In The Dew Breaker, Edwidge Danticat constructed a tangled web of people, connected through a common heritage, a shared experience of immigration, and a the shadow of a dark past that looms over them all. This complex web is illustrated above. The different colored lines represent the nature of the relationships between people, whether they are friends, relatives, customers, or figments of each other’s troubled histories.
Emmanuel Constant is situated at the of the chart because the violence that he represents hangs over every other character. His box, however, is not centered, instead placed move over Anne. This represents the experience Anne had in “The Book of Miracles,” when her daughter, Ka, believed she spots Constant in church. This causes conflict in Anne, especially as she worries about her husband’s involvement in the atrocities committed by Constant’s militia back in Haiti. Her worry about Constant is a reflection of the worry about her husband.
Characters whose boxes are outlined in read are considered “intervening forces,” though this description is used lightly and many characters in this chart can be considered haunts and inhibitors of each other. The preacher is one of the characters who received this distinction. The preacher’s death is the event that unified Anne and her husband. However, when reading the end of this novel, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how their relationship would change if Anne knew that the father killed her stepbrother. Even though this information is never shared between them, it is an invisible weight on the family, made ever-present by the scar the preacher cut into the father’s face.
Nadine is also presented as an “intervening force,” since she became between Eric and his wife (even though the wife never found out). Nadine, however, received the brunt of the negative energy in this relationship, and Eric, ultimately, did much more to hurt her than she did to hurt him.
On the other side of the chart, Beatrice Saint Fort, Rézia, Mariselle, and Freda are connected to the father through their traumatic pasts and displacement from Haiti. Beatrice Saint Fort remembers her experience with a “guard” back in Haiti—a Tonton Macout, the group the father belonged to—and is convinced that the man has continued to follow her, into America and through the years. Similarly, the three friends, Rézia, Mariselle, and Freda, were all impacted personally by the Tonton Macouts, potentially by the father himself or at least people very much like him. In this way, the father hangs over them in their shared exile, probably in the same way they hang over the father in his guilt.
The father could be connected to everyone who was displaced from Haiti due to his involvement in the Tonton Macouts and the potential that he could have caused harm, either directly or indirectly, to almost anyone in this chart. Orange lines of trauma could very easily extend between him and Eric, Dany, and Michel. Therefore, the subtle threat that emanates from the father is represented by the faint grey lines that circles around the whole chart (excluding Constant) and connects to his name on both ends.
Ultimately, the father probably has no idea who he impacted directly, as his violence was vast and indiscriminate. And the indirect impact of his actions is even more far-reaching. With every mention of the violence back in Haiti, the audience is left wondering if the father was involved. This line comes back to the father in the end to represent his guilt. He understands that he could have hurt any and all of these people, and he shows his remorse in the first chapter, when he finally reveals the truth to Ka about what he did back in Haiti.
Quite interestingly, Ka ended up in the middle of this chart, even though she remained relatively unscathed compared to many of the other characters. Due to her parents and due to her heritage, Ka is stuck in the center of a great, big, tangled web of violence and threat, or sadness and redemption, from which she can never extract herself.
Works Cited:
Danticat, Edwidge. The Dew Breaker. Vintage Books, 2004.
Seresin, Indiana. “The Dew Breaker Characters.” LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 22 Aug 2019. Web. 22 Oct 2020.
Sprockets and Springes 
As I was reading through this book I found the connection between the characters to be very challenging to unravel. It wasn’t until I started researching for my own project that I discovered many of the connections that I was not aware of before. I never did realize in reading or research that Freda, Marseille, and Rezia were connected at all. I think this chart serves as a great resource that could accompany reading the book so that readers can understand the connects as they read and pick up on the significance in real time and develop a better understanding for the wide range of relationships encompassed in the story. I like how you specified what type of relationship it was (tarumatic, friendly, or family). I think this is a great resource and would go a long way in helping people understand this text. Great Job!
This is such an amazing project idea! This is fantastic because even after reading The Dew Breaker, I was still having some trouble connecting everyone in my head. The visual of this family tree is extremely helpful. Not only helpful, but also visually stunning. It’s so clean and perfectly proportioned, and having the various colors with the key differentiating the relationships between the characters as well as the intervening force is so cool. In a book where there are so many different people and experiences entangled together, it is really great to be able to see how everything connects with a visual like this. Awesome job!
This was such a great Idea. While reading the book I almost wanted to create a tree to show how all of the characters and stories were all connected, but now I don’t have to! I like how you connected everyone and how you brought up Intervening forces. We knew that Eric cheated on his wife with Nadine and I like that you brought up that even though she didn’t find out it still was a force that stood between them. Because each chapter of the book connected with each other, I think this idea of a project was really smart and helpful to make it more understandable about who connected with who.
This is such a creative project idea! This is that good because even after reading The Dew Breaker, I was still having some trouble connecting everyone in my head. I mean how could you not with all those characters, I wish I saw this post sooner! The visual of this family tree is extremely helpful too and I think is a huge aspect of your project. Sometimes all you need to understand something is a visual. It is a very clean-cut, easy to follow photo-taking us step by step. While reading a book where there are so many different people and experiences happening all at once, it is especially helpful to be able to see how everything connects with a visual like this, amazing job