45 pages • 1 hour read
Edwidge DanticatKrik? Krak!
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1996A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Story Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
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BetaSymbols & Motifs
Flight
Across the collection, flight appears as a powerful motif demonstrating the resilience of the Haitian people. In “Nineteen Thirty-Seven,” the narrator’s mother is imprisoned for “having wings of flame” (35); the narrative suggests that this is a spurious charge designed to suppress dissent. However, the narrator insists that that her mother does have the power of flight, and that it saved their lives during the 1937 massacre: “weighted down by my body inside hers, she leaped from the Dominican soil into the water, and out again on the Haitian side of the river” (49). The motif of flight here is used to demonstrate the narrator’s mother’s resilience in the face of extreme violence. In “A Wall of Fire Rising,” the possibility of flight represents an opportunity for a new beginning for Guy. He tells his wife that “I’d like to sail off somewhere and keep floating until I got to a really nice place with a nice plot of land where I could be something now” (73). For Guy, the hot air balloon represents a chance to escape the poverty and struggle that define his life. Although his determination to pursue that escape ultimately leads to his death, the recurring motif of flight is strongly associated with the more hopeful theme of resilience. For Guy (if not for his family), the hot air balloon flight represents an act of hope and desperation—a step taken to escape his life rather than staying stuck. In both “Nineteen Thirty-Seven” and “A Wall of Fire Rising,” the recurring motif of flight is closely connected to the theme of the resilience of the Haitian people.
Motherhood
The recurring motif of motherhood in Krik? Krak! is closely related to the theme of resilience. Edwidge Danticat’s depiction of the difficult decisions made by Haitian mothers is indicative of the unique struggles faced by Haitian women across the diaspora. The paired stories “Night Women” and “New York Day Women” demonstrate the impossible demands of motherhood for Haitian women living in poverty. In the first story, an anonymous young woman turns to sex work in order to survive and provide for her child. The story details her desperation to hide her work from her young son in an attempt to protect his innocence. In “New York Day Women,” the narrator’s mother also makes sacrifices that she believes will protect her daughter. The narrator regrets that, when she was a girl, her mother never attended Parent-Teacher Association meetings. Her mother explains that she stayed away from the schools because “I don’t want to make you ashamed of this day woman” (154). It is implied that she keeps her job as a nanny a secret from her adult daughter for similar reasons. In “Night Women” and “New York Day Women”, Danticat’s depiction of motherhood demonstrates The Resilience of Women Across the Haitian Diaspora.
Haitian Vodou
Haitian Vodou is an important influence on the stories in Krik? Krak!, and elements of Haitian Vodou appear throughout the collection as symbols of the legacy of violence in Haitian culture. In some stories, Vodou magic is explicitly linked to violence, as when the narrator of “Children of the Sea,” claims that “if I knew some good wanga magic, I would wipe [the Tonton Macoute] off the face of the earth” (7). The narrator’s only response to state-sponsored violence is to turn to Haitian Vodou traditions in order to enact more violence in self-defense. The narrator of “Between the Pool and the Gardenias” also fears the dangerous elements of Haitian Vodou, worrying that the dead baby she finds “might have been some kind of wanga, a charm sent to trap me” (92). Here again, the narrator’s trauma leads her to focus on the violent elements of Haitian Vodou, whereas elsewhere, the protective elements of Haitian Vodou are highlighted. In “Nineteen Thirty-Seven,” the narrator Josephine takes strength in her mother’s collective of Vodou practitioners. In this story too, however, the practices of Haitian Vodou have ties to a legacy of violence, as these women are survivors of a deadly state-sponsored massacre.
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By Edwidge Danticat
