Dew Breaker, written by Edwidge Danticat, is a book created by short stories to conclude a bigger picture, the idea of grief. Danticat smoothly connects the idea of grief and the wide range of ways people can cope with it from person to person in this book. The way Danticat creates this story is by beginning the piece with a short story based on a daughter named Ka learning that her father has held a huge secret about his past from her. As the book continues, each chapter is another story, in which the characters each share a collective grief of the dictatorship that took place in Haiti from 1957 to 1986, as well as intertwines back to the first piece and how Papa (The Dew Breaker) has a bigger role than just a father.
For some history background for when and where The Dew Breaker takes place, Francois Duvalier, better known as Papa Doc, ruled with his son Jean-Claude Duvalier from 1957 to 1986. This dictatorship kept the majority of people in poverty while rewarding the Duvalier family and other foreign allies with access to Haiti’s riches. It has been estimated that around 30,000 to 60,000 Haitians were killed, often on the allegations that they were communists(Foley).
Papa Doc took over as president after two failed elections. Prior to becoming the Haitian President, he was a physician. In 1958, Papa Doc’s personality underwent a massive change, and he established death squads to silence his opponents. In 1964, Papa Doc declared the title of president for life, which he held onto until his death on April 21st, 1971. Throughout Papa Doc’s reign in Haiti, he spent millions in public money and international aid. Papa Doc eventually received the nickname “Vampire of the Caribbean” due to his cruelty and wealth (Foley).
After the passing of Papa Doc, his son Jean-Claude Duvalier took reign and gained the title of President for life at age nineteen. When Baby Doc took over as president, the country had a lot of hope that he wouldn’t be like his father in his rule of the country. Sadly, he took after his father and continued killing (Foley).
Baby Doc continued a paramilitary force that his father had created during his presidency. This force would only report to the Duvaliers, and they gave them permission to use as much force as was needed to dispose of their enemies (Coha).
This group was nicknamed by the Haitian community as the Tonton Macoutes. The name was brought forth a common myth about an uncle who would kidnap children by capturing them in a gunnysack. This myth not only feared children but the entire Haitian community (Coha).
In 1986, there was a revolt that made Baby Doc flee to France. It is rumored that he stole one hundred and twenty million dollars inside a Louis Vuitton suitcase. After Baby Doc fled, Henri Namphy promised to bring democracy, but his tenure created more deaths. One of these incidents was a massacre that disrupted voting. Even after this, he promised that he would give up his power to the person voted in. A professor named Leslie Manigat won the election in 1988 but was forced out, leading to Henri Namphy taking over once again (Haiti).
The dictatorship was a huge part of the Dew Breaker. Each character, in one way or another, was affected by the massacre and the outcomes. The characters are all connected by Danticat through the grief that they share due to this dictatorship and other personal griefs.
Papa is the character that is affected the most by the dictatorship. As the story comes to a close, we learn that Papa was a part of the military and killed many people. It is up for debate if Papa really wanted to be a part of the military or if he did it to protect himself from the government.
The final chapter, The Dew Breaker, questions this idea of working for the government for protection. At this point in the story, the readers should have put together that Anne is the name of Papa’s wife. We learn that Papa killed Anne’s brother, the preacher, out of rage that he fought back and gave Papa the scar that he has on his face for the rest of his life. A scar that is a reminder of all the people he killed and the secrets that he held. The murder out of rage is what makes us, as outsiders, question if this was for Papa’s own safety or if he got some sort of gratification out of murdering people when the government demanded him to.
After Papa murders the preacher, he then leaves the prison where he had left the preacher’s body and sees Anne. “He hoped she wasn’t someone he’d harmed or nearly killed. Someone who’d been in the torture chamber adjacent to his office, for he wanted sympathy, compassion from her. He wanted her to have pity on him, take him to her house and bandage him (page. 231).” This statement lacks a sense of remorse and empathy for what he has done.
Papa, throughout the storyline, does grieve with what he has done. The readers learn early on that he has an obsession with the Ancient Egyptians, “But what he admired the most about the ancient Egyptians is the way that they mourn their death. ‘They know how to grieve.’ he would say (page. 12).” The statement goes to show how his fascination is not just about the culture itself but how they cope with a loss, out of a feeling of guilt.
Ka’s, the Dew Breaker’s daughter talks about how he had always been detached from the real world. When Ka was eight her father had measles for the first time. She had heard that the measles could kill her father. She looked at the definition and learned that it meant that her father would be taken away from her. During that time, she did everything that she could to make him happy.
During this time, she listened to her father read her things and take her places she could care less about and the majority of them were about the Ancient Egyptians. He did not care that his daughter did not enjoy the things. Both of her parents locked themselves out of the real world and refused to make any connections outside of their jobs.
Papa keeps his background a complete mystery from his daughter and the world. Papa doesn’t speak about where he is from and instead gives a different answer every time. “In the past, I thought he always said he was from a different providence each time because he really did live in all of those places, but I realize now that he says this to reduce the possibility of anyone identifying him (page 28).”
Papa’s daughter learns in the first chapter that her father had been lying to her about who he was since she was born. After Ka creates a statue displaying how she believed her father looked like in prison, her father runs away and throws it into a river. When he returns without the statue, Ka is furious, demanding where it is. Papa finally admits a truth from before he married Ka’s mom. “I was never in prison. I was working in the prison. It was one of the prisoners inside the prison who cut my face this way, he says. The man who cut my face, I shot and killed him like I killed many people (page 21).” This confession finally gives Papa the chance to heal and properly grieve what he had done.
Ka deals with the grief of her father being a prisoner in a Haiti prison by creating a statue that she believes portrays what it was like for him and other Haitian prisoners to be there. This is backed up by page 6, “I had never tried to tell my father’s story in words before now, but my first sculpture of him was the reason for our trip. It was my favorite of all my attempted representations of my father. It was the way I had imagined him in prison.”
Ka then grieves with the idea of her father and who he was once to her before he admitted that he had murdered people in the prisons. At one point stating, “I have lost my subject, the prisoner father I loved as well as pitied (page 31).” The past tense of this statement created this imagery of Ka reevaluating and questioning who her father truly is that she once “loved.”
Ka, after the realization of what her father does, talks about the Ancient Egyptians and how her father must have known with all of his knowledge of them that “confessions do not lighten the living heart (page 33).” An idea that the Ancient Egyptians believed was that when the heart of a person is put on a scale if the heart is heavy, then the person cannot enter the other world. She questioned if that was the only reason why he finally told her, to make sure that he was able to enter the next world after he passed.
Anne deals with a lot of grief throughout the story. In the beginning, you learn that she is the wife of the dew breaker. In the chapter The Book of Miracles, we initially learn that Anne’s little brother had disappeared in the ocean and that ever since that incident, she refused to go near the sea, indicating that this is something that still haunts Anne and she is still grieving.
We don’t find out until the final chapter, The Dew Breaker, that she, in fact, was watching her younger brother when he passed away. “She’d had one of her seizures at the beach while watching their younger brother and had let him drown (page 221).” This statement is said by her stepbrother, the preacher.
In the same chapter, we learn that The Dew Breaker killed the Preacher due to him stabbing him in the face with a piece of wood after being told by the dictatorship that he was supposed to make sure that he was alive.
This chapter ties everything back to the beginning of the book, and we find out that the Dew Breaker is Papa. The Dew Breaker, after being stabbed in the face, left the preacher in jail and ran into Anne, who was helplessly looking for her brother. Anne, by the end of the book, grieves the loss of both of her brothers and after Papa tells her that he was the Dew Breaker, she has to grieve the loss of her brother once again.
I feel as if Dany is the character who is changed the most by his grief. We first learn about Dany in chapter two, Seven. Dany lost his parents when he was just a young boy in a fire. Years later, he ends up renting a space in Brooklyn that happened to be the Dew Breakers.
When he comes to the realization that his landlord is the one who murdered his family, he goes to visit his aunt Estine Esteme. Sadly, his aunt passes away on his journey, and he grieves the loss of her during the funeral. Claude, a member of his aunt’s community, speaks to Dany about why he was kicked out of New York.
Claude admits to killing his father due to being strung out of drugs and needing his next fix. When Dany apologizes to Claude, he says, “Sory? I am the luckiest fucker alive. I’ve done something really bad that makes me want to live my life like a fucking angel now. Even with everything I’ve done. With everything that’s happened to me, I’m the luckiest fucker on this goddamned planet. Someone somewhere must be looking out for my ass (page 119).” I believe his conversation with Claude really helps with his healing process for his parent’s death.
Each character is portrayed with a set of emotions that is unique to the character. Every character was given their own grief throughout the dictatorship and the Dew Breaker. By the end of the story, you can see that even though most of the characters are trying to put the past behind them, they are unable to before they process the trauma that has impacted each and every one of them.
Reference Page
Coha. “The Tonton Macoutes: The Central Nervous System of Haiti’s Reign of Terror.” COHA, 11 Mar. 2010, coha.org/tonton-macoutes/.
Danticat, Edwidge. The Dew Breaker. Alfred A. Knoff, 2004.
Foley, Tom. “When Haiti’s Dictator, ‘Baby Doc,’ Lost Control, It Was Washington to the Rescue.” People’s World, 7 Feb. 2024, www.peoplesworld.org/article/when-haitis-dictator-baby-doc-lost-control-it-was-washington-to-the-rescue/.
“Haiti.” World Bank, www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti.
Sprockets and Springes 