Essay Study Questions

1. The setup of “The Dew Breaker” is very unique. Unlike in most authors, Danticat uses a number of different narrators to tell the story in pieces. Each section has its’ own voice. Each section has its own set of characters and its own significance to the novel as a whole. The separate stories aren’t in any sort of chronological order. They each abruptly begin one after the other. Her way of writing engages the reader into the story on a different level. The reader can see the different stories through the eyes of the different characters. To read something like this was is more affective in relating to the characters. It’s kind of like trying to take a walk in their shoes. Instead of getting an outside view of what happed you get a personal account, even if it is fiction. This book makes you think. It is like a puzzle, you have to put it together as you read it. I think that this style of writing definitely has a deeper impact on the reader.
2. The order of events in “The Dew Breaker” is set up in a unique way. What comes at the end of the story chronologically appears at the beginning of the book in the very first chapter. In the first section, “The Book of The Dead”, Ka’s father confesses his past to his daughter. Then the different chapters have their own stories of the victims of the Dew Breaker and how they were affected or just stories that relate to the story as a whole. The book slowly reveals how it all comes together. The book ends with the last of the horrible crimes that the dew breaker committed. I found the structure of the book to be very powerful. It really makes you think which keeps you engaged in the reading. Seeing this story in this different way makes you absorb its significance. If “The Dew Breaker” was written in chronological order it wouldn’t be very good and it wouldn’t really make a lot of sense.
3. Each of these characters have their own significance. Eric appears in a couple of the sections. In “Seven” he is the Husband who is being reunited with his wife. He is a janitor and his roommates are Dany and Michael. In water child he is the ex lover of Nadine and the father of her unborn baby. Nadine is a Haitian RN who is far from her parents in Port au Prince and morns the loss of her aborted baby. Nadine was one of Eric’s side women while his wife was gone who didn’t mean anything. Michael, the roommate is also mentioned in “Monkey tails.” Dany, the other roommate, is the main character on “ Night Talkers.” He goes to visit his Aunt back in Haiti to tell her that he thinks he found the dew breaker in Brooklyn. He lost his parents at a young age in a fire. His Aunt dies while he visits. Beatrice is the bridal seamstress. She lives her life in fear and is obviously damaged from her past. She also says that she has seen the Dew breaker in Brooklyn and that he is following her. Freda is the narrator of “Funeral Singers.” She is trying to get her high school diploma while she is twenty two years old. The Dew Breaker has affected all of them in some way (Freda, I’m not certain about) Their lives are all affected my their past and the different characters are connected through the stories. Ka’s father is the dew breaker. He was one of the torturers and even if he did not directly affect each of these characters he is connected to them all in some way.
4. The dew breaker tells Anne that he is one of those who escaped. In the book it says that , : One day he would try to make her understand why he’d put it like that. In many ways it was true. He has escaped from his life. He could no longer return to it, no longer wanted to.” The dew breaker did some horrific things that is certain. Maybe Anne wanted to save him or fix him. He helped her get to New York, they became friends and then it turned into love. Ka was their angel. We don’t know if she has made the connection that the dew breaker was the one who killed her brother. That was in the past. And it haunts their lives but this is also a story of forgiveness. She loves the man that did these things, but he is changed now. Time may not be able to heal all things but it can definitely make it better. His actions still affect the lives of many and there are so many people in real life that were and are affected by what really happened in Haiti. The last section brings us back to the very beginning of the story when Ka was on the phone with her mother.