Is The Theme Of Between The Pool And The Gardenias By Edwidge Danticat

In 2020, I was in the hospital after I was diagnosed with high-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which even for leukemia patients is scary because I had one of the hardest chances to be cured. I had to deal with the stress of death which most kids at 13 shouldn’t ever have to worry about. I felt hopeless after my diagnosis and thought to myself, why me? How is that fair? I also had to deal with the constant reminder that I was different from everyone else, they had never been through the struggles I have, and they didn’t have to restrengthen themselves and work even harder just to come back. After everything I went through I changed, I became more mature than most kids my age, and I gained a new perspective on life, death can occur to anyone

They too had to deal with the stress of false hope, change, and death. There are many symbols and themes that aren’t just represented in one story, they are all throughout the book. A motif that Danticat symbolizes a lot in her novel is butterflies to reveal false hope, change, and death.
In chapter 5 titled “Between the Pool and the Gardenias” we hear about the delusional story of a woman who is so desperate for a daughter that she takes custody of a baby that had been abandoned on the street. She wore a collar with the name Rose and it was in the shape of a butterfly. There are hints all throughout the story that the baby might be dead, but it becomes very clear that Rose is dead when Marie talks about how Rose looks the same as the day she first found her and that her smell was terrible. On page 85, the text states “She looked the same as she did when I found her. She continued to look like that for three days. After that, I had to bathe her constantly to keep down the smell.” The theme in this chapter is false hope. It is hinted throughout the story that Rose is dead all along. But at the end of the chapter, we