How is one’s legacy determined? Is it determined by their past actions or how they developed as a person throughout their life? In the story, The Dew Breaker, by Edwidge Danticat, a man faces his past actions throughout his everyday life. There is a complex relationship between personal trauma and the way that the trauma affects the relationships that one has with the people closest to them. Being a prison guard in Haiti, Ka’s father was bound to experience a life of trauma and trying to navigate the world after that becomes a trial that no one wishes to be a part of. Trying to find ways to justify his actions, redeem himself, or prove that he has changed, to himself and others, can be an impossible feat that he must accept as his reality. In an attempt for redemption and justification, Ka’s father relates his trauma in a historical context, tries to find some moral ambiguity, and tries to heal his relationships and his conscience.
Ka’s father’s interest in Egyptian culture reflects onto what he thinks of himself and how he should be remembered. In Egyptian culture, the preservation of human remains is determined by the impact that the person has made on the world. The body is not only being preserved for its physical traits, but also the life that the person lived on Earth and where they are going in their afterlife (Balachandran 200). Ka does not have the full picture of who her father was. The way that he behaves at home is just a minor glimpse of the person that he is. Ka is trying to find the entire picture through his habits at home.
“My whole adult life, I have struggled to find the proper manner of sculpting my father, a quiet and distant man who only came alive while standing with me most of the Saturday mornings of my childhood, mesmerized by the golden masks, the shawabits, and the schist tablets, Isis, Nefertiti, and Osiris, the jackal-headed ruler of the underworld” (Danticat 13).
The only things that seemed to spark the life in Ka’s father was his fascination with Egyptian culture. With this being said, Ka thought that she found it as a way to become closer with her father. She tried to create a sculpture of him to capture his essence and his interest, but he ended up throwing this project into the lake. This situation is a summary of the relationship between the father and daughter. They do not understand one another despite their desperate desire to. The idea of permanence haunts Ka’s father because what he has done can’t be taken back. In order to come to terms with this permanence there has to be a chance at redemption, so he isn’t remembered for his negative impact on the world. However, he has endured so much trauma that in the process of redemption, he has made more people suffer around him. Relating back to the preservation of the human body after death, the body is preserved based upon the mark that the person has made on the world and their predicted afterlife.
Moral ambiguity is represented in Ka’s fathers past because of the reason behind his horrifying actions. Being a prison guard in Haiti, to the outside perspective, he might be considered the “good guy” in that situation. His actions in the prison were not revealed to anyone during the time because the prison system is catered to the pain of the inmates. Throughout the chapter, The Book of the Dead, Ka is trying to come to terms with her father’s trauma and the only way that she can do that is by him revealing it to her. When he finally does, she doesn’t look at her father the same way.
“When I was younger, she’d taken me to Mass with her on Sundays. Was I supposed to have been praying for my father all that time, the father who was the hunter and not the prey?” (Danticat 22).
Later on in the story, Ka’s mother tells a story of when they were driving to Christmas Eve Mass as a family. During that time, Ka did not know the truths about her father, so it seemed like any normal family’s outing. The fact that Ka’s parents did not reveal to her the truth about him seems like he was protecting himself from feeling guilt and shame. He confessed to her at the lake manically, when it could have been a conversation that could have been potentially worked through. His trauma response comes through in the scene next to the lake because he lets his anger get the best of him while he is talking to Ka. While she is talking to him he grabs her wrists out of anger and squeezes them until they start to hurt; she tries to pull away, but she can’t.
“‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I did not want to hurt you. I did not want to hurt anyone’. I keep rubbing my wrist, hoping he’ll feel even sorrier, even guiltier for grabbing me so hard, but even more for throwing away my work. ‘Ka, I don’t deserve a statue’” (Danticat 20).
He is trying to make Ka empathize with him by talking down on himself. This quote shows the truth of who he is because of his quick switch from aggression to manipulation. His lack of ability to admit his mistakes and his horrifying failures is why he is still so consumed by his past and why he can’t move on. He says he did not want to hurt anyone, but is barely making an effort to fix what he has broken.
The road to redemption is different in the eyes of oneself and the people around them. The relationship between Ka and her father changes throughout The Book of the Dead because of the truths that are revealed about Ka’s father’s past. He takes her to the lake and confesses to her facts about his past. The way that he speaks to her can be perceived as a way for him to take pressure off of his shoulders from his guilt.
“But maybe he wasn’t going to be alive for long. Maybe this is what this outing is about. Perhaps my “statue”, as he called it, is a sacrificial offering, the final one that he and I would make together before he was gone” (Danticat 18).
Ka is trying to justify her father’s actions by making this conversation seem like a bonding experience, when in reality the destruction of the statue was a reaction out of fear of judgment and need for power (Conwell 228). The conversation that the two of them had led Ka to convince herself that he was going to die soon because of the intense confessions that he was making. His relationship with Ka seems to be an escape for him because it connects him to his humanity. The chance at a journey to redemption started when he walked away from his past and started a family. “‘You and me, we save him. When I meet him, it made him stop hurt the people. That’s how I see it. He seed thrown in rock. You, me, we make him take root’” (Danticat 25). Ka asks her mother about their relationship because, to her, they both seem like such different individuals that wouldn’t work well together. Their relationship works because he is desperate for a tie to humanity and her mother is desperate for the picture perfect Christian family.
Ka’s father’s past mistakes have been marked on him permanently for the whole world to see, represented by a prominent scar on his face. He is constantly being followed by those that he has hurt because he is reaping the repercussions of his actions everyday by facing new people with assumptions about his past. The scar on his face is not only a constant reminder to himself of his evil actions, but it is a sign to others that he is not a person with a wholesome story. He is unable to make connections in his life because of the assumptions that he thinks people are going to make about him, which could be seen as payback for those that he has wronged.
“Maybe the last person my father harmed had dreamed moments like this into my father’s future, strangers seeing that scar furrowed into his face and taking turns staring at it and avoiding it, forcing him to conceal it with his hands, pretend it’s not there, or make up some lie about it, to explain” (Danticat 32).
If Ka’s father can make everything right for the rest of his life, he will still have the scar tying him to his past failures. As a victim of his, it must be reassuring to know that he will never escape what he had done because for the rest of his life he will be asked about what happened to his face, and whether he makes up a story or tells the truth, he will be reminded of what actually happened. His journey to redemption is stalled by this scar because of the triggers that it brings up for him.
Danticat’s The Dew Breaker ties together the themes of legacy, trauma, and redemption through the complex relationship between father and daughter. Ka’s father is still trying to find out who he is outside of his past and navigating the physical and emotional scars that it has left on him, while Ka is trying to connect with her father who doesn’t seem like the man that she has envisioned in her head. This narrative introduces a question of how people are remembered; based on their mistakes or how they recover from them. Someone’s legacy isn’t determined by their past actions, but by their growth and ability to face their guilt and their shame. Ka’s father seems to struggle with the admittance of guilt and confronting his shame. He lets his past define him because of his inability to come to terms with the fact that he can’t change it.
Works Cited
Danticat, Edwidge. The Dew Breaker. Alfred A. Knoff, 2004.
BALACHANDRAN, SANCHITA. “AMONG THE DEAD AND THEIR POSSESSIONS: A CONSERVATOR’S ROLE IN THE DEATH, LIFE, AND AFTERLIFE OF HUMAN REMAINS AND THEIR ASSOCIATED OBJECTS.” Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, vol. 48, no. 3, 2009, pp. 199–222. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27784668. Accessed 8 Nov. 2024.
Conwell, Joan. “Papa’s Masks: Roles of the Father in Danticat’s ‘The Dew Breaker.’” Obsidian III, vol. 6/7, 2005, pp. 221–39. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44511676. Accessed 8 Nov. 2024.
Sprockets and Springes 