Claudia Yan
People of NYC Journal
First half of The Dew Breaker
In The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat, Danticat starts each new chapter with a new story from a different point of view. Even though all these stories are about different situations the characters are still tied together by their connection to the Dew Breaker, Ka’s father. In each of these chapters, the characters are all suffering from some sort of pain with the first chapter where Ka and her father are both in pain. Ka’s father does not want to be portrayed as the victim as he is was the one who inflicted pain as well as he is scared that people will recognize him for the terrible things that he did in the past. In trying to avoid his being recognized Ka is hurt greatly by the revelation of the reality of her father’s past and as well as the loss of her piece.
Ka’s father throws out the wood carving of the victim version of him in the water. In Caribbean culture, the soul is thought to go into the sea first to return to the homeland and then after a year go to heaven. Even though Ka’s father told Ka that he did not deserve to have his own statue and to be portrayed in such a way, by throwing the statue into the water, the ritual implies his hopes that perhaps he will deserve enough to go to heaven.
All of the characters in The Dew Breaker have difficulty communicating. Ka’s father speaks very cryptically to her, Ka’s mother refrains from socializing with people out of fear that her husband will be discovered. Nadine had an abortion and due to the social stigma behind such procedure, rarely speaks to the people at work as well as her parents. Claude, who got deported back to Haiti has trouble understanding Creole, however even though he is having trouble communicating in Haiti, he had the same problem in America. Claude killed his father because he was under the influence of drugs as well as heavily under the influence by the gangs that he hung out him, these factors caused him to lose connection with his home country and communication with his father.
Religion is a theme prevalent in all of the chapters. Each character has a different religious preference and in some cases, practices from different cultures can be seen getting mixed together with others like the chapter Water Baby, Nadine takes her interpretation of the Japanese tradition of pouring water stones to honor unborn children, by putting a pebble in her favorite glass with water. By taking a practice from another culture and using her favorite glass, religion serves as a coping mechanism for Nadine. Also the use of her favorite glass and her giving half of her salary to her parents feels like Nadine punishing herself for her decision to abort the baby. Water baby was one of the most emotional chapters for me because Nadine is alone with nobody to turn to. Even though her parents send her frequent messages to call, the social stigma behind abortions as well as the switched roles of the parent and child raise the question as to whether her parents would treat her the same way as before, hence her silence. Also, the complete absence of her ex, Eric, is infuriating. Even though he called her and left messages, he left her all alone while he continued on with his life with his wife.
During this semester we have frequently talked about how significant networks and community are to the immigrant community in adapting. Even though each of these characters is an immigrant, their participation in the community for support is almost nonexistent. Each character is suffering from a kind of pain that would be very difficult to talk about to another person. There are some pains that cannot be so easily shared with others and as a result, there is a lot of quiet suffering. Danticat brings to the audience’s attention the personal struggles that immigrants have to deal with in addition to trying to make it NYC.
