcast the story on Di Mwen. She told the truth to the one person who needed to hear it, and who knew it anyway deep down.</p>
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<p>I felt the same way, especially when I read the line: “Claire Limyè Lanmè Faustin’s hair was always braided in what seemed to be a hundred yarnlike plaits, each individually fastened with a different colored bow-shaped plastic barrette” (p. 126). It must have been Nozias taking the time to do that. </p>
<p>Re Louise’s program: I think that the segment we “hear” (Louise/Flore) hurts but perhaps others are of value. The show gives a voice to people who don’t have one. A defining moment does not have to be one like Flore’s … though maybe Louise’s program only showcases those. </p>
<p>Louise seeks vengeance; Flore seeks vengeance; Gaelle exacts vengeance against those who killed her husband; the street gangs seek street vengeance. It seems the ways to out bad behavior in Ville Rose are limited and, in general, not good ones.</p>
<p>I did note that Gaelle never seeks to avenge her daughter’s death. She evidently views it as the tragic accident it is. </p>