Analysis of Kumau Brathwaite's "Dream Haiti"

The short story is a literary genre of fictional, prose narrative that tends to be more concise than longer works of fiction such as novellas and novels. Short stories have their origins in oral story-telling traditions and the prose anecdote that comes rapidly to its point. Within Caribbean literature, contemporary writers are attracted to this form. According to Jeremy Poynting this is perhaps due to “an urge to tell stories that remain closer to an oral tradition of storytelling than is the case in Western cultures,” (2) since the writer is more capable to bring out his voice “in the short story than in more extended works of fiction” (2) One such author is Barbados born, L. Edward Kamau Brathwaite. Throughout his adult life he has distinguished himself as a Caribbean poet and cultural historian. His compilation Dreamstories embodies the “symbolic dramatizations of the phobias, desires and areas of trauma of Brathwaite as a straitened subject.” (Rohlehr, VII) In his collection, he explores the plunge into personal and socio-cultural history. This is particularly seen in the story “Dream Haiti” which more echoes the likes of a free verse poem than an actual short narrative. “Dream Haiti” takes the reader on a disoriented dream-voyage where the narrator, a Haitian refugee, discovers himself imprisoned by his own circumstances with no clear sight of emancipating himself. Through the voices of the narrator, the author and a distant subconscious voice, the personal history of Brathwaite and the social history of the Caribbean and its people are explored in the writer’s craft.
Reference to Haitian socio-cultural history is prevalent in “Dream Haiti.” The narrator has left Haiti in the “petit martin” in order to escape from dictatorship of Duvalier as is proven by the reference to “macoute.” After surviving an attempted coup in 1958, Duvalier established the the Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale (MVSN) more commonly known as the Tonton Macoute (or fabled

Bibliography: Brathwaite, Kamau, “Dream Haiti”, Dreamstories, Longman Publishing Group: UK, 1994. Paul, Annie, Caribbean Culture: Soundings on Kamau Brathwaite, University of the West Indies Press: St. Augustine, 2006. Rohlehr, Gordon, Transgression, Transition, Transformation: Essays in Caribbean Culture, Lexicon Trinidad Limited: Trinidad, 2007. The Peepal Tree. 21 March, 2003. The Caribbean Short Story. 24 April 2008 <http://www.peepaltreepress.com/feature_display.asp?id=1>