Scars, Erasure, Papa and Sgt. Barnes

“Besides, soon after her husband had opened his barbershop, he’d discovered that since he’d lost eighty pounds, changed his name, and given as his place of birth a village deep in the mountains of Leogane, no one asked about him anymore, thinking he was just a peasant who’d made good in New York. He hadn’t been a famous “dew breaker,” or torturer, anyway, just one of hundreds who had done their jobs so well that their victims were never able to speak of them again.“

The Dew Breaker, Book of Miracles

“I’d used a piece of mahogany that was naturally flawed, with a few superficial cracks along what was now the back. I’d thought these cracks beautiful and had made no effort to sand or polish them away, as they seemed like the wood’s own scars, like the one my father had on his face. But I was also a little worried about the cracks. Would they seem amateurish and unintentional, like a mistake? Could the wood come apart with simple movements or with age? Would the client be satisfied?”

The Dew Breaker, Book of the dead

“What if it were Constant? What would she do? Would she spit in his face or embrace him, acknowledging a kinship of shame and guilt that she’d inherited by marrying her husband? How would she even know whether Constant felt any guilt or shame? What if he’d come to this Mass to flaunt his freedom? To taunt those who’d been affected by his crimes? What if he didn’t even see it that way? What if he considered himself innocent? Innocent enough to go anywhere he pleased? What right did she have to judge him? As a devout Catholic and the wife of a man like her husband, she didn’t have the same freedom to condemn as her daughter did.”

The Dew Breaker, Book of Miracles

“In spite of his huge muscles and oversized tattoos, Claude seemed oddly defenseless, like a refugee lost at sea, or a child looking for his parents in a supermarket aisle. Or maybe that’s just how Dany wanted to see him, to make him seem more normal, less frightening.”

The Dew Breaker, Night Talkers

This was what they’d sacrificed everything for. But she always knew that she would repay them. And she had, with half her salary every month, and sometimes more. In return, what she got was the chance to parent them rather than have them parent her. Calling them, however, on the rare occasions that she actually called rather than received their calls, always made her wish to be the one guarded, rather than the guardian, to be reassured now and then that some wounds could heal, that some decisions would not haunt her forever.

The Dew Breaker, Water Child

In 2004, Edwidge Danticat curated a collection of stories called, The Dew Breaker. This collection of short stories have a common theme of erasure that are in direct relation to scars. There are two sides to the coin of erasure. Rewriting history for the better, or rewriting history for selfish desires. We see history rewritten for the better with Papa and his scar. Papa’s story leaves us reflecting on how we perceive violence, or the results of violence outside of its’s context. We initially see Papa as a victim because of his scar. We later find out that this is not the case. We see an arch similar to this in the film Platoon. Sgt. Barnes is a character who is painted in a similar light regarding the circumstances. Initially we judge Barnes’ character as a battle hardened marine due to the scars on his face as well as his attitude. We later learn he is a coward because he shoots his fellow platoon member in the middle of battle to maintain his hierarchal dominance.

The photo’s I used are related to the structure of both stories. We see Papa as someone who survives prison with a cost. A scar that he must carry as a reminder of his past. A story of triumph that we are subjected to follow. A similar character in Barnes being the leader of a Platoon in the Vietnam war. Barnes is introduced as a hardened, brash character that leads with an iron fist. Although Barnes shows signs of being completely lost and crazy, we still see ourselves drawn to him until he murders Elias. Both of these character arcs share similar in erasure. they both rewrite their past wrongs to fulfil needs in their life. Papa is not forthcoming about his past to prevent his children from bearing that shame. Papa survives with humility, constantly being reminded of his wrongdoing.

Barnes has quite the different reasoning behind his erasure. Rather than not being forthcoming due to humility, he does this because he is protecting himself from disrupting the hierarchy that he had established. Elias was causing disorder and threatened to disrupt this process. Barnes felt that he had an obligation to take him out to keep his platoon under his boot. Like Papa’s scar, Barnes is reminded of his act whenever he sees Chris. It eventually drives Barnes to try to kill Chris. Both Barnes and Papa are not only afflicted by their past, but by their lasting scars. They are haunted by their acts and allow it to consume them. It is no longer, Papa. He is now Papa, the man who brutally attacked a priest. It is no longer Barnes. He is now Barnes, the man who killed one of his men in the jungle.

Platoon

Stone, Oliver, director. Platoon. An Orion Pictures Release, 1986.