Analyzing Danticat's 'Night Breakers'

Sofija Kulikauskas November 18, 2010
HACU 140 The Dew Breaker First Draft

Danticat's The Dew Breaker employs an interior analysis of emotions to depict a shared history under different circumstances. In “Night Talkers” for example, Dany returns home to Haiti from America to see his blind aunt, Estina Estème. Dany's reason of coming back to Haiti is to inform his aunt that he found the man who killed his parents as a young boy and caused his aunts blindness. He does not get a chance to explain to her what he does until later on in the chapter. While he is settling in, Estina informs him about some boys who were deported back to Haiti and have lost the native language, Creole. She introduces him to an American-Haitian boy named Claude
who is a former prisoner and deported from America. Dany and Claude both bond on different levels of their experiences with Haiti, whereas Dany comes back to his home land and Claude is reintroduced to his home land. Despite their differences they are both gladly welcomed home and are treated without unfamiliarity. Before Estina brings Claude to meet Dany, she asks him if he was deported, because a lot of the people in the village are deported for multiple reasons. “We have a few boys here in the village who have been sent back. Many don't even speak Creole anymore. They come here because this is the only place they have any family. There's one boy not far from here. I'll take you to visit him. You can speak to him, one American to another.” (96) The people who are sent back do not have a place to go except to Haiti because it is a place they know they have some family. They have lost the language and most of the culture they were brought up by and now they are reliving what they have lost going to America. When Estina says “one American to another” I found it interesting she mentions that because they both have a culture similarity, and she assumes that since they are both have been in America they would have something in common to talk about. They do have a common ground but the difference between them is Claude was sent back and Dany returned. When they meet each other Claude comes off as a person who seems too young “to have been expatriated[1] twice, from both his native country and his adopted land.” (100) Dany and Claude exchange words expressing their reasons why they are back to Haiti. Claude has more trouble adjusting to the lifestyle compared to Dany because of his lack of experience and time in Haiti. Claude and Dany share a common understanding about the difference between Haitian and American culture, although, Dany feels more connected to the Haitian culture than the American culture. Dany kept in contact with his only family in Haiti while Claude did not, mainly because his family was also in America.

I wish I stayed in touch more with my people, you know; then it wouldn't be so weird showing up here like I did. These people don't even know me, man. They've never seen my face before, not even in pictures. They still took me in, after everything I did, because my moms told them I was their blood. I look at them and I see nothing of me, man, blank, nada, but they look at me and they say he has so-and-so's nose and his grandmother's forehead, or some shit like that. (102) (My open office wont let me indent)

As Claude expresses himself the reader could recognize the displacement Claude feels when he is back in his native land with people he has not met before in his life, that are “his blood”. Claude states “I'm the puzzle and these people are putting me back together, telling me things about myself and my family that I never knew or gave a fuck about. Man, if I'd run into these people back in Brooklyn, I'd have laughed my ass off at them. I would've called them backward-ass peasants.” (102) Family in other parts of the world have a stronger connection with each other than in America, having first hand experience to this, America has a more disconnection between family members. Dany has a different type of experience with his family, he keeps connected with his aunt regardless of him living in America. My interpretation of his close relationship with his aunt is due to the absence of his parents. I believe Dany does not want to feel like a foreigner in his own native land or compared to Claude because of his close relationship with his aunt and the country. When Claude asks him if he would like to show him around, Dany refuses replying, “I know where things are. (103) Where Dany has the higher advantage than Claude and might feel superior because he knows more than Claude does. As some people in New York City may make fun of tourists and look down on them for not knowing the birth place of some people. When Estina passed away, Dany was more in a shocked state.
His only connection to his native land and to his family was gone. When the people in the village came by to see the body and Dany, they were all speaking to one another in Creole. When a well known neighbor Old Zo spoke about Dany and his family, Dany does not respond but understands. “They were speaking about him as though he couldn't understand, as if he were solely an English speaker, like Claude.” (112) They assumed as though he were like the rest of the people who were sent back from America and have forgotten the language. Even though Dany had a connection to his native land and remember all of the traditions he has not witnessed or experienced most of them like the natives of the country. “He'd heard his aunt talk about this ritual, this branding of he final clothes, but had never seen it done before.” (113) Claude and Dany are both first hand experiencing a tradition done by their family for many years. Dany has the upper hand compared to Claude by remembering the language and most of culture but has not experienced it for himself. There is an absence of being able to see the rituals being performed. Dany re-creates memories for himself of his parents and how he thought they might be. “He had so little information and so few memories to draw on that every once in a while he would substitute moments from his own life in trying to re-create theirs.”
(99) As most people leave their country to go to America it is mainly for the purpose of the “American Dream” but in Dany's position, his aunt sent him away. “He would have told of how he hadn't wanted to leave her, to go to New York, but she insisted that he go so he would be as far away as possible from the people who'd murdered his parents.” ( 115) Dany did not leave for an American Dream; he left because he had no other choice and his aunt thought it would have been a better idea for Dany to leave then hold the burden of his parents death. The text did not explain why Claude lived in America but he picked up the drug dealing position at a young age to get some money and which caused him to murder his own father. Whether or not Dany and Claude bonded on their experience in Haiti they both have connected in different levels witnessing what they never have. They have different purposes in being in their native land but have related differently by experiencing some of the same rituals and sharing some of the same pain of loosing something. (Still working on a conclusion to close the paper)
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[1] Is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of person's upbringing or legal residence.