Key Kirk
Currents in Global Literature
I made sims of the Bienaimé family from The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat. I decided to only make sims of Ka and her parents but to be very purposeful with each detail. I made Anne and Ka’s father when they were younger, around the time that the last chapter of The Dew Breaker takes place, as well as when they were older, like in the chapter The Book of the Dead, and then I made Ka a young adult. For Ka’s father, who I’ll be referring to as “Papa” when he was younger, I made his life aspiration “Fabulously Wealthy” because of how he enjoyed having all the money, power, and influence that his position brought him; I made his traits glutton, materialistic, and mean for those reasons as well. He’s portrayed as someone who has no qualms with torturing people, even when he knows what he’s doing is wrong, and is described as a man who takes many female lovers and has grown fat from eating decadently. Physically I made him a large man, tall, broad, and fat; I made sure to give him a very round head because in Night Talkers, Dany describes him as having had “a face like a soccer ball” (page 105.) Dany also said Papa had a widow’s peak, but I didn’t include that because there were no hair options that were buzzcuts and had a widow’s peak, but I pictured Papa having had buzzed hair because he was in a military group. The outfit I put young Papa in is the closest thing I could get to a military-esque uniform.
For young Anne, I looked up many pictures of people in Haiti in the 70s and 80s, I based her sim on a few of the Haitian women I saw, including the outfit she’s wearing. The pictures I saw showed women wearing light-colored flowy shirts and skirts, and some women wearing head wraps, so that’s what I had Anne wear. Her aspiration is “Self-Care Specialist” because I know that when she lives in New York as an adult she’s a beautician, and that aspiration is the closest thing to beauticians Sims 4 offers. Her traits are family-oriented, good, and gloomy because she thinks about her family a lot, especially because she often mourns for her younger brother who drowned when they were kids. The Sims 4 doesn’t have anything for religion, so I made her good because she wants to do good in the world. I wanted to include something about her being epileptic, but there’s not anything that even resembles that in the Sims, so I couldn’t.
I made older Papa by copying his younger self over and changing him a bit to be older, thinner, and have different traits. His new traits are family-oriented, loner, and gloomy because he is remorseful of his past and distances himself from the public in fear of being recognized, and he is devoted in his own way to sticking by his wife and daughter, even if he isn’t very good to either of them. I made his new life aspiration “Successful Lineage” because he wants Ka to be better than him in her life, even though he sabotages her art before she can sell it. Physically, I made Papa thinner and gave him indiscreet clothes because he tries not to be noticed by society, I also gave him the scar on his cheek that he received from the priest when he was younger.
Adult Anne kept her family-oriented and good traits, but I changed gloomy to loyal because she seems less sad as an adult and she’s loyal to Papa and sticks by him even though they don’t truly love each other, or even like each other much. Physically, I made her a little more filled out because she’s older and has had a child, and I gave her a braided updo and a nice dress because I think as a beautician she would have her hair styled in
For Ka, I combined the genetics of Anne and Papa, so that she would actually look like their child. Her life aspiration is “Master Maker” because she’s an art teacher who also makes sculptures in her own time. Also because of that, her traits are creative, maker, and family-oriented; I included family-oriented because she wants to be close with her parents and feel more connected to them, and until she found out about her father’s past, she loved him a lot and he was her muse. Her outfit is based on pictures of New York fashion in the early 2000s because that’s when her chapter takes place. I gave her a shirt that just reaches the waistline of her wide-leg jeans, which, alongside cargo pants, were popular in the 2000s.
I enjoyed making these sims, I’ve never made sims of book characters so it was fun to put so much thought into every detail about them. It’s common for people to make sims of celebrities and characters they like, but I usually make original characters when I play. It was an interesting challenge to pick apart what details I could include and what details I had to leave out because there wasn’t a way to include it in The Sims. I used LitCharts for reference for some character details, mostly because a lot of details about Papa were spread out through the entire book.
Bibliography:
Danticat, Edwidge. The Dew Breaker. Paw Prints, 2004.
Harano, Lauren. “From Juicy Track Suits to Bermuda Shorts, These Fashion Trends Defined the Early 2000s.” POPSUGAR Fashion, 14 Aug. 2020, http://www.popsugar.com/fashion/teen-fashion-trends-from-early-2000s-47695336.
LitCharts. “Anne Bienaimé/Landlady Character Analysis in the Dew Breaker.” LitCharts, 2024, http://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-dew-breaker/characters. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.
Samantha Sutton. “26 Questionable ’00s Trends That Have Unfortunately Returned.” InStyle, 2024, http://www.instyle.com/y2k-fashion-trends-are-back-8699988.
“The Haitian American.” Facebook.com, 2022, http://www.facebook.com/TheHaitianAmerican/posts/vintagehaiti-haiti-c1970s-1980s-orlandooo7lunionsuite-haitianamerican-haitian-ha/3776757925709455/. Accessed 12 Nov. 2024.
The Sims 4. (2014). PC [Game]. Redwood City, CA: Electronic Arts.
Reference images:
The images I based Ka’s outfit on:
The image I based Young Anne’s outfit on:
Sprockets and Springes 