¶ … Dew Breaker

The United States vs. Haiti -- Edwidge Danticat's the Dew Breaker

The United States is a place of immigration, a place where a citizen can engage in constant refashioning of his or her past self and thus forget history. Haiti is a place where the past is always a constant and palpable presence, and one's identity is fixed in the nation's history. Thus complicated and contrasting relationship between the United States and Haiti is underlined in Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat's the Dew Breaker, in the persona of the central character. The protagonist attempts to make use of the anonymous nature of New York City in his attempt to refashion his past, Haitian self in Brooklyn. The title protagonist is a former torturer, known as "a dew breaker" in the slang of Haiti. Haiti is a place where the past is not easily shirked or forgotten, so the man moves. This dew breaker of a torturer hopes he can forget the brutal crimes he committed against humanity, although they were legal in Haiti at the time.

At the beginning of the tale, the only recognizable, tangible memory of the man's Haitian past life in his home nation is the scar across his face. He has become a respected individual in his Brooklyn residence as a landlord, barber, husband and father. But the persons he victimized cannot forget their tortures. This highlights the impossibility, despite the myth of forgetting one's past identity so popular in America, of leaving behind the world of one's personal and national history in one's country of origin.

The book chronicles a series of conflicted identities. The man's husband loves him. His daughter is angry and rebellious. Neither of them have a secure sense of self, despite their apparently happy American home. The physical reminder of the scar on the man's face demonstrates that physical crimes against the flesh, no matter how 'good' one is in America, cannot be erased. Thus, in essence, the memory of Haiti emerges as a truer picture of the reality of torture, although Danticat complicates matters by making the dew breaker not a monster, but a conflicted individual who loves New York City and his family, and has genuinely attempted to remodel his identity anew, in a more positive fashion.

Works Cited

Danticat, Edwidge. The Dew Breaker. New York: Knopf, 2004