The Search for Freedom in Haiti
There is no hope for true freedom for the Haitian people as their society exists today. Haiti came to national attention in the 1990s, primarily for the suffering of its people. However, news clips do not tell a complete story. As a result, an author by the name of Edwidge Danticat set out to document life in Haiti through a collection of short stories, capturing the breadth of experience of the Haitian people as they survive under an oppressive regime. Krik? Krak! was written in 1996 and it is still relevant today. In this novel, Danticat illustrates that freedom is not attainable due to the oppressive government and its effects on every aspect of Haitian life. There no means of attaining either freedom of
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The young man was part of the youth federation, a group running a radio show that was shut down by the regime to suppress negative speech against the government. “It was nice to have radio like that for a while, where we could talk about what we wanted from government, what we wanted for the future of our country.” P.6. To avoid being arrested or killed when the Duvalier regime suppressed the freedom of expression of the youth federation, the male narrator got on a boat headed to America. The girl wanted to go with him but her family refused to let her leave. Because of her association with the young man, the police were planning to arrest her, but her father sold all of his worldly possessions, including his house in the city land his father had given him, and gave the money to the police in exchange for his daughter’s freedom. After fleeing from the city to the country, the girl writes a letter to her lover relating that “you must love him for this, manman says, you must. it is something you can never forget, the sacrifice he has made.” P.22. Sadly, her lover dies in route to America and she remains in Haiti bound to the sacrifice her family made to save her life. There is no freedom from oppression and suffering for the young man, no freedom from suffering and guilt for the young woman, and presumably, no freedom from poverty for her family in the years to
The announcement seemed positive as long as there was a home to go back to, this was not the case for Jeanne, “In our family the response to this news was hardly joyful. For one thing, we had no home to return to.” (Manzanar 127). Jeanne was scared not knowing what home meant to her family, and also scared to face the world outside of Manzanar. She knew of the wartime propaganda, racist headlines, and hate slogans that were advertised.
The result is that Haitians are oppressed because they feel that they are hopeless and that they are trapped in the mold that the media has created. “You will hear these words until you are sick to your stomach, until you no longer recognize [their land], until you start to believe the news stories are true, that nothing else matters, that [translation to English: you cannot buy things you don’t need, you don’t exist, you don’t count, you do not deserve respect].” This quote perfectly articulates the effects the media has on the people of Haiti. Gay pinpoints the media for creating a self-fulfilling prophecy or mold for the Haitians. Because Haiti is represented as poor and stricken by misfortune, the citizens believe this and feel a sense of hopelessness. Overall, the symbol of the media results in Haitians not being able to live out their full potential because of this oppression from the foreign
Haiti began as the French colony of Saint-Domingue. The island was filled with plantations and slaves working on them. Almost a decade and a half after its settlement, this colony paved the way for many changes throughout the French empire and many other slave nations. Through its difficult struggle, we examine whether the slave revolt of Saint-Domingue that began in the late 16th century was justifiable and whether its result in creating the free nation of Haiti was a success. The slave insurrection began in August 1791 in Saint-Domingue.
Since the beginning of time, our ancestors have made sacrifices for the next generation that brought us to where we are today. This idea is woven throughout the book Krik? Krak! Where the author, Edwidge Danticat, portrays fictional short stories people that live in the impoverished nation of Haiti, and how hard it is for families to stay together, provide for each other, and reach their goals of freedom. Danticat uses the motif of generations to illustrate the ideas of hope and survival to develop the theme of sacrifice for a better future of the youth.
Danticat begins her essay with a tragic and bitter tone. She tells of the first people who were murdered when the Spaniards came to Haiti including Queen Anacaona, an Arawak Indian who ruled over the western part of the island. With bitterness she states, “Anacaona was one of their first victims. She was raped and killed and her village pillaged” (137).
Sarah and her mother are sought out by the French Police after an order goes out to arrest all French Jews. When Sarah’s little brother starts to feel the pressures of social injustice, he turns to his sister for guidance. Michel did not want to go with the French Police, so he asks Sarah to help him hide in their secret cupboard. Sarah does this because she loves Michel and does not want him to be discriminated against. Sarah, her mother, and her father get arrested for being Jewish and are taken to a concentration camp just outside their hometown. Sarah thinks Michel, her beloved brother, will be safe. She says, “Yes, he’d be safe there. She was sure of it. The girl murmured his name and laid her palm flat on the wooden panel. I’ll come back for you later. I promise” (Rosnay 9). During this time of inequality, where the French were removing Sarah and her mother just because they were Jewish, Sarah’s brother asked her for help. Sarah promised her brother she would be back for him and helped him escape his impending arrest. Sarah’s brother believed her because he looks up to her and loves her. As the story continues, when Sarah falls ill and is in pain, she also turns to her father for comfort, “at one point she had been sick, bringing up bile, moaning in pain. She had felt her father’s hand upon her, comforting her” (Rosnay 55).
Gisele Pineau’s novel Exile According to Julia is all about a sense of belonging, of home. As this novel demonstrates, home is not always a place: sometimes it is a person. For the young narrator of this story home is embodied in her grandmother Julia (affectionately called Man Ya). This is a story of immigration, exile, alienation, and of discovery of home and self. The novel details Man Ya’s ‘exile’ from her home in Guadalupe to Paris to live with the narrator and her family. Depressed and constantly longing for home, Man Ya eventually returns to Guadalupe leaving the narrator and family bereft. After her departure, the narrator continuously writes to Man Ya as years go by. She never responds. Eventually the family returns to Guadalupe to be with Man Ya. The novel ends with Julia sharing her Guadalupe with her grandchildren, climbing trees, gardening, and laughing. The time that the narrator spent with her grandmother had a profound impact on her life. Julia was her teacher, her connection to her Caribbean ancestry, and her home.
This particular revolution was meant to rid the country of its dependency upon slavery; however, it did very little to procure the exact solution that the natives of this country wanted. It’s stated more than once in this story that a true and honest living is not easily come by for any native of Haiti and they earn very little money when a job is available. People are paid an insubstantial wage, live in shantytowns, and often times go to bed with their stomachs distended from a voracious and unforgiving hunger. In The Norton Mix Introduction to Literature, Danticat shows these significant consequences of the Revolution by stating that when it got really bad for the family, they would boil ground sugar cane so that it would get rid of the hunger pangs that often tormented the children of the poor (p. 229).
In David Brooks’ op-ed “The Undying Tragedy,” he discusses four main hypotheses regarding poverty and aid in Haiti. His ideas about poverty, as viewed through the modernization, dependency/world-systems, and post-structural theoretical perspectives lead to three different conclusions. Specifically, as viewed through a modernization lens, the “truths” Brooks puts forth seem fairly in accordance with the perspective, with some minor addendums needed. The dependency and world systems theories again agree with some of Brook’s hypotheses, but would disagree with some of the assumptions he makes in regards to culture and paternalism. Finally, the post-structural theory would find the most problems with Brooks’ claims, likely disagreeing with his assumptions about the effects of culture on poverty and his view of the development process.
...ess her husband just so happens to die. Her husband has spent most of his nights with the couple’s personal servant, Sarah, who has conceived the children of this man. Ms. Gaudet also dislikes the children solely for the fact that they remind her much of her husband. Manon is soon granted her freedom when her husband is murdered by African- American rebels.
... B., & (2013, January 7). Hundreds of Thousands Homeless in Haiti Three Years after earthquake. Dissident Voice. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://dissidentvoice.org/
This article explores Haitian Independence in terms of a war for national liberation. The disassociation from white governance left a window of opportunity for long-term nat...
In the chapter One Island, Two Peoples, Two Histories: The Dominican Republic and Haiti the present day differences of Haiti and The Dominican Republic are explained through the political, social, and ecological history of both locations. The Dominican Republic, although it is still considered a developing country, is in a objectively worse state than Haiti. Haiti’s environmental policies failed so horrendously in the past that the area is in a visible state of disarray. With only 1% of the country still forested, not only is the visual draw of the country lessened, but the prospect of wood trading that the forests once offered is almost obsolete. This greatly effects the outside world’s image of Haiti which, given the financial gain tourism
Several of the problems that Haiti faces today have their genesis in the country’s colonial history. The country was like a toy being fought over by spoiled children. The first of these children arrived in the early sixteenth century in the form of Spanish settlers in search of gold. They enslaved the native Taino population and, poisoned by avarice, nearly eradicated the indigenous work force. Thousands of African slaves were brought in to take their place. Eventually, the Spanish left the island to grab their share of newly discovered treasure in other lands. Tiring of their toy, the Spanish
Krak! One effect that it had on the characters in Krik? Krak! were that it separated friends and families, like in “Children of the Sea.” Another effect was that the characters were forced to live in poverty, like in “A Wall of Fire Rising.” The last effect was that women endured inequality and suffered from the Haitian social system because they were restricted to only do certain things. Haiti’s political climate was and is extremely unstable and insecure, and I am grateful that I grew up and live in the United States. The United States is more civilized and orderly, and I have everything I need here for a decent