Motherhood and the Haunting of Trauma, Ella Orchard-Blowen

Ella Orchard-Blowen
Currents in Global Literature

Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka and The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat both play with the themes of gender roles, and how they impact our societies. In both books women are often seen as filling the role of the mother, taking care of the people around them and stepping up when the men in their stories fall short. These women who have experienced immense trauma at the hands of men are forced to take on so much, and if they don’t succeed in some way then they are instantly criticized and shamed. Yet the men in the stories who have experienced trauma do not have the same reactions, they all seem to remove themselves from the situation, only caring for themselves. Women are expected to be mothers, to be wives, to be strong, to be silent, to be compliant to the men in their lives. Without the help of the women in both these stories the men would fail, they need their mothers.

The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat is a collection of short stories that are all linked, telling the story of Haitian people in both the 1960’s and modern day. The first chapter of The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat tells the story of Ka and her father traveling to Florida to sell a sculpture that Ka has created. This chapter is titled, “The Book of the Dead”, and we learn through this chapter that the title is in reference to a book with the same name, that Ka’s dad used to read to her when she was a kid. We also learn that her father has this deep appreciation and love for ancient Egyptian culture. This obsession with ancient Egypt seems to impact every aspect of Ka’s life, including her name. In this first chapter Ka awakes to find that her sculpture, which is a representation of how she imagined her father in prison, is missing, along with her father. Ka’s father and his time in prison seems to impact a lot of her art, and an important part of her identity. However Ka’s world view is shattered when she finds out that her father has drowned the statue, and that he actually was never a prisoner. He was actually working at the prison, torturing the prisoners. This whole revelation is obviously extremely devastating to Ka, because it makes her look at her parents so differently, specifically her father. During her father’s confession, Ka’s mind immediately jumps right to her mother, and her reaction: “Another image of my mother now fills my head, of her as a young woman, a woman my age, taking my father in her arms. At what point did she decide that she loved him? When did she know that she was supposed to have despised him?” (Danticat pg. 23). Ka’s first reaction is to think of her mother, to think about whether or not she might actually love Ka’s father, despite the things he has done. Her forgiveness for some reason is really emphasized and important to Ka. It is through the woman in this story, and in Ka’s father’s life that we are truly able to get a glimpse of who her father really is. We never even learn his name, instead he is referred to as simply the Dew Breaker, but we do know the names of his daughter and wife. In “Herstory: Female Artists’ Resistance in The Awakening, Corregidora, and The Dew Breaker” by Mercedez L. Schaefer, Schaefer discusses how the story of the Dew Breaker is told through so many different characters, specifically highlighting the women who take part in telling his story and stories of Haiti. Schaefer states: “The novel’s disjointed structure relays the dew breaker’s story from a multitude of voices including those of his wife Anne and his daughter Ka. In Ka’s memorable statue, a cracked rendition of her father in the pose of a praying mantis, we glimpse the intricacy of his character,” (Schaefer 74). We are able to learn more about the Dew Breaker and his story through these women, specifically through his wife and daughter. These two characters are very much forced to take on mothering roles and take care of the Dew Breaker. Reinforcing the overall theme that women must take on mother roles in order to survive a patriarchal society. Women are forced to protect and take care of the men in their lives, even if they cause harm. Ka eventually calls her mother and questions her on whether or not she truly loves the Dew Breaker. Anne replies that Ka is her father’s good angel, his savior. A reference to her name, which her father states earlier means: “In Haiti is what we call good angel, ti bon anj. When you born, I look at your face, I think, here is my ka, my good angel,” (Danticat pg.17). Ka is constantly expected to be this perfect savior, and angel to her parents. Someone they can rely upon, and specifically her father. As Ka’s mother says: “You and me, we save him. When I meet him, it made him stop hurt the people. This is how I see it. He a seed thrown in rock. You, me, we make him take root,” (Danticat pg.25). The Dew Breaker’s wife and daughter are both forced to take on motherly roles in his life, in order to maintain his humanity.

Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka is a play based on true events, and tells the story of Elesin, the King’s Horseman referred to in the title. Elesin is expected to take part in a ritual suicide, in order to asssist the king in the afterlife. The play deals with the struggles that Elesin grapples with as he prepares to take part in this ritual. However Elesin ultimately never goes through with this ritual, his attachment to his earthly pleasures being too much for him to relinquish. One of these earthly pleasures is his brand new, young wife who was previously betrothed to another man. Elesin catches sight of this beautiful young woman in the market, and he demands to marry her. However, the women of the market objects at first because she is engaged to another man. Specifically Iyaloja who seems to be the leader of the woman, but Elesin continues to demand that he must have this young girl. He doesn’t truly want her, he simply just wants to have sex with her. He states: “Then honour me. I deserve a bed of honour to lie upon,” (Soyinka pg.20). He uses his position of power as the king’s horseman in order to gain what he wants. Yet this young girl gets no say in whether or not she wants to marry Elesin, but instead is simply forced to marry him. Despite the fact that she had previously been engaged to another man, but because Elesin wants to marry her he must get what he wants. So without even asking the young bride what she wants, it is decided that she will marry Elesin. Her wants and desires are never considered. Helen Kokei Bassey argues in “Patriarchy and Femme Fatale in Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and William Shakespeare’s Othello” that women are simply viewed as objects that have no say in what happens to them in both plays. They are owned by the men in their lives, no say in their own lives, instead simply just moved around like chess pieces. Bassey states: “In Othello and Death and the King’s Horseman, women are not only constructed as naturally changeable and deceptive but also as property, the ownership of which reflects on a man’s power and superiority,” (Bassey 142). Iyaloja tries to object to this marriage, and seemingly takes on a mother role for the young bride. Iyaloja consistently acts as a mother to those around her, to Elesin and to the other women in the market. She protects them, or at least attempts to protect them from the men in the play. Because these women don’t have their own agency in their lives Iyaloja is forced to speak up and fight for them.

In both of these stories women are forced to take care of all the people around them. Not only the men, but also the other women. Both stories have to do with generational trauma, and how characters react to this trauma. The titular character in The Dew Breaker has impacted every single character’s life in the story, leaving a lot of these characters with long-lasting trauma. The women throughout this story are forced to become these strong, fierce, protectors because of the trauma they have endured. Meanwhile the men who have caused this trauma get to move on, their presence forever haunting the people they’ve hurt. Beatrice Saint Fort is a perfect example of one of the Dew Breaker’s victims who becomes a protector of other women. Her story is told in the chapter, “The Bridal Seamstress”, Beatrice is the titular bridal seamstress and she is visited by a young Haitian journalist, Aline Cajuste visits her to write a story on her career. Beatrice is officially retiring from being a seamstress, after years. Beatrice is well known for her beautiful wedding gowns in the Haitian community. She can’t even recall all the names of the girls she has made dresses for. Yet she still calls them “her girls”. Beatrice takes on a motherly role with these girls, even making them call her mother: “My girls-when I say my girls, I mean the girls I make the dresses for-they come here carrying photographs of tall, skinny girls in dresses that cost thousands of dollars. They bring those to me and say, ‘Mother’-I make them all call me Mother,” (Danticat 126). Beatrice views these girls as her daughters, as her girls. They are a direct reflection of her, not only because they wear the dresses she creates. But also because she is the one who takes care of them, she tells them they won’t be able to fit the dresses in the photographs without completely ruining them. She is able to protect them and build a community with her girls. Through Beatrice’s interview with Aline she reveals that she was arrested and tortured by the Dew Breaker: “He asked me to go dancing with him one night […] I had a boyfriend, so I said no. That’s why he arrested me. He tied me to some type of rack in the prison and whipped the bottom of my feet,” (Danticat 132). Beatrice believes that the Dew Breaker is following her, moving from place to place, always haunting her: “No one will ever have that much of your attention. No matter how much he’d changed, I would know him anywhere,” (Danticat 132). Schaefer expresses that she believes Beatrice was raped by the Dew Breaker during her torture, in her article Herstory: Female Artists’ Resistance in The Awakening, Corregidora, and The Dew Breaker”. Schaefer argues that although the novel never states that Beatrice was raped, it is implied through the things she says, and the way she is haunted by him. Schaefer argues that Beatrice omits this aspect of her life from Aline and the interview: “Yet, Beatrice tells an incomplete story, omitting the violent sexual nature of the dew breaker’s crimes. Therefore, in her retirement and failure to pass down a full story, Beatrice effectively cuts herself off from her female community, her art, and thus the erotic,” (Schaefer 69-70). Beatrice is deeply impacted by this trauma, she can’t escape from its presence. But she also seems to protect or attempt to protect her girls from this trauma. However, through her retirement she loses this connection with her girls, or as Schaefer states: “she loses her “daughters” and fails to relay a full testimony,” (Schaefer 70). Although at the end of this chapter Beatrice is able to find community with Aline, and find comfort in revealing her story to her. She is finally able to step down from her position as mother, and is able to focus on herself. She is finally able to face her own trauma, refusing to still be haunted by it. Elesin’s actions in Death and the King’s Horseman also have severe consequences for those around him. Consequences and trauma that will forever haunt those around him. At the end of the Act 3 of the play Elesin ultimately fails to go through with the ritual suicide, and this causes a massive ripple effect for the last two acts. His inability to die causes his own son, Olunde, to disown him. Elesin is brought and locked up in jail, along with his young wife, because of suicide being viewed as illegal by Simon Pilkings, the local colonial administrator. Pilkings, and Elesin’s young wife are blamed just as much as Elesin is for the breakage of this ritual. Bassey states in “Patriarchy and Femme Fatale in Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and William Shakespeare’s Othello”, that Elesin was unable to go through with his suicide because of his young wife. Because he was so infatuated with this young, beautiful girl and he so desperately needed to “have her”, he was unable to do what he had to do. “Elesin Oba, despite his numerous wives, fails in his central mission because of his desperate inner cravings for the gratification of his amorous desire for a beautiful young girl betrothed to another man, […] Elesin’s attention gets fatally diverted when he rivets his eyes on a ravishingly beautiful damsel and chooses to have his way with her. Elesin Oba’s tragic flaw is the lust and greed residing in his nature and it leads to his tragedy,” (Bassey 144). Despite not doing anything at all to attract him or even wanting to be with him, this young bride is blamed for Elesin’s failure. He is so selfish and only cares about himself that he is unable to accept that he is at fault for the breaking of this ritual, so he blames those around him: “Oh little mother, I have taken countless women in my life but you were more than a desire of the flesh. I needed you as the abyss across which my body must be drawn, I filled it with earth and dropped my seed in it at the moment of preparedness for my crossing. You were the final gift of the living to their emissary to the land of the ancestors and perhaps your warmth and youth brought new insights of this world to me and turned my feet leaden on this side of the abyss. For I confess to you, daughter, my weakness came not merely from the abomination of the white man who came violently into my fading presence, there was also a weight of longing on my earth-held limbs. I would have shaken it off, already my foot had begun to lift but then, the white ghost entered and all was defiled,” (Soyinka 65). Elesin believes that he is entitled to anything he wants in the world, and because of this he ultimately fails. He is unable to die because he cannot give up his earthly pleasures, he must have more. Iyaloja arrives at the jail to give Elesin a letter from his son, and also to speak to Elesin. Through speaking to Iyaloja it is revealed that Olunde has given his life in replacement of Elesin’s. Yet again Elesin’s failure to complete his ritual, those around him are deeply impacted, left with everlasting trauma. Olunde takes his own life in an attempt to deal with this trauma and stop the shame being brought upon his family. Elesin’s young bride is implied to be pregnant with Elesin’s child at the end of the play. After seeing his son’s body, Elesin strangles and kills himself. But still ultimately he fails to complete the ritual, because he will now arrive in the afterlife: “clogged with droppings from the King’s stallion; he will arrive all stained in dung,” (Soyinka 76). After informing Simon on how he and Elesin are ultimately to blame for Olunde’s death, Iyaloja turns her attention towards the young bride. Taking on a motherly role with her as they leave the cell: “Child. […] Now forget the dead, forget even the living. Turn your mind only to the unborn,” (Soyinka 76). Iyaloja and the young bride are both left to deal with all this trauma caused by men, and to cope they turn towards each other, taking care of each other. Women find community, and protect each other in response to trauma caused by the men in their lives. Whereas these men are able to be selfish, and hurt all those around them.

Motherhood is a key theme in both stories, with many characters filling in as mothers for others. Both Edwidge Danticat and Wole Soyinka both show through their portrayals of women how important motherhood is, even when it’s in response to trauma. The women in both Death and the King’s Horseman, and The Dew Breaker, go through so much and suffer so much at the hands of the titular men. In response to this trauma these women step into protector mode, protecting and mothering other women, and even sometimes mothering the men. Through both these stories it is clear that mothers are extremely important to communities, especially communities full of trauma. Without mothers, those communities would simply fall apart.

Works Cited
Bassey, Helen Kokei. “View of Patriarchy and Femme Fatale in Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and William Shakespeare’s Othello.” Ijohacs.com, 2024, ijohacs.com/index.php/pub/article/view/40/24. Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.
Danticat, Edwidge. The Dew Breaker. Paw Prints, 2010.
Schaefer, Mercedez L. Herstory: Female Artists’ Resistance in the Awakening, Corregidora, and the Dew Breaker. 1 June 2017, https://doi.org/10.7912/c26w89. Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.
Wole Soyinka. Death and the King’s Horseman. London, Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017.