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Grace, “Caroline’s Wedding”

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Characters Grace, “Caroline’s Wedding”

Grace is the backbone of her family. Both her mother and her sister, Caroline, depend on and confide in her, and she negotiates between the traditional Haitian values of her mother and Caroline’s American independence. Grace wants to take care of her family and make them proud. She sees the best in people and trusts them to make their own decisions, so she’s supportive of both Caroline’s engagement and her mother’s inability to break her ties to Haiti. Yet Grace’s competent negotiations reveal her own personal difficulty: she feels neither completely Haitian nor completely American. She still feels a strong connection to Haiti, but she feels guilty for being the reason her parents had to leave. She feels oppressed by the culture she has inherited, which makes her rebel against her mother’s superstition. Grace is still searching for her place in the world. Although she doesn’t realize it, she’s jealous of Caroline for making a new place for herself in her own family. Grace feels betrayed when Caroline leaves home for good. She is terrified of change and loss and doesn’t want to forget her past. Eventually, her new passport gives her a sense of belonging. As a true American, she feels secure enough to embrace the Haitian traditions she once resisted by helping her mother make bone soup.

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