Author~Edwidge
Danticat
Birth-Port-au-Prince,
Haiti January 19,
1969
Emigration-Brooklyn,
New York 1981
Study-Barnard
College for French
Literature 1990,
Brown College for
Fine Art 1993
Writing of the Author
Beginning, 1978
Breath, Eyes,
Memory, 1994
Kric? Krac! 1995
Farming of the
Bones, 1998
Kric? Krac!
“Kric” and “Krac”
A weaver of tales
“I wanted to raise the
voice of a lot of the
people that I knew
growing up, and this
was, for the most
part, . . . poor people
who had extraordinary
dreams but also very
amazing obstacles."
CRITICAL EXTRACTS
CARRIBBEAN
WOMEN
WRITERS
(1) Ingrid Sturgis
(2) Ellen Kanner
(3) Jordana Hart
(4) Erika J. Waters
INGRID STURGIS (I)
“<…>Krik? Krak!, chronicles the ups and
downs of Haitian life. A complication of
masterful storytelling, it reveals the harsh life
under dictatorship, the reign of terror by the
strong-arm forces, the Tonton Macoutes. The
sometimes metaphorical stories are filled with
tales of Haitian rituals and legends that
resonate with truth and poetry.
INGRID STURGIS (II)
Make no mistake, these lyrical stories are
powerful and political works of art. Unlike
Breath, Eyes, Memory, Danticat says ‘The
stories are more of a collective biography. I
know someone it happened to or might have
happened to. It’s a lot of people’s stories.’”
ELLEN KANNER
“In many ways, each of these 10 stories (in
Krik? Krak!) is part of the same tale. Women
lose who and what they love to poverty, to
violence, to politics, to ideals. The author’s
deceptively artless stories are not of heroes
but of survivors, of the impulse toward life and
death and the urge to write and to tell in order
not to forgot.”
JORDANA HART
“More than anything else, the storytelling of
the young Haitian-American writer Edwidge
Danticat has given the world honest and
loving portraits of Haitian people, both on the
island and in the United States. She has
smashed the numbing stereotype created by
a barrage of media accounts of Haitian
poverty, misery, and death. <…>”
ERIKA J. WATERS(I)
“One of Danticat’s strengths is her irony,
subtle and penetrating.” <…> “While
watching the young woman clutch her dead
baby in the “Children of the Sea,” the narrator
takes the time to record that her friend has
passed university. Danticat shows here how
desperately humankind clings to the myths
and belief of civilized society.
ERIKA J. WATERS(II)
Irony is further enhanced by the use of “krik
krak” as the title. While that is the standard
ending (sometimes opening) for a Caribbean
story, the stories are usually anancy stories
and folktales with moral lessons. Danticat’s
nightmarish tales are a far cry from those, but
he tales do carry a moral lesson – about the
powerful and the powerless, about the failure
of food to triumph over evil.”
Haitian History
The name of Haiti
means
mountainous
country which
was given by the
former TainoArawak people.
Chronology 1
1492
~1600
Columbus discovered Haiti.
Spanish conquered
Hispaniola.
1697
Spanish ceded the
domination of Haiti to
French.
1697~1791 The richest colony in the
world
Chronology 2
1791 the first major black rebellion
took place.
1796 the former slaves prevailed
under the leadership of
Toussaint L’Ouverture
1804 the Republic of Haiti
Chronology 3
~1820
The failed dictatorship
1915~1934 The US invaded Haiti
for 19 years
1957
Francois Duvalier
“Papa Doc” became
the president.
Chronology 4
1971 Duvalier died and his son
Jean- Claud “Baby Doc”
succeed.
1972 Arrival of
“boat people”
in Florida.
Haitian Culture
‧People
-Divisions of race and class between
blacks(about 95% of population) and
mulattos(about 5%)
‧Language
-Nearly all blacks speak Creole
-French is spoken mainly by the mulatto
elite, and is the official language.
Haitian culture(2)
‧Home of Voodoo
-An animistic African religion that has
been melded with Catholicism
-80% people believe in Catholicism and
5% people are Protestant;Voodoo is
popular among the farming society
Haitian Culture(3)
-Rituals involve dancing and
drumming,spirit possessions and
the occasional zombie.
-Iwa(the spirit worshipper is chosen
to be ‘mounted’ by a spirit)
The commercial heart of
Port-au-Prince
Couple fishing
Rice Farmer
Waiting for food
Voodoo Festival
Relationship of the characters
Parents
|
Kompe -(the radio six)
Parents
|
Madam
Roger
girl
(nameless)
boat people– Celianne, an old man
Q：Why is the female leading
character nameless? Is there
any special meaning?
A：We can have much more
space to exercise our
imagination.
Or her name only means to
Kompe.(p3)
About Kompe
※Self-pride：bathroom(p15),
crying(p9)
※Identification：
One may lose one’s identification
on the boundless sea (p9, 11)
Major themes
Hope (or hopelessness)
Love
Religion：Christian, Agwe
Tyranny
The topic：Children of the
Sea(p27)
Q：How do people react to
tragedy,calamity, brutality
in the story?
A： Father—powerless(p17);
Kompe—escape;
Madam Roger—resist(p16)
Q：What do you think about the
ending of the story?What are the
attitudes toward the future?Do
they have hope?
Q：Why did the baby of Celianne,
Swiss,not cry at all on the boat?
Technique
 Narrative form
 Objectification：fiery red ant (p3),
crushed snail(p3) ---- leading female
role; dog(p8)---- the macoutes；
vulture(p8 & p18)---- the macouts,
Kompe and other boat people
 Simile (p22, 25, 26, 27)
Kompe’s Dream(I)
i.
Do you remember our silly dreams?
Passing the university exams and then
studying hard to go until the end, the
farthest of all we can go in school. (p.21)
Kompe’s Dream(II)
ii.
I dream that we are caught in one hurricane
after another. I dream that winds come of
the sky and claim us for the sea. We go
under and no one hears from us again. (p.6)
iii. The other night I dream that I died and went
to heaven. This heaven was nothing like I
expected. It was at the bottom of the sea. (p.
11-12)
Repeat (I)
Her whole family did not want her to marry
papa because he was a gardener from Ville
rose and her family was from the city and
some of them had even gone to university (p.
22)
Papa worries a little about you. He doesn't
hate u as much as you think. The other day I
heard him asking manman, do u think the
boy is dead? Manman said she didn't’t know.
I think he regrets being so mean to you. (p. 5)
Repeat (II)
Papa rejects Kompe as
Manman’s family rejects papa.
Manman’s (family)
(from the city)
(high social status)
|
Papa
(a gardener form ville rose)
(lowe social status)
Papa
|
Kompe
Irony(I)
Whatever you do, please don’t marry a
soldier. (p. 4)
I will keep writing like we promise to do.
When we see each other again, it will seem
like we lost no time. (p. 8)
Irony(II)
I am getting used to ville rose, there are
butterflies here, tons of butterflies. So far
none has landed on my hand, which means
they have no news for me. (p. 25-26)
The black butterfly floating around us. (p. 28)
Irony(III)
She had chosen me to live life eternal, among
the children of the deep blue sea, those who
have escaped the chains of slavery to form a
world beneath the heavens and the blood
drenched earth where you live. (p. 27)
Identify symbols:
a.blood(p3)
b.black butterfly(p5,25,28-29)
c.sun(p5,6)
d.old button,tape
e.Ville Rose
f.Banyan tree
Identify symbols(1):
a.Blood(p3)
--the hint of sex & painful childhood
b.Black butterfly(p5,25,28-29)
Q:How do you feel about the
butterflies in “Liang Chu” and in
“Children of The Sea”?
Identify symbols(2):
c.Sun(p5,6)
Ex.I don’t even like seeing the
sun—hopeless(p5); Miami is
sunny—hopeful(p6)
d.Old button,tape
--previous government
Identify symbols(3)
e.Ville Rose
--a hopeful place
f.Banyan tree
--a spiritual support, most trusted
friend, holiness
“Gone with the Wind”
Reference
http://voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/Edwid
geDanticat.html
http://www.english.uwosh.edu/helmers/s
toryweaver.html
Caribbean Women Writers