Summary Of Edwidge Danticat's Krik? Krak !

On November twenty second, 1991, it was reported that twenty-three Haitians were killed when their boat capsized, and one-hundred nineteen people mysteriously disappeared from the boating accident. The boat went down right off the Cuban shore. These poor people were refugees from Haiti who risked their lives in a desperate journey to find freedom and solace and escape the death and destruction that was going on in their own country. The novel Krik? Krak!, written by Edwidge Danticat, a Haitian herself, depicts the struggles in Haiti. The book looks at many Haitians who braved the dangerous waters to seek life in America similar to the one-hundred and forty-two Haitians from the capsized boat. Through her short stories in her novel, Danticat
However, sometimes the sea can become black as death, swallowing souls who dare cross her treacherous waters. For the people of Haiti, some managed to escape the prison Haiti was becoming. In the story, “Children of The Sea”, they fled to boats and began a dangerous journey across the sea to seek refuge in America, the land of promises and freedom. One such person writes to his girlfriend, “She threw it overboard. I watched her face knot up like a thread, and then she let go. It fell in a splash, floated for a while, and then sank. And quickly after that she jumped in too. And just as the baby's head sank, so did hers.” (23). The girl described by the boyfriend is known as Celianne. She gave birth to a baby while on the boat, but as the boat began to sink, she was forced to end her life and her baby’s life. Then, as the boat continued to be dragged down to the deep dark depths, the boyfriend wrote one last letter to his girlfriend. It says, “I go to them now as though it was always meant to be, as though the very day that my mother birthed me, 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.” (24). The boyfriend wrote that he was aware of his ever close death. He knew he would join the
In “Women Like Us” from the novel Krik? Krak!, the narrator aspires to be a writer. She dreams of telling the world's stories to all who will listen, but her mother is fearful. She says, ‘“Writers don’t leave any mark in the world. Not the world where we are from. In our world, writers are tortured and killed if they are men. Called lying whores, then raped and killed, if they are women. In our world, if you write, you are a politician, and we know what happens to politicians. They end up in a prison dungeon where their bodies are covered in scalding tar before they’re forced to eat their own waste.’” (193). The mother doesn’t want to see her daughter’s young life cut short by following her passion. She says that there are other career options by stating, “‘And writing? Writing was as forbidden as dark rouge on the cheeks or a first date before eighteen. It was an act of indolence, something to be done in a corner when you could have been learning to cook.’” (191). Writers are known for getting killed for spreading news, and the mother of this story doesn’t want her daughter to be another soul claimed by this dangerous passion, even if it means ending the girl’s hopes of fulfilling her life's