Brifice In Edwidge Danticat's Nineteen Thirty-Seven

According to the Webster Dictionary, the definition of sacrifice is something given up or lost. What would the world be like without great sacrifices? In the Christian world, Christ sacrifices his life for his people to live. Edwidge Danticat’s novel, Krik? Krak! shares through various short stories, the powerful sacrifices made in the twentieth century by the Haitian people. Even through severe brutality, poverty, and oppression, people make sacrifices in order to persevere with hope for the younger generations.

Brutality through poverty and an oppressive government causing acts of tremendous sacrifices for the youth is expressed in the story Nineteen Thirty-Seven. Josephine, a young Haitian adult realizes her mother’s previous brutal
One of the stories that exploits the sacrifices made is New York Day Women. In this short story, a Haitian daughter follows her mother around New York inspecting her every move. Both Suzette, the narrator of the story, and her mother escape the barbaric Haitian shores and arrive in America. Suzette worries for her mother not being able to adapt to the American life after being so use to the Haitian life. The Haitian life is different from the American life in ways that the mother explains, “‘In Haiti, when you get hit by a car, the owner of the car gets out and kicks you for getting blood on his bumper.’” (144). The mother has experiences of the brutal Haitian life that she shares with her daughter. Her daughter has escaped from the life her mother grew up with and now has hope to stride with greatness for her future. The mother makes great sacrifices to get her daughter to America in order to give her a better life. Although the mother wants Suzette to exceed in school, she never attends any Parent-Teacher Associations. She says the reason she does not attend the meetings, “You’re so good anyway. What are they going to tell me? I don’t want to make you ashamed of this day women. Shame is heavier than a hundred bags of salt” (135). The mother wants the daughter to realize that she holds onto great shame being in America. The sacrifice she makes of leaving Haiti behind as well as her family is for the future of her daughter. Although, it causes great shame and regret for the mother, she believes the teachers will not make her think any less or more of intelligent daughter. She holds onto the shame of living in America but, with the satisfaction that her daughter lives in a successful