Historical Analysis

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In 1969, an author by the name of Edwidge Danticat was born in Haiti and raised by her grandparents beginning at the age of four in Port au Prince. During Danticats time in Port au Prince, she learned the Haitian call and response of storytelling where she got the title “Krik? Krak!” Krik meaning the request of telling a story and Krak meaning the listener would agree. Danticat experienced a lot of pain, including the beating of her people due to the turmoil caused by invaders in her county of Haiti. Danticat was forced to move to the United States where she learned English and began writing. Throughout the course of Danticat’s life, she had many accomplishments including the Pushcart Short Story Prize, American Book Award, and the National Book Award (for “Krik? Krak!”) just to name a few. In “A Wall of Fire Rising”, “Nineteen Thirty-Seven”, and “Children of the Sea,” Danticat empowers the survival, freedom, discrimination, and strong historical events of Haiti and portrays the struggles women faced on a daily basis such as violence and torture.
The physical torture Danticat describes in her stories is rape, constant beating, malnutrition, and even death. Through these images and the stories of these women, light is shed upon Haiti’s history. Suffering seems to be a common component inherent of all Haitian women. This can be seen when Manman states “We were saved from the tomb of this river when she was still in my womb. You spared us both, her and me, from this river where I lost my mother” (Danticat, 40). On the day of the massacre in which a lot of Haitians died, Josephine was born representing that she is birthed from pain. Manman’s mother died during the massacre and to try and replace that pain, Manman takes Josephine as ...

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...uld even be known to “throw tin cups of cold water at one another so they would be unable to muster enough heat to grow those wings made of flames” (Danticat). Showing you a simple accusation to even something so impractical as a witch and flying could leave a daughter without a mother because they would throw the mother into exile and locked away from everyone.
Danticats journey is expressed in depth throughout her stories and allows the reader to participate and understand the issues people of Haiti faced through her characters. The reader is witness to the elements of historical and cultural reverence and because the stories are told through powerful characters, the reader experiences the hope for a better future. Along the way, the audience has an opportunity to witness the truths about not only the characters of her stories, but the history of Haiti’s people.

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