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The Importance Of The Past In The Dew Breaker

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The past is so vital to the characters of Danticat’s novel The Dew Breaker because despite most of the trauma the characters have undergone in the past, they must keep living with it and tell their story. One piece of symbolism that is persistent between every chapter are the scars that every character has. Scars have been a central image of this novel both literally and metaphorically. Each character has their unique scars that they must carry with them. The story, in the end, talks about how the scars of the past are the scars of the future. Every scar is a symbol of the characters’ painful history that they had to overcome, and now they must carry their past with themselves forever. The scars of the past define precisely the importance of the past for every individual character. The past is a part of all people at all moment. Past scars lie over all of the characters in this novel. A character like Ka’s father is once corrupted by partaking in a violent, dictatorial regime. A character like Beatrice is haunted by the horrors that impose on her in the past. The past is inescapable because it is a core part of a person that it largely dictates the reasoning behind their actions in present situations. The past is something which haunts each of the characters in the novel for different reasons. It left a scar on them that they must forever live with. The past haunts ka's father as a dew breaker under the authority of a Haitian Dictator. “My father never liked

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