Analyzing Danticat's 'Night Breakers'
Sofija Kulikauskas November 18, 2010
HACU 140 The Dew Breaker First Draft
Danticat's The Dew Breaker employs an interior analysis of emotions to depict a shared history under different circumstances. In “Night Talkers” for example, Dany returns home to Haiti from America to see his blind aunt, Estina Estème. Dany's reason of coming back to Haiti is to inform his aunt that he found the man who killed his parents as a young boy and caused his aunts blindness. He does not get a chance to explain to her what he does until later on in the chapter. While he is settling in, Estina informs him about some boys who were deported back to Haiti and have lost the native language, Creole. She introduces him to an American-Haitian boy named Claude …show more content…
His only connection to his native land and to his family was gone. When the people in the village came by to see the body and Dany, they were all speaking to one another in Creole. When a well known neighbor Old Zo spoke about Dany and his family, Dany does not respond but understands. “They were speaking about him as though he couldn't understand, as if he were solely an English speaker, like Claude.” (112) They assumed as though he were like the rest of the people who were sent back from America and have forgotten the language. Even though Dany had a connection to his native land and remember all of the traditions he has not witnessed or experienced most of them like the natives of the country. “He'd heard his aunt talk about this ritual, this branding of he final clothes, but had never seen it done before.” (113) Claude and Dany are both first hand experiencing a tradition done by their family for many years. Dany has the upper hand compared to Claude by remembering the language and most of culture but has not experienced it for himself. There is an absence of being able to see the rituals being performed. Dany re-creates memories for himself of his parents and how he thought they might be. “He had so little information and so few memories to draw on that every once in a while he would substitute moments from his own life in trying to re-create theirs.”
HACU 140 The Dew Breaker First Draft
Danticat's The Dew Breaker employs an interior analysis of emotions to depict a shared history under different circumstances. In “Night Talkers” for example, Dany returns home to Haiti from America to see his blind aunt, Estina Estème. Dany's reason of coming back to Haiti is to inform his aunt that he found the man who killed his parents as a young boy and caused his aunts blindness. He does not get a chance to explain to her what he does until later on in the chapter. While he is settling in, Estina informs him about some boys who were deported back to Haiti and have lost the native language, Creole. She introduces him to an American-Haitian boy named Claude …show more content…
His only connection to his native land and to his family was gone. When the people in the village came by to see the body and Dany, they were all speaking to one another in Creole. When a well known neighbor Old Zo spoke about Dany and his family, Dany does not respond but understands. “They were speaking about him as though he couldn't understand, as if he were solely an English speaker, like Claude.” (112) They assumed as though he were like the rest of the people who were sent back from America and have forgotten the language. Even though Dany had a connection to his native land and remember all of the traditions he has not witnessed or experienced most of them like the natives of the country. “He'd heard his aunt talk about this ritual, this branding of he final clothes, but had never seen it done before.” (113) Claude and Dany are both first hand experiencing a tradition done by their family for many years. Dany has the upper hand compared to Claude by remembering the language and most of culture but has not experienced it for himself. There is an absence of being able to see the rituals being performed. Dany re-creates memories for himself of his parents and how he thought they might be. “He had so little information and so few memories to draw on that every once in a while he would substitute moments from his own life in trying to re-create theirs.”