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Literary Analysis : The Dew Breaker By Edwidge Danticat

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Jack Finn October 17, 2017 Dr. Hakim M.A. Williams Literature Analysis The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat is a collection of nine different stories that tell about the enduring suffering of a select few that suffered under the Dictatorships of François Duvalier (Papa Doc: 1957-1971) and Jean-Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc: 1971-1986) (___) The nine chapters of the book bounce back and forth between the past and the present to show the impact that the dictatorships had on these people and how it is still affecting them today as immigrants. The novel mainly focuses on a former dew breaker that resides in a Haitian area of Brooklyn, New York. A dewbreaker was someone that was a torturer during the Duvalier dictatorships, who participated in the …show more content…

He later tells them both that they served as “masks to his face” (___). While his daughter Ka does not fully understand his difficult past life like the mother mentions, she is further disheartened when her father throws the sculpture of himself into a lake (___). He feels dishonored and undeserving of praise; he does not want to be remembered and the scar that the priest left him in fighting back is a daily reminder. He wants for the acceptance of his past by his wife Anne. Other sins of his include the killing of Dany’s parents in Haiti by the dewbreaker (___) and Mariselle’s family. Michel, another man paying rent to the dewbreaker, looks back on how the violence of the Duvaliers’ impacted the disappearance of his best friend when he was a youth after Baby Doc was overthrown (___). Duvalierism lasted after the Docs lost power and a violent age of government followed. Another character that was affected includes the dressmaker Beatrice Saint Fort who was tortured by militants in Haiti for denying the advances of one of an officer (___). Danticat focuses on several themes throughout the novel. The main focuses written about include ideas like past identities and running from one’s past, family redemption, the impacts of dictatorships and ruling through fear, and the effect it has on the public. The themes in The Dew Breaker

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