"Today she was going to make her husband very happy, break that thin shell of mourning that still insulated him from her" (Hopkinson 259). Here Beatrice learns she is pregnant with her husband's, Samuel, baby and hopes that telling him will shake his pained and lethargic feelings. Unknown to Beatrice under such a spell, magical realism dictates, "disruption of the ordinary logic of cause and effect," (Fairs 168) that news of a baby that traditionally causes joy and happiness will cause them both quite the opposite. She does not make the connection between her husband's hatred and disgust for his own skin color and race and the mysterious deaths of his two former wives. With an analytically trained eye, a reader can tell something nefarious happened with the ex wives and a hidden side of Samuel begins to peak through as we learn he has a bit of a temper.
Although Beatrice wants to believe the news of their child will bring him happiness she is still fearful knowing in her heart this probably will not be the case. The baby will not be enough to break his veil of hurt. Beatrice in this quote is referring to the death of his wives, but she is assuming he is still more in love with them causing him to not be entirely in love with her. Another point of magical realism not connecting the correct cause and effect. There could be truth to the logic of Beatrice but the reader knows beyond Beatrice can recognize for herself until she enters the locked room. When she unlocks the door she is disturbed to find the dead bodies she can figure to be Samuel's ex wives, with their abdomen's torn open and fetuses laid beside them. Then in turn the thin shell of Beatrice's understanding of Samuel is then broken, "still insult[ing] him from her".
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